In-building wireless solutions continue to attract significant investment from operators and neutral host providers, with the $4.4 billion market projected to almost double by 2019. Alcatel-Lucent and TE Connectivity have joined forces in an effort to help operators cut costs on distributed antenna system deployments in public venues. The companies have created a digital interface between the Alcatel-Lucent base station portfolio and the TE’s FlexWave digital DAS solution. This means DAS systems can be deployed up to 15 miles away from an LTE base station, without a remote radio head.
“We will come directly from an [Alcatel-Lucent] baseband unit or BBU, via fiber optics, directly into the TE DAS host unit,” said Tony Lefebvre, director or product management at TE Connectivity. “We will then take that and we will package that in our digital transport with other services. Then we have a digital fiber optic link all the way up to our remote – that’s when we’ll bring it up to analog RF.”
Lefebvre said traditional DAS systems involve more steps, adding to both the cost of the system and the potential for passive intermodulation. DAS solutions typically rely on a remote radio head to bring the signal to RF, and then use come combiners and attenuators to interface with the DAS host. “With this solution you eliminate the remote radio head and the point of interface, and between those devices you have multiple sources for PIM, so we’re eliminating that,” said Lefebvre.
Operators can reduce physical equipment by more than 50% and cut the cost of materials by 40% by eliminating on site RF processing and attenuation panels, according to TE. With less equipment on site, power and cooling costs can go down, so a more efficient DAS solution has the potential to impact both capital expenditures and operating expense.
According to TE, its patented digital DAS is unique in its ability to accept a direct baseband interface along with legacy RF services over a single DAS network. The company’s engineering team has worked with Alcatel-Lucent to develop Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) between the Alcatel-Lucent LightRadio BBU and TE’s digital DAS. Lefebvre hopes to begin field tests within the next month or so.
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