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Dali's Intelligent and Dynamic Wireless Coverage for In-Building and Outdoor Venues

Dali's Intelligent and Dynamic Wireless Coverage for In-Building and Outdoor Venues

M Prushothma Rao, PCC Mobile Broadband’s founder and telecommunications senior expert spoke to Shawn Stapleton, CTO of Dali Wireless on the release of their HDS™ RF Router

 

With the launch of its HDS™ (High Density System) RF Router, Dali Wireless is pushing new boundaries for the radio access network (RAN). According to Shawn Stapleton, the Co-Founder and CTO of the technology company which is based in Palo Alto and founded in 2006,  the new RF Router offers an intelligent and highly optimized, cost efficient method to deliver enhanced network coverage and capacity across outdoor and indoor venues.

The RF Router, which has the capacity of 10Gb/second at 300 megahertz, addresses congestion and coverage issues faced by service providers as well as venue owners, especially in places with higher population density such as cities and urban areas and in venues with large crowds. Venue owners such as hotels and stadiums often grapple with poor coverage and weak signalling due to the design of the building, sudden surges in the number of people accessing the network and also, static distribution of network capacity within the venue.

Shawn elaborated that Dali’s High Density RF Router enables venue owners to preserve the aesthetics of their venues, a feature particularly important in venues such as hotels and resorts, enabling visitors to have the same experience as they would on a high strength Wi-Fi, without compromising the view with the presence of large antennas and other bulky equipments.

Key features offered by the RF Router include the ‘Dynamic Capacity Allocation’ that allows the capacity to be reallocated real-time between various end-nodes in a venue. Shawn shared examples of venues – stadiums and railway stations – where crowds often move from one location (parking lot or the waiting platform) to another (stadium seating or the coaches), creating a sudden surge and also a sudden drop in the capacity required in a particular spot. The Dynamic Capacity Allocation feature enables venue owners to re-allocate the capacity as and when required, saving on unnecessary capital outlays.

Another key feature highlighted by Shawn is the ‘Guaranteed Power Allocation’. Dali’s RF Router being a platform that is band, operator- and technology-agnostic offers infrastructure sharing for service providers. Citing examples such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, being the major service providers in the United States, connections to these operators are made via a single platform/interface. This is where signals from the base stations are amalgamated, packetized and transported to the distributed nodes within the venue (on optical fibre connection).  The distribution of the nodes is based on the bandwidth requirements at various locations throughout the venue. In the example of a hotel, Shawn explained that these nodes will be distributed to areas such as the parking lot, the lobby and the floors where visitors are most likely to access the network. The Guaranteed Power Allocation allows each Operator to be allocated a fixed amount of power, guaranteeing a fixed level of service quality for their respective subscribers.

The solution is deployed on a number of models.  The Neutral Host model, for example will see third party companies such as the American Tower, Mobility and Bongo, in the case of United States, providing the infrastructure while service providers share the expenditure or pay an allowance to the Neutral Host. The second model is where the venue owner makes the necessary capital outlay and takes charge of the data connection for his visitors. The third model caters for venues which are more strategic, for example, universities, where the ‘prime’ provider makes the infrastructure investment. The third model is relevant in scenarios where the average revenue per user is particularly high for a single operator.

Dali has already deployed this solution for a number of clients, including hotels and hospitals, delivering an immediate enhancement in coverage and capacity. With a download speed of 60 Mb per second and upload speed of 40 Mb per second, the solution promises excellent data throughput, enhanced end user experience and highly optimized management of resources for venue owners and service providers, and addresses the rapid rise in the rich media/video traffic across networks today.

 
 
Author

Founder and CEO at The Fast Mode | NFV/MANO/Openstack | Telecoms Service Innovations & Monetization | Speaker, Moderator and Analyst

Prushothma brings more than 22 years of experience in designing and delivering some of the most advanced service innovations in the telecoms industry.

Follow him on Twitter @prushothma, LinkedIn @prushothma

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