Traditionally, carriers have deployed DAS and small cell systems to improve their networks in large buildings and venues, and this is often still the case. However, enterprises, which would have typically installed these systems working alongside the carrier, are beginning to purchase systems directly from the manufacturer.
“They’re losing tenants and losing clients by not having good service. The building owners are desperate for some kind of service,” Bobby McClung, CEO of systems integrator AWS Communications, told RCR Wireless editor Martha DeGrasse recently while explaining the predicament many business owners are facing. “We’re getting a lot of requests for smaller venues, 150,000-500,000 square feet.”
He said a growing number of enterprises install the in-building systems as a kind of investment; once the system is installed, they try to get carriers to connect to the system. In order to do this, noted DeGrasse, enterprises typically work alongside integrators familiar with the industry.
The challenge, of course, is making sure the carriers will connect to a system once it is in place, DeGrasse observed. “Companies that decide to invest in mobile infrastructure stand a better chance if they work with integrators who are known and trusted by the wireless carriers. Integrators often start with one ‘anchor tenant,’ the carrier that invests to build the system. Then the integrator can bring others onto the system, before or after it is live.”
As a whole, the in-building infrastructure market for enterprises has tripled within the last two years. By 2021, the market is expected to grow to $3 billion, reports analysts at Mobile Experts.
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