DAS Players: type of companies in DAS industry
Easiest way to look at these players or companies is to group them at a high level by their function.
Types of companies usually involved in DAS business
To build a DAS, we need signal source, materials and DAS equipment, and related services. There are 4 types of players in the DAS Industry:
1. Signal source providers
2. Equipment or materials providers
3. Service providers, and
4. Build to Suit Companies
1. Signal source providers
Signal source providers are actually wireless service providers or carriers or operators.
4 major Operators who are quite active in DAS are (in alphabetical order): AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. These guys own frequencies to broadcast signals. They don’t actually make the signal source, but without their permissions you cannot broadcast signal in their frequencies.
Companies who make these radios for signal source are commonly referred to as OEM. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturers.
For radio-based signal sources well known manufacturers in U.S. are:
Alcatel Lucent for Base Stations or Small Cells
Airspan for Small Cells
Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung for both Base Stations or Small Cells
Good thing is you won’t have to directly interface with the actual manufacturers of RF Source, if a carrier is going to join the DAS they will coordinate with the signal source manufacturers.
Although we have focused on Radio based signal source here, there are several OEMs for Repeaters. Notably, ADRF, GST, Cobham Wireless etc.
One disclaimer appropriate here is that I will focus on the companies that are active in the U.S. – because I am more familiar with them. I assure you there are lot more companies outside U.S. These companies may not be very active in the U.S., but make significant contribution to the industry.
2. Equipment or materials providers
We need materials of 2 broad categories to build DAS. Therefore, I will break down DAS Equipment and Materials providers into 2 groups.
DAS electronics manufacturers for electronics and
Manufacturers or suppliers of all other passive materials.
DAS electronics manufacturers:
Well known OEMs in the U.S. are – in alphabetical order:
ADRF, so far manufactures DAS 2.0 platforms. Also makes repeaters (DAS 1.0) for regular DAS and also public safety DAS.
Commscope has products in both DAS 2.0 and DAS 3.0. In the past Commscope has purchased several other well known DAS companies – notably LGC Wireless.
Corning purchased MobileAccess, so when we talk about Corning DAS, we are also talking about Corning MobileAccess DAS. Corning has also purchased SpiderCloud in 2017 - a Small Cell OEM and has a robust portfolio of DAS gears.
JMA Wireless has a good presence in DAS 2.0 platforms.
Another reputable DAS OEM is SOLiD with various products in DAS 2.0, and DAS 3.0. SOLiD was one of the first companies to integrate public safety DAS into cellular DAS.
Few other platforms also active in this category are:
BTI Wireless
Cobham acquired Axell which has DAS gear in both cellular and public safety
Dali Wireless and
Zinwave
This is by no mean is an exhaustive list, the landscape of the DAS OEMs are changing every year.
Suppliers of passive materials:
Here is a list of manufacturers for general DAS materials or passive materials. Again, this is not an exhaustive list. I am only showing the materials type that are most frequently used.
Coaxial Cable: for coaxial cable we have Commscope, RFS
Coax Connectors: JMA is very dominant these days. Commscope and RFS also had been manufacturing connectors for many years.
Fiber Optic Cable & Connectors: Corning is very common name for fiber optic cable and connectors
Antennas: Galtronics antennas have become popular in recent years, whereas Commscope had been producing antennas for many years. There are many other vendors such as Laird, PCTEL, etc.
As you can see, with multiple manufacturers you will have many options for a specific material. You may be thinking, do you need to go to multiple manufacturers to procure these materials? Answer is No.
You can go to one of the several suppliers like Tessco, Anixter, Graybar or Talley and shop multiple items. Most of the vendors you will work with should have established relationship with most of these suppliers.
3. Service Providers
There are 5 different DAS deployment phases, we mentioned Survey & engineering, construction, commissioning & integration, close-out package and maintenance.
No one hires a separate vendor for Close-out package. But you can pick separate vendors for the other 4 phases: survey & engineering, construction, commissioning & integration, and maintenance vendor. There are quite a few vendors in the industry who can offer all of these services and they are commonly known as DAS Integrators.
Lets start with Survey and Engineering Vendors – also known in the industry as Design Vendor:
Design Engineers provide benchmark testing, and design for the DAS.
DAS OEMs can also provide Design Services. However, they will only design a DAS with their own electronics.
Few smaller firms are also available who provide dedicated Design Services.
Next, construction vendors.
There are 2 types of construction vendors: Low Voltage Vendor for cable installation, and equipment installer – which can be the DAS Integrator.
Low Voltage Vendors (LVVs):
Traditionally, most LVVs install CAT5 or Fiber in the buildings for the IT department or facilities. Most large buildings or campuses have their preferred Low Voltage Vendors. Often these vendors can provide installation services of the passive materials needed for DAS.
Most LVVs we work with know how to do all the tests needed to do during the installation of passive materials: cable sweep, PIM test, OTDR and Optical Loss tests.
Since they are local and know the building intimately, they can often do the passive materials installation at a cheaper rate than integrators who will have to bring their installers from out of market.
It’s quite common to have well known DAS Integrator to survey, design, install electronics, commission and Integration, and have the Low Voltage Vendor to do the cable – fiber and coax - installation.
Equipment Installer:
These guys involve installation of DAS and Signal Source electronics. Most DAS Integrators are capable of installing DAS electronics. Sometimes, we will have the Low Voltage Vendors place the electronics, and then we (Integrator) will make all internal connections.
Commissioning & Integration Vendors:
Most if not all Integrators provide this service. Original equipment manufacturers or OEMs also have resources who can provide this service.
Maintenance vendors:
Maintenance vendors can set up remote monitoring to monitor the DAS via a network operating center or NOC. Vendor troubleshoots the DAS when there is service interruption. Again, it’s quite common for DAS Integrators to provide DAS monitoring service; and if they don’t offer the service they can refer you to one.
One more thing DAS Integrators can be really helpful at is helping you manage the project or project management.
As for names of different DAS Integrators – there are quite a few available in the market. For example On Air Solutions had been building DAS for over 15 years, which I cofounded :)
4. Build to Suit Companies:
Build to Suit (BTS) companies designs, builds, maintains and owns DAS. Note that the acronym BTS is also used for base transceiver station or base station. In this case, however, it’s used for Build to Suit companies.
Majority DAS built by BTS are multi-carrier. They are known to build both indoor or iDAS and Outdoor or oDAS. Carriers must pay (capital cost) to add signal source to the DAS. Carriers also have to pay a monthly rental.
Building owner or management companies sign agreement with the BTS companies – there may or may not be revenue sharing.
DAS for public venues such as malls, stadiums, big casinos, hotel, resorts are common BTS owned DAS. Let me stress the public venues part, because for the return-on-investment model or ROI to work for BTS companies, they will usually select large areas with high traffic.
Some of the big, well known names in this space are:
American Tower
Black Box Network Services which acquired another BTS company InnerWireless in 2012
Crown Castle – an old tower build-to-suit company, now plays a significant role in DAS
Extenet Systems
InSite Wireless
Mobilitie
... just to name a few
Related article:
What is the best way to come up with a budget for DAS deployment?
