Axell Wireless to showcase revolutionary new digital DAS technology at DAS and Small Cells Congress

Axell Wireless, the worldwide provider of wireless coverage solutions, is showcasing its revolutionary new in-building coverage solution for US carriers, idDAS, at this week’s DAS and Small Cells Congress in Las Vegas. The solution allows mobile operators to allocate capacity to locations only where and when it is needed and provides a more cost-effective way to handle the challenges of large scale in-building coverage projects. An estimated 80% of mobile traffic in the US now emanates from within a building and this figure is growing rapidly.

Historically a DAS (Distributed Antenna System) has been used to propagate coverage and capacity around a building or facility by taking single or multiple operators’ base station (BTS) resources and re-distributing them. Axell is a market leader in supplying such systems and has provided solutions for many iconic building facilities including the London 2012 Olympic Park, the Pentagon, the Eurotunnel, and Dulles and Reagan International Airports. Traditional DAS solutions require individual base station sectors to be effectively “hard-wired” to the specific areas of a facility. However, mobile traffic is both “bursty” and “sporadic” in nature meaning maximum capacity is not required all of the time. As a consequence today in many in-building deployments expensive BTS resource can be left idle for significant periods of time.

Axell’s idDAS (intelligent digital DAS) solution provides mobile operators in the US with a revolutionary new approach to handling the challenges and traditional limitations of in-building coverage systems. idDAS allows mobile operators to dynamically allocate capacity around a facility or urban environment and, in effect, provide a DAS system that can “breathe” and react to user demand. For example, many large-scale building facilities today have multiple uses, housing hotels, conference centers, business offices, residential apartments and shopping areas. By using idDAS, capacity can be dynamically allocated by mobile operators to different parts of the facility as and when it is needed. As a result, BTS resource can now be pooled and optimized for maximum utilization resulting in substantial cost savings for mobile operators. idDAS can be used for either single or multi-operator deployments as it allows each individual operator total flexibility and control over the allocation of different wireless services within a building facility.

Axell’s idDAS solution is based on advanced digital communications and Axell’s patented signal processing and filtering techniques. As a result it delivers exceptional low noise performance resulting in increased base station throughput. idDAS operates with every major wireless technology including GSM, UMTS, WCDMA and LTE, and supports all major frequency bands used by mobile operators across the world. It is completely cable agnostic supporting both fibre and copper cable types making it easier to implement in a building. It also includes full support of MIMO for increased data throughput. Included in the system is an embedded 1GB IP backhaul per remote, allowing the use of one common cabling infrastructure throughout for WiFi and other IP traffic. Set up and commissioning is handled through an intuitive “wizard” style configuration tool with many auto-setup features, saving time and resources during deployment.

Matthew Thompson, VP of Americas at Axell Wireless commented: “We are delighted to be showcasing idDAS for the first time in the US at this year’s DAS and Small Cells Congress. idDAS signifies a revolution when it comes to in-building coverage and we believe it will bring significant cost savings for mobile operators around the world. We have been a technological leader in the development of wireless coverage solutions for over forty years and the idDAS development has contributed to Axell’s 2014 number one ranking for ’innovation’ by leading analyst house ABI Research. idDAS reinforces our leadership credentials as the first major DAS platform to utilize digital processing in the allocation of capacity on a network. The system provides mobile operators with the flexibility to easily move capacity around a building while substantially reducing both CAPEX and OPEX costs”.

Axell will be showcasing the idDAS system at this year’s DAS and Small Cells Congress in Las Vegas, on Stand 308.