LGC kicks up in-building cell coverage

Improving cell phone coverage in an office without limiting users to one carrier will get cheaper and easier with a system coming from in-building wireless vendor LGC Wireless Inc., the company is to announce Monday.

The Fusion Singlestar system, availability immediately, can extend coverage for multiple mobile operator networks, ending the need for several overlaid infrastructures in buildings where employees and visitors use more than one carrier, said John Spindler, vice president of marketing at the San Jose, California, company.

As the buzz about voice over wireless LANs and dual-mode phones gets louder, the main technology used to improve indoor mobile coverage is still cellular extension. LGC has been solving the problem with InterReach Unison, a system that requires a separate layer of infrastructure to be built out for each radio frequency. That works for public places with high demand, such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where five mobile operators helped the IT staff plan a network and are reimbursing the airport for the nearly US$2.8 million project.

For enterprise environments where demand is lower, Fusion Singlestar is a multiple-frequency product that should cost about 30 percent to 40 percent less than Unison, Spindler said. Costs should run from about $0.10 to $0.25 per square foot. That makes a difference in these sites, where carriers increasingly are covering just part of the infrastructure cost, he said.

Both LGC systems extend the cellular network using small amplifier units that are connected via a wired network to a central device. The antennas are designed to bring good coverage to parts of a building that an outdoor cell tower can’t reach. Regular IT staff with commonly used wiring can roll out the infrastructure, Spindler said. The company aims to further lower costs with Fusion Singlestar by making it work with the kind of coaxial cable used for TV systems instead of Category 5 Ethernet wires, Spindler said.

Indoor cellular coverage went from spotty to pervasive in Atlanta’s airport after the InterReach Unison network went live several months ago, said CIO Lance Lyttle. He wishes it had real-time monitoring tools that would better pinpoint failures, but the network hasn’t needed much troubleshooting, he said.

Enterprises and mobile operators eventually will turn to dual-mode phones and Wi-Fi for in-building coverage, but first the carriers have to accept the idea, said Farpoint Group analyst Craig Mathias. Gear for these systems, just starting to appear now, also will have to mature, he added.

“It’ll take a very long time for those systems to roll out in big numbers,” Mathias said. “In about a year, carriers will get interested.”

It could be several years before all the pieces come together, he said. To extend coverage now, companies need cellular systems such as LGC’s. Fusion Singlestar benefits companies even if they use just one mobile operator, because it lets them change operators down the road and keep using the same system, Mathias said.

Turning to the emerging voice-over-Wi-Fi alternative isn’t as inexpensive as it may seem, counting network upgrades and client devices, LGC’s Spindler said.

“A lot of people are talking about (Wi-Fi voice) …. because they think it’s free. It’s not free,” Spindler said.