Mobile Experts (Campbell, CA) has issued a new analyst report highlighting what it discerns as "the trend away from DAS, as the market moves away from stadiums in favor of smaller buildings" as more small cells, DRS, CBRS, and boosters have emerged as low-cost options for mobile infrastructure.
The new report provides a detailed cost analysis to compare these new mobile infrastructure options. The report examines each technology choice for vertical market scenarios in stadiums, airports, hotels, hospitals, retail, corporate, and other vertical markets.
"Almost every major stadium has already been outfitted with DAS, so vendors are naturally shifting toward smaller buildings in new market areas," remarks Mobile Experts' senior analyst, Kyung Mun. "DRS and small cells, especially CBRS small cells in the United States, can be very cost-effective alternatives with operator-neutral capability. Boosters (commonly called repeaters) are another very low-cost option which has grown dramatically for key vertical markets."
According to the researcher, "As the in-building market transitions from the top end of the market (stadiums and airports) to smaller venues across diverse vertical segments, multiple vendors have started to promote in-building mobile infrastructure to hotels, hospitals, commercial real estate managers, and others. These vertical market players are developing a strong pent-up demand for improved mobile coverage, and are increasingly willing to pay for it."
See also:Questions and answers with a DAS expert
For the report, Mobile Experts interviewed at least 20-30 mobile operators and compared the top-down input received with the bottom-up inputs from OEMs and semiconductor suppliers. The report provides estimates of revenue enhancement for each vertical market, based on improvement in the mobile coverage inside the building. ("The key element in most Mobile Experts forecasts is simple: If we don't see demand from the operators showing up at the semiconductor level, then it's not real," notes Mun.")
According to Mobile Experts, the overall market will grow from over $2.4B in 2016 to over $3.6B in 2022. But "the DAS segment is expected to fall from almost 70% of total Enterprise Mobile Infrastructure equipment revenue in 2016 to 50% in 2022," states the report's executive summary. "Meanwhile, Small Cells revenue share will increase from 20% in 2016 to 31% in 2022. Repeater revenue share is expected to grow from 11% in 2016 to 19% in 2022 as the market transitions to serving smaller enterprises and venues," adds the analyst.
Mobile Experts' new Enterprise Mobile Infrastructure report provides profiles on more than 80 companies, and highlights the rise of the neutral-host business model that the analyst thinks "will be critical to helping mobile operators and businesses to work together." The 92-page study includes more than 40 charts and diagrams to clearly illustrate the dynamics of the market.