Two kinds of private, in-building wireless systems are seeking the attention of today’s large business customers-stand-alone systems that provide portable extensions of employee desk phones, and stand-alone systems that provide portable extensions but also can hand off calls to the external, macro wireless network.
Both types operate at 800 MHz, licensed cellular spectrum using analog technology. Manufacturers with products at this time include Panasonic Communications and Systems Co., Motorola Inc. and Allen Telecom Group Inc. Because cellular carriers control the 800 MHz frequency, they are marketing, selling or renting the equipment, and providing the service using their own brand names.
Carriers say some customers don’t need a system that hands off to the macro network. For instance, a manufacturing plant may have a pool of handsets that employees use at work, but the phones are not taken outside the factory complex.
Other customers require a system that can do handoffs, such as a sprawling medical environment in which professionals travel from hospital to clinic to lab and need a constant connection.
Also, in-building systems are designed differently. Panasonic’s BusinessLink Personal Communications System uses a distributed radio approach, with base stations throughout the area. Allen Telecom’s SmartCell and Motorola’s InReach use a distributed antenna design, with numerous channels trunked into the base station and antennas throughout the facilities. Those systems can handle more users, the companies say.
Panasonic said it chose the distributed radio design so the system would be inexpensive and easy to install and maintain. A single twisted pair goes into each radio and the base station merely plugs into the wall, said John Avery, engineering manager of the PCS group for MCC/Panasonic.
“The other systems have a complex, RF design with cable installation. If the company has telephone wire, we use it. If not, we run copper. Our system was designed to be installed like a telephone system, not like a radio system,” Avery said.
Motorola said InReach customers will spend less on radios because the channels are trunked together.
Construction of private in-building systems is, in effect, an addition to the carrier’s cellular network, the companies say. Carriers hope that workplace users who are not cellular subscribers will become enamored by wireless and want to subscribe to cellular outside the office.
BellSouth Cellular Corp. has been offering the Panasonic system to customers for two years as part of BellSouth’s Cosmos program. About 30 of these systems are operating; airtime is generally billed at a flat rate.
“There are a couple of different philosophies about airtime charges,” said Matthew McFee, with the Cosmos new products and services division.
“It’s a flat rate right now because companies want to be billed as if the employee were using their desk phone. But in-building systems could be set up for airtime charges,” McFee said.
Productivity as well as a company’s financial bottom line is impacted by in-building wireless systems, said Cosmos manager Sam Wilson.
“Answering system costs are reduced. LD (long distance) costs decrease because the call is completed instead of returning the call on your dime,” Wilson said.
Phones for the Panasonic system must be Interim Standard-94, the standard developed with the help of Panasonic for in-building wireless systems. BellSouth said it wants to provide customers with dual-mode phones-in this instance, meaning phones that operate on the macro network as well as on private, in-building systems.
Employees can use their current cellular phone with the in-office system if it is IS-94 compatible, which has been available for about a year, BellSouth said.
“And if a handset is a member of a private system, there needs to be a way to distinguish those members,” said Panasonic’s Avery.
Motorola’s InReach and Allen Telecom’s SmartCell both accommodate any analog cellular phone. InReach became commercially available in June, and uses Advanced Mobile Phone Service and narrowband AMPS technologies.
“We expect the demand for in-building communications to outweigh what the industry can provide because people have become accustomed to being untethered,” said Grace Jenkins, manager of InReach marketing and development engineering. “People are working from multiple workplaces and from a cost point of view, it’s a productivity enhancer,” Jenkins said.
The Panasonic system and the InReach system are designed differently but have one common characteristic-neither provide direct handoffs to the outside, macro network. However, InReach does something that Motorola says will be of greater use.
“We looked into doing handoffs and we don’t think the market is that interested. We think there is more interest in the ability to deliver calls. We’re going to do it this way first,” Jenkins said. So, InReach has an interface that registers all cellular users when they enter or leave the in-building system.
Allen Telecom’s SmartCell Hybrid Wireless private branch exchange recently became commercially available, using AMPS technology. It will be available in Time Division Multiple Access IS-136 digital technology in the third quarter of 1996, Allen Telecom said.
The company believes it is first in the market with a product that provides handoffs to the macro network through a set of interfaces. Calls also can be delivered to cellular phones visiting the system, as well as some roaming features, the company said.
In-building systems are being marketed to health care facilities, manufacturing plants, hotels, retail establishments, car dealerships, school systems and other facilities.
