In-building Solutions (IBS) are becoming increasingly spread, as user demands for everywhere coverage are matched by the opportunity for mobile operators to offer improved services and increase traffic revenues. The site owners also see the value of IBS, which increases the value of their property and their ability to attract and retain key tenants.Today’s operator typically performs a cost/benefit analysis on in-building locations based on the number of businesses/end users, and if enough traffic can be generated at a specific in-building location, the operator can justify the investment
Benefits for the Customer:
Competitive edge and image
Having good coverage “everywhere” helps the operator to keep the competitive edge and build the image of a high quality cellular network on any competitive market. This is a business advantage, and key to retaining existing customers and capturing new subscribers.
New traffic resulting in increased revenue streams
In-building solutions is a well-proven method for an operator to capture new traffic and increase the revenue streams. Having dedicated in-building coverage means more calls and longer duration of calls from the building and to the building. This means that an in-building system enables a new revenue stream in addition to the macro network.Measurements show that up to 80% of the traffic generated from an in-building site is new traffic. This is traffic and revenue that would, without the in-building system, otherwise have been lost.
Network off-load which frees capacity
The traffic generated from the building, with an in-building system, off-loads the macro network. The freed capacity in the macro network can therefore be utilized for the increase of traffic in the macro cell instead of having to provide coverage of the building as well.
Prepared for future needs with excellent network quality
The nature of WCDMA highlights the need for dedicated in-building solutions. In-building solutions are required for providing good quality wireless data (mainly for EGDE and UMTS) where a higher carrier to interference (C/I) ratio and a higher capacity (data throughput) are necessary. A dual network e.g. GSM/UMTS, with good in-building coverage, will function better with fewer handovers and less undesired load of the network.
Importance of Mobile Internet and Applications
The general trends and forecasts all indicate an impressive growth of mobile data traffic. Operators have already started to offer pure flat rate subscriptions or subscriptions that contains a fixed amount data for a fixed price. This enables PC-users to access the Internet via a mobile broadband connection. This, plus the evolution of both networks and terminals (to support higher data rates) and more useful and easy-to-use data applications are believed to increase the need for in-building solutions. Moreover, we can assume that in most cases the mobile Internet users will sit inside buildings, rather than walk around outdoors surfing on Internet with their laptops.
