Re: Waning Carrier Wi-FiI think the good news is that a lot of it can be piecemeal too. Doing DAS doesn't preclude doing WiFi, and it can be a bolt on to small cells too. It takes more money, of course, but it's constantly evolving and upgradeable.
Waning Carrier Wi-FiThanks for the story, Sarah-- this is reallly interesting. And to think--back when 3G was the only game in town, everyone wanteed to encourage Wi-Fi offload. Just goes to show that the infrastructure game needs to actually be nimble.
Re: new business modelsThere are ways that carrier installed WiFI can authenticate their own users only and force other users to subscribe to the service. But that's way way in the future, like in the year 2014.
Re: new business modelsDAS is evolving fast , those dots will be obsolete before they get launched.........WiFi systems are great we just need to work out how to monitize them for the carriers.
Re: new business modelsTE Connectivity have recently announced their CPRI product that connects directly to the BaseBand eliminating all that hardware.................a game changer.
Re: new business modelsDAS is indeed good enough, and actually I suppose that the RF part is more robust in GSM/UMTS/LTE than in WiFi systems.
But there is a big issue with DAS, which is the what we call "BTS Hotel". Basically this BTS hotel is a telecom site, where all the telecom equipment sits inside the stadium.
Normally stadiums do not have an adequate room and a "telecom-like" infrastructure for example for air conditioning and power.
That was a big issue here in the stadiums.
On the plus side the DAS systems allow for several operators to share the same RF system.
Re: new business modelsThat's interesting, melao2; thanks for sharing. I realize that mandates on connectivity affect what a lot of stadiums do, here in the US as well. My guess is that the carriers wanted more control and exclusivity than WiFi allows. Plus, as Paul pointed out, DAS is good enough for most places.
Re: new business modelsHere in Brazil we will have the FIFA World Cup within this year.
It was a requirement to have Celular coverage in the stadiums and DAS was used.
The stadium owners wanted to provide by themselves the WiFi infrastructure, and the carriers would lease them, but in the end carriers pushed in their networks using DAS.
But voice traffic is still important. So the carriers still need to bring the mobile network inside.
But there is a big issue with DAS, which is the what we call "BTS Hotel". Basically this BTS hotel is a telecom site, where all the telecom equipment sits inside the stadium.
Normally stadiums do not have an adequate room and a "telecom-like" infrastructure for example for air conditioning and power.
That was a big issue here in the stadiums.
On the plus side the DAS systems allow for several operators to share the same RF system.
It was a requirement to have Celular coverage in the stadiums and DAS was used.
The stadium owners wanted to provide by themselves the WiFi infrastructure, and the carriers would lease them, but in the end carriers pushed in their networks using DAS.