The LatAm telecom industry gears up for a new wave of DAS

Distributed Antenna System (DAS) networks have been deployed extensively in North America to offer coverage in targeted locations and to provide additional data-handling capacity in high-traffic areas. With the advent of 4G LTE and an impressive growth in subscriptions, Latin America is the perfect target for Deltanode, a Swedish based company focused on DAS networks and mobile coverage solutions.

In this exclusive interview, Henrik Huss, CEO of Deltanode, shares his insights into the future of DAS in Latin America and which challenges and opportunities lie ahead for telecom companies.

TowerXchange: Please tell us about Deltanode, its activities and footprint

Deltanode is a relatively young company founded in 2005 with the aim to offer enhanced solutions for the wireless communication industry. Since 2008, we have been focusing our attention on the implementation of Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) networks.

To date, the majority of our business comes from the United States and Canada where we have more than 2,000 units in operation. The North American DAS market is constantly growing and is the traditional home of DAS, in fact our largest client is a North American Neutral Host.

Lately, we have captured some interesting business opportunities in Scandinavia, our home market. Quite a few DAS opportunities are related to large infrastructure projects like tunnels and bridges, which require public safety networks to be combined with commercial coverage, all co-located in the same DAS infrastructure. For the past five years we have been active in Mexico and two years ago, we decided to actively pursue opportunities in Latin America.

Right now, we are looking at expanding our operations into Brazil and some Spanish speaking countries in the CALA region.

TowerXchange: Please tell us about the role that DAS and other smaller cells play in network planning, particularly in emerging markets

With the expansion of mobile connectivity, DAS is becoming the option of choice to provide multi-operator, multi-band systems in large, public venues such as stadiums and shopping malls.

DAS is the ideal solution to offer a common platform to several carriers to expand their network outreach beyond towers.

In the U.S., DAS is a secondary and yet fundamental business development opportunity for tower companies.

Brazil, thanks to the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, is driving the change in terms of DAS and gearing up to ensure connectivity is offered in stadiums, highways, airports etc cetera.

TowerXchange: What is the tipping point that will persuade a tower company or a carrier to go from thinking about DAS to then implementing DAS? 

Historically, tower companies have strong cash-flow and this is a major driver that pushes them in favour of DAS. As previously mentioned, it is fairly normal for them to look at DAS after they have developed their tower strategy.

However, without MNOs driving the demand, the business case for DAS isn’t there. When an operator decides to extend its signal beyond towers, then towercos know the time is right to invest in DAS rollout.

TowerXchange: What is the expected market size in Latin America? 

It is tricky to assess the market size of Latin America but looking at the U.S., the average is in the area of 2,000 new DAS nodes per year. And this refers only to neutral host, high power outdoor DAS rollouts. In addition to this there is a very large in-building market.

We expect LatAm to become a relatively big market for us, somewhat aligned to the US.

TowerXchange: How do you compare the procurement requirements between carriers and towercos? Are they seeking fundamentally different solutions, for example for single versus multiple tenants?

There are two sets of requirements that we have to deal with, when developing a project. On one hand, we need to focus on the existing regulation - FCC’s in the US for example - and then, there is a considerable amount of homologation and internal approvals for each specific client.

In terms of solutions, I’d say that the single-signal solutions are mostly required by MNOs whereas towercos prefer to install multi-band and multi-tenant DAS. We specialise in the latter as our products have great performance and high reliability and are suitable for complex projects.

TowerXchange: What are the implications for backhaul for DAS in light of fibre not being widely implemented in emerging markets?

DAS works over relatively short distances. Therefore, if we consider a downtown or sub-urban environment, with high rise buildings, we can use existing fibre to the buildings where we look at installing our systems, it is normally possible to deploy new fibre at reasonable cost as the distances are relatively short. There is of course some issues with permits in those cases.

In the US, fibre is more common but in Latin America the problem can be easily solved. Additionally, most of the buildings we target do have fibre inside as they tend to be new builds.

TowerXchange: What is the average project length, from day zero to completion?

A project would normally take anything between twelve and eighteen months and this includes all the permits and documentation phases.

With regards to Latin America, the regulatory process is more complicated. However, we know that some countries are now adjusting their telecom regulations –  this is a welcome change for our industry as we hope the licensing process will be streamlined.

TowerXchange: Finally, please sum up the value proposition for carriers and towercos in emerging markets to invest in DAS… and what differentiates Deltanode from other potential partners in DAS?

First of all, I believe that the time is right for DAS in Latin America. And if companies are looking at complex projects, Deltanode has the right set of tools.

We provide a very modular system, highly flexible and adaptable, which is a key component when making a business decision on a DAS project. In fact, the life of a DAS is approximately fifteen years, and clients are likely to make changes to the system over the course of its lifecycle. Whether they look at adding frequency band or upgrading to LTE, our system is easily adjustable thanks to its modularity.

To date, we haven’t experienced any reliability issue and thanks to our open source coding, there aren’t any license fees required. Our clients install the equipment and most operations are web-based.

We offer a highly reliable product and, thanks to our large installed base and track record, we are confident we can be a partner of choice in Latin America as we are in North America.