How to Bring Your IBS Infrastructure to a Sustainable and Profitable Operation Point

Introduction

In-building systems (IBS) play a crucial role in ensuring seamless indoor wireless connectivity. However, achieving a sustainable and profitable IBS operation is not just about deploying the right equipment or reducing the quantities—it’s about understanding the dynamics between key stakeholders and their incentives. By analyzing how different forces interact within the ecosystem, Infrastructure owner can optimize designs, minimize inefficiencies, and strike the right balance between CAPEX and OPEX.

Key Forces and Their Impact on IBS Design

When designing or upgrading IBS solutions, several players influence the outcome. Each stakeholder has unique incentives that shape their approach to system design and implementation. Understanding their perspectives is critical to achieving efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

1. Infrastructure Owners (Mobile Operators or Neutral Hosts)

Operators and neutral hosts are constantly seeking to lower both CAPEX and OPEX while ensuring adequate coverage and end user experience. The design process—whether handled internally, through vendors, or by third-party design houses—can result in significantly different cost structures. Additionally, selection of the right IBS technology for different venues can add additional layer of Operational cost optimization compared to having one product for all types of venues, not to mention future proofing the infrastructure to support near or long term evolution of technologies and frequencies.

Impact:

• Vendor and Integrator-led designs may prioritize sales over cost-optimization.
• Having Multiple approved vendors can add additional degree of freedom to optmize costs.

Key Consideration: Having the proper commercial and technical process for design approvals and system acceptance is crucial for their commecrial success. One that does not only depend on theoratical coverage predictions, but also goes into details of backing them with measurements to avoid costly mistakes. Choosing the right independent design partner and methodology can mean the difference between an overbuilt or a lean, effective system.

2. DAS Vendors and System Integrators

While I dont suggest any intentional wrong doing, vendors ,typically, dont have the incentive to spend the extra effort to over optimize designs, in other words, DAS vendors and system integrators have a natural tendency to maximize equipment sales and installation projects if they can justify this to their customer. Their revenue increases with the number of deployed units. If the contract holds them accountable for coverage gaps, they often adopt a conservative approach, deploying extra safety margins and equipment to protect themselves from potential liabilities.

Impact of solutions designed by Vendors and System integrators:

• Higher equipment counts lead to increased capital expenditure (CAPEX) and Higher energy consumption (Operational Costs) than required.
• Over-engineering may result in additional optional layers of equipment, leading to higher operational costs (OPEX).

Key Consideration: Evaluating multiple vendor proposals with a focus on coverage efficiency and energy consumption rather than just coverage levels is crucial for sustainability.

3. RAN Vendors (Outdoor-Centric Providers)

RAN vendors, often focused on outdoor network coverage, play a unique role. In many cases, they serve as project consultants, ensuring macro network performance and integration. They may not prioritize DAS solutions unless absolutely necessary and often employ equipment financing models that favor large-scale RAN deployments over smaller, independent DAS investments.

Impact:

• RAN vendors might deprioritize IBS, leading to suboptimal indoor solutions.
• RAN vendors offering hardware Financing models can create a bias against smaller DAS vendors, limiting competition and innovation.

Key Consideration: Infrastructure owner should be aware of the conflict of interest when engaging RAN vendors, ensuring indoor coverage is prioritized alongside outdoor solutions.

4. RF Designers

For sites that are still under construction, design teams typically adopt extra safety margins to hedge against future uncertainties. While this ensures robust coverage, it often leads to inflated equipment counts and budgets if not backed by actual evidence using RF measurements. However, another challenge arises when designers optimize systems with a focus on the wrong parameters.

Impact:

• Safety margins in designs often lead to unnecessary capital expenditures.
• Misguided optimization increases active equipment costs and maintenance complexity.
• Real-world conditions may differ, rendering some conservative measures redundant.
• Measrurement based designs are the real safety factor that provide reliable evidence on design assumptions.
• Optimizing designs on the wrong parameters such as the number of Antenna can lead to increased number of Active equipment and energey bills specially with High power RAN and Active DAS.

Key Consideration: The extra effort of validating design assumptions and fine-tune designs for actual conditions is key to success.

Achieving the Right Balance: A Holistic Approach

Bringing IBS infrastructure to a sustainable and profitable point requires:

• Stakeholder Alignment: Understanding the motivations of all players involved.
• Strategic Design Choices: Balancing safety margins with cost-effectiveness and futureproofing.
• Lifecycle Optimization: Considering both CAPEX and OPEX across the different decision points.

By carefully navigating these factors, businesses can avoid unnecessary costs, improve ROI, and ensure a high-quality user experience.