HetNet News: AT&T neutral host DAS, Huawei indoor small cells

AT&T neutral host DAS at University of Kansas
AT&T says its distributed antenna systems business is separate from its wireless service, and can offer solutions that will serve customers of all wireless networks. The University of Kansas is onboard, having just contracted with AT&T to install neutral host DAS at its Allen Fieldhouse and Memorial Stadium.
University officials said that the DAS will benefit not only sports fans and others who come to campus for events, but also people who live near the venues. Those people have had a hard time using their mobile devices when the campus area is crowded, because the nearby towers cannot handle all the traffic.
AT&T will charge its competitors to connect to the distributed antenna systems. The carrier is installing the two systems at no cost to the university.
Huawei LampSite 2.6 small cells in trials with Vodafone
Vodafone employees at the company’s UK headquarters can now access the carrier’s LTE network using Huawei’s small cell technology in low-range spectrum. Vodafone’s 2.6GHz spectrum is well-suited for urban area small cell connectivity.
LampSite is Huawei’s indoor small cell solution. It supports LTE TDD, LTE FDD, UMTS and GSM, and can be deployed simultaneously with the vendor’s SingleRAN solution. Here in the United States, Cisco and SpiderCloud Wireless have competing indoor small cell solutions.
FCC opens up broadcast spectrum for Wi-Fi
One of the outcomes of last week’s FCC meeting was a federal commitment to set aside 1-3 channels of broadcast spectrum for unlicensed use. This is the second piece of good news for Wi-Fi service providers this spring. Earlier this year the FCC made 100 megahertz of 5GHz spectrum available for Wi-Fi. That spectrum was previously licensed exclusively to Globalstar.
TV broadcasters are open to selling some of their spectrum, and wireless service providers are looking forward to the FCC’s planned auction of broadcast spectrum next year. Now it is clear that a portion of the broadcast airwaves that are transitioning will not go to cellular service providers, but instead will become unlicensed spectrum available for Wi-Fi connections.
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