New analysis from ABI Research estimates active DAS (distributed antenna systems) equipment revenues to exceed $1 billion by 2013.
As tallied by ABI, active DAS equipment is mostly made up of headend and remote units, which are used to distribute cellular signals throughout a building. The global market for in-building wireless equipment is estimated to reach $2 billion by 2013, adds the analyst firm, with active DAS contributing 50% of the total revenues. The other half includes passive DAS, repeaters, cabling, and antennas. The overall market for in-building wireless, which includes equipment and service revenues, also known as labor costs, is estimated to reach $3.6 billion by end 2013.
“Active DAS is the fastest growing segment of the market today, as large public and commercial buildings need highly scalable, flexible, high-capacity, multi-technology, and multi-operator solutions," comments Aditya Kaul, practice director, mobile networks at ABI Research. "While active DAS is where the action is, traditional passive DAS and repeaters will continue to see demand, especially in Asia Pacific and some parts of Europe because of their cost-effectiveness and operator familiarity.”
According to ABI's analysis, the active DAS equipment market has an overall CAGR of 15%, with the North American region being the strongest, where the market is growing at 20% annually. Passive DAS equipment revenue on the other hand is expected to show a modest CAGR of 6% in North America.
The new market data mainly covers DAS and repeater equipment, but does account for the impact of small cells on DAS systems. ABI notes that small cells and DAS intersect mostly in small and medium-sized buildings where small cells could be deployed independently in place of DAS, complement DAS as a hotpot fill-in, or more importantly, feed into DAS replacing the need of large expensive macro base stations, repeaters or even remote radio heads.
More information about the market forecast is available here.
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