Saturday, July 4, 2015

The Cellular DAS: The Basics

By Edna Booker


The Distributed Antenna System (DAS) is the technology that is used to boost network coverage in areas where there is either no coverage or areas with weak coverage. In order to achieve this, the technology relies on a clustered installation of antennas for boosting the cellular network. The system is common in large facilities, underground transport systems, and in the areas with large gathering that leads to a high demand that overwhelms the available network coverage. As such, you are likely to find the cellular DAS in airports, sport arenas, large hospitals, and town city centers like Raleigh city among others.

In order to increase the signal reliability while reducing the total power required doing so, the DAS installation is made of a network consisting of several antenna nodes that are separately installed. The nodes are then connected to a single common source using fiber or a coaxial cable. This means that power is transmitted among several antenna elements which in turn reduces the power consumption and increases the network signal reliability.

The DAS systems are either active or passive. In the active systems, the signal is passed from the roof antennas through the fiber cables and the signals are boosted and amplified through the way. The passive systems on the other hands grab the cellular signals from the roof antennas and then run them through some leaky feeder cables that are located throughout the building.

The DAS on the other hands relies on the active-repeater amplifiers and the passive splitters as the means of feeder configurations. As a result, the efficiency is highly increased while the power consumption is reduced.

The DAS antenna nodes can be installed indoors as well as outdoors since they are very compact. They are also small in size and the power requirement is less. This means that the system can be installed at any remote location where the zoning restriction cannot allow the traditional cell towers to be installed. In some cases, the system is tied to the wireless carriers like the AT&T and the Verizon. In most cases, the neutral-host providers are used given that they come with multiple carrier ability.

The installation purpose, the industry players usually prefer long contracts as direct installation is quite expensive. The ten year contract, for instance, has become the industry norm.

The distributed antenna systems are transparent to the mobile devices. It provides the voice services as well as data services to the mobile devices. It offers the most appropriate solution to the densely populated spaces such as the university campuses, shopping malls, sport arenas, the medical centers and the tall buildings.

The technology comes with the main advantage of less power consumption in network boosting. It is also associated with ease of zoning and antenna placement, reduced site development planning, and reduced number of the BTS (Simulcast reduces Backhaul needs).




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