A DAS alternative

While Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) have been the cornerstone to help building owners enhance wireless coverage, the cost of these systems varies widely.

These systems have been a good fit where carriers want to improve performance in places like a football stadium, where fans want to interact with others immediately when their favorite player scores a touchdown, for example.

“The DAS market, which has been around for decades, does really well in very large, densely populated areas where multiple carriers want to put large chunks of spectrum to work whether it's millimeter wave or other large amounts of capacity for immediate use for heavy usage,” Markle said.

But the reality is that other buildings and coverage areas aren't a good fit for a DAS.

Comcast Business estimates that, in its own studies within its footprint, about 400,000 buildings have poor indoor cellular coverage.

Markle said that despite the need, no solution fits these buildings, forcing them to use a do-it-yourself tactic by enhancing Wi-Fi coverage or asking a wireless operator to improve coverage.

“A lot of customers in different ways are left to kind of figure out the wireless coverage issue themselves,” he said. “They try to put up their own Wi-Fi network, or they ask the carrier if there's some light DAS they can put in, which sometimes carriers fund them and sometimes they don't.”

While Wi-Fi can provide free internet connections in unlicensed radio bands, DAS distributes carrier-licensed cellular signals to boost mobile phone coverage.

Distributed antenna systems can propagate indoor Wi-Fi in large buildings, with multiple low-power antennas providing more consistent coverage than a single high-power transmitter. Still, estimates say this represents a small part of the market (5%).

One challenge is that while a building owner wants people coming into their building to get a good cellular connection, the mobile nature of those engaging with these buildings makes it a better case to leverage the CBRS network to ensure consistent voice and data service.

“What we found is that when you want to use cellular indoors, and it works out a lot where there are customers or businesses with a lot of people coming and going,” Markle said. “So, they may not be there long enough that they want to log into the Wi-Fi, or you don't want to share the Wi-Fi, or you have customers coming in and out, and you just want the connection to work.”

He added that Comcast Business’ solution can simultaneously solve not only the indoor cellular coverage issue, but also help a business connect their own devices over cellular, which could be anything that can have a SIM card, including a tablet, a camera, or sensors.

“With CBRS, it's really beautiful in a way where you can kind of slice up that spectrum and say, and dedicate a slice for the carriers, and just your normal carrier connectivity for everybody that shows up, but the enterprise can also reserve this other slice for its operations,” Markle said. “And that's what we did in the Smartlink deployment.”

An alternative upgrade path

Comcast Business’ timing with its new platform comes as most enterprise DAS systems are well past their prime.

While some DAS systems are 20 or 30 years old, enterprises have few options to upgrade.

“Customers are faced with technology that's 4G, maybe 3G, depending on the situation, and it needs to be upgraded,” Markle said. “However, carriers aren't always funding those upgrades, so we can come in and fix the problem at a fraction of the cost of a legacy DAS system.”

But cost is only one issue.

By using the Comcast solution, the enterprise can own the system, which it may not have owned in the past.

“It’s really a nice time too as we get the word out that, hey, if you have this issue, yes, you think you have cellular coverage, you know it's degrading, this is a way to really improve it cost-effectively,” he said.

Multi-component deployment

Comcast Business in-building platform’s Neutral Host component operates through a Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) gateway and cellular radio equipment, delivering reliable cellular voice and data service to all building occupants, regardless of their carrier.

By leveraging Comcast Business’s relationships with the top wireless operators and shared infrastructure model, it integrates directly with the major national carriers to close the coverage gaps typically found in large commercial offices, without the cost and deployment complexity often associated with traditional DAS solutions.

Delivered through the same cellular radios and managed platform, the Comcast Business solution also offers dedicated CBRS private networking capabilities using a cloud-based 4G/5G mobile core that operates independently of public carrier traffic. This eliminates the need for multiple operational connectivity systems and provides a secure, isolated environment for a growing range of enterprise and smart-building applications – including cameras, remote access control, environmental and occupancy sensors, asset tracking, and digital signage – without adding complexity to the company’s existing IT infrastructure.

Comcast joins its CBRS Spectrum with three pieces: the radios, an on-premises core wireless network or the cloud-based core, and the devices.

“The core is the brains, which then works with the radios that can be deployed in the location, and then the devices or endpoints could be a phone, tablets, cameras, or sensors that want to connect to that,” Markle said. “We help with that holistic solution.”

Working in tandem with its solutions, Comcast has partnerships with the three largest wireless operators—AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

The service provider established a relationship with Verizon for consumers and, more recently, with T-Mobile for its business customer base.

“We have deals, and we partner with all three carriers,” Markle said. “What ends up happening is, situation by situation, carrier coverages vary, so you have to work with them on a location-by-location basis to see what the issues are and what the handoff is, because the key thing is, a customer is coming from somewhere, and they're handing off in, so you want to make sure those handoffs are clean.”

Markle emphasized that its wireless operator relationships enable it to craft the right solution for each customer location.

“At each deployment, we work, and that's where we can make it easier for the customer because we have these relationships,” he said. “We have two large MVNOs with two of the carriers and the large relationship with the other one as well, so we're bringing these strong commercial relationships, so we have the trust, and the access to the carriers to kind of make these solutions happen.”

Upselling business opportunities

Adding wireless capability to its toolbelt could help Comcast Business further strengthen its bond with existing and new business customers.

Beyond its commanding lead in Ethernet and SD-WAN, Comcast Business has built a customer base of nearly 3 million business customers. It also has a large base of buildings equipped with business-grade fiber to support the wireless product on top of the other services it provides today.

It further strengthened its relationship to gain a broader foothold in business segments' wireless needs through a new MVNO relationship with T-Mobile. MVNO will expand Comcast’s leadership in delivering wireline and wireless offerings. Mobile services will be offered by Charter and Comcast under Spectrum Mobile for Business and Comcast Business Mobile brands, respectively.

“With nearly 3 million business customers, it's a natural extension,” Markle said. “We already have a wireline relationship where we offer managed Wi-Fi, and this is just a natural extension where you can offer cellular connectivity as well off the same set of infrastructure.”

Comcast Business has a diverse customer base where its enterprise wireless service could resonate.

Often, the customer or building owner doesn't know which carriers have connectivity, or the customer doesn't want to bother logging into Wi-Fi, so it's an easier way to provide connectivity in those situations.

Comcast Business has deployed in-building wireless solutions across a variety of environments – including an on-campus Neutral Host network at the University of Virginia, a private wireless network at The Sound Hotel Seattle Belltown, and a private 5G network for the Cleveland Cavaliers at Rocket Arena. Each deployment is built on Comcast Business’s licensed CBRS spectrum, cloud-based infrastructure, and strong carrier relationships.

“We're learning across different verticals where it applies, but I think a lot of medium density situations,” Markle said. “Offices, college campuses, hotels, even warehouses, which are places where people are coming in and out, and this is another easy way to provide connectivity in those situations.”

Having built out its own 5G network, Comcast brings knowledge of the cellular piece and how that overlays with Wi-Fi coverage to blend seamlessly.

“We've leveraged that team and that experience and those commercial relationships as well to help drive the solution,” Markle said.

By providing business-grade wireless path, Comcast Business can help property owners enhance their respective properties with wireless as an amenity.

“That's one of the ones we're actively in discussions now because, again, especially with the work-from-home movement during COVID, a lot of commercial real estate people are still struggling to improve their tenancy rates,” Markle said. “This is another upsell to say, hey, I can provide reliable coverage inside where, especially in a lot of Class B and C real estate, carriers have not always been able to fund that to make those numbers work.”

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