Dali Wireless claims its HDS goes beyond DAS to add wireless coverage, capacity

Dali Wireless rolled out its 10 Gbps High Density System (HDS), which is based on the company's existing RF Router technology that can be used to create radio signal distribution networks. Dali says the HDS can simultaneously and dynamically allocate wireless coverage and capacity on demand.

The HDS is an improvement over Dali's older technology in that HDS offers a faster, 10 Gbps pipe over a single fiber. "The reason for 10 Gbps is AT&T (NYSE: T) is standardizing all of their network switches to operate at 10 Gbps," Dali cofounder and CTO Shawn Stapleton told FierceWirelessTech.  

Dali's digital transport system can pool capacity by amalgamating multiple operators, carrier frequencies and base station sectors, routing capacity to where and when it is needed via a software-defined, virtualized radio distribution network.

Stapleton noted the HDS' 10 Gbps pipe translates to 300 MHz of RF spectrum that can be amalgamated. The system also includes IP fronthaul for Wi-Fi connections.

The Dali RF Router platform can serve as an end-to-end digital distributed antenna system (DAS). But the vendor notes that most DAS deployments are analog, static and require complicated installations, whereas Dali's RF Router is digital, brings fiber to the antenna for more flexibility and is a plug-and-play product. Nonetheless, Dali's technology is usually deployed by the same types of neutral-host providers that deploy DAS into venues that need to enhance coverage and capacity for multiple wireless operators.

Dali says its HDS can simultaneously allocate wireless coverage and capacity on demand. (Image source: Dali Wireless)

Stapleton described how Dali's technology would be used to serve a stadium event. If people regularly tailgate in a stadium parking lot and then move into the stadium, an operator would typically dimension its network to serve the peak traffic in both locations, meaning it would allocate a lot of base station resources to the parking lot and also to the stadium. "With our dynamic capacity allocation, we can actually shift that capacity from the parking lot to the stadium, so you don't have to overprovision your base station," Stapleton said.

He said Dali's technology could be used centralize base station resources and route capacity allocated to a base station hotel to different venues at different times on demand. But he stressed this use differs from the traditional centralized RAN (CRAN) deployment, which is limited to a specific operator, specific technology and specific bands.

Dali is touting HDS for use in rural deployments, saying operators can install the solution in a major city and route the capacity to the nearby rural area where coverage is needed. The company claims its technology has an optical link budget sufficient for operators to deploy over a range as high as 40 kilometers without signal degradation. 

Dali is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., but also has R&D and manufacturing in Vancouver. The company recently closed its third round of financing but declined to provide specifics on its financing.

For more:
- see this release

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