Manufacturers shipped more than 88,000 handsets in 1995 as the market for in-building wireless communications systems began its trajectory toward an estimated 1.6 million handsets shipped in the year 2000, according to a new study from InfoTech Consulting Inc.
The Parsippany, N.J.-based company said in-building wireless vendors enjoyed a combined system sales gain of 134 percent in 1995 to $100 million as industries such as healthcare, retailing, manufacturing and warehousing/distribution embraced the convenience of portable phones for premises-wide mobility in conjunction with existing private branch exchange or Centrex service, InfoTech said. The company predicts sales will double in each of the next two years and reach $1.2 billion by 2000.
The study segments in-building technologies into four categories: products which use the Industrial, Scientific and Medical band at 900 MHz, microcellular products using cellular frequencies at 800 MHz, new products for the unlicensed personal communications services band at 1920-1930 MHz and for the licensed PCS band at 1850-1990 MHz.
Terry White, a senior director at InfoTech noted that linking in-building technology with effective distribution channels created by PBX/Centrex vendors is critical to its growth. The established vendors have an installed base of customers with pent-up demand for wireless service giving in-building manufacturers a quicker time to market, he said.
Systems using the ISM band have dominated the past two years, but InfoTech projects that this segment’s growth will soon plateau as vendors migrate to the new unlicensed PCS frequencies.
The ISM band is crowded with applications ranging from cordless telephones to baby monitors regulated as Part 15 devices by the Federal Communications Commission. White said interference was not an issue for in-building wireless systems but may have become one as growth continued and more vendors tried to use the band. The FCC wanted to allocate spectrum dedicated to in-building wireless.
Providing in-building wireless service is attractive to cellular and PCS carriers seeking new subscribers, White said.
“Cellular carriers see this as a major opportunity not just to acquire in-building users but out-of-building users also,” he said.
To do this, carriers “will want to not limit their distribution to their existing channels but also develop agency relationships with PBX vendors,” he said.
The carriers also will have to develop new pricing schemes for dual-domain service.
