License Issuance, Rural Rollouts Continue to Drive Antenna Industry

( 1 May 2008 )

By Stephen Las Marias, Editor


Wireless Design and Development Asia recently spoke with Ben Cardwell, Vice President, Andrew Wireless Solutions (a division of Commscope), about the latest developments, trends and opportunities in the antenna systems industry. Excerpts:

How do you see the antenna systems segment perform this year, and which industries will mainly drive this industry?
We continue to see very high demand for these products, especially in the Asia-Pacific, where there are many build-outs going on, especially in places like India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. In India for example, a lot of the subscribers are in the rural areas, so the focus in India, and other developing markets like that, is to try to get coverage out there so that you can get more population that have access to mobile services.

Other drivers include the expansion of 3G networks and even WiMAX build-outs. In the metropolitan areas, it is not about the basic coverage, but to bring more capacity to the congested networks.

What are some of the major technological changes that Andrew witnessed and addressed last year?
The networks have become more sophisticated, thereby the need for more sophisticated products, especially in the 3G arena, as operators are working to fine-tune their networks—making them perform optimally while making them more cost-effective from an operational perspective.

We have lots of technologies in the antenna space, such as the beamforming antennas, which allow the operators to change the coverage of the network dynamically, from different times of the day, depending on the demand types of the network. For example, in the morning, you can shift the coverage from a particular site and focus that cell site tower¡¯s energy radiation on the highway, where people are going to for work. During the business day when there is no real need for demand in the highway and people are in the office buildings, you can shift a few degrees to another direction and then cover the office buildings or towers. Those types of things allow operators to make the most of the coverage that they are deploying.

We have a released a new line of feeder systems as well, which actually reduce capex without compromising performance in anyway.

In the active arena, we have seen the power amplifier technologies improving. There's always the demand to get more efficiency out of the power amplifier, so that the operators have lower operating costs in their network and that you can actually get more power in the RF devices in the network.

What are the opportunities and challenges that will face the wireless industry this year?
From an opportunity perspective, I think the issuance of 3G licenses in some countries that they don't exist today—for example, India, Vietnam, and Thailand. In terms of opportunity, there is WiMAX, which is starting to get traction in some markets, particularly Taiwan, Japan, and even in India, where there have been some early WiMAX rollouts. So we are really watching to see how that develops. I think that will be a good opportunity for the industry as a whole.

Also the rural rollouts as well, being able to help the operators to be able to get that wireless coverage into the rural communities, where there are large demand for wireless communications services.

But these opportunities obviously drive the challenges. For new rollouts, the challenge is site acquisition, that's one. Our goal is to try to help these operators solve their site acquisition problems by allowing co-siding, that is, allowing the sharing of common infrastructure by multiple operators.

In metro areas, site concealment is also an issue because of the aesthetics—in a lot of places, you can't just put up an antenna on a roof or on a corner of the building.

As you look ahead in the next several years, what specific trends do you see emerging that are going to help steer Andrew's focus?
I think we see the markets further developing and maturing. But I think we will have different types of markets in the Asia-Pacific. We have some more emerging markets that are still in its growth phase; these include Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. We also have mature markets, like Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and Singapore, where the focus is more on high value-added services.

So what's going to steer our roadmaps? We have to look at both these types of markets: in those developing markets, our focus is helping operators roll out these new sites in a most cost-effective way possible. Also, it is not just about products in these markets, it is also about our model, which really is to localize in these markets so that we can provide not just great products, but also great logistics, time delivery—as they roll out these big networks.

In the metros, we are focusing on WiMAX, LTE, and 3G solutions, as operators are trying to add capacity to their networks in these areas and use spectrums more efficiently. So that includes site checking solutions.

Site acquisition is a big problem in congested areas. It is very tricky to design an RF or a new mobile network in a space that already has three or more networks. Also, it's very hard and expensive to find a new rooftop to not just install a new basestation, but the filtering solutions, the antenna solutions, the feeder solutions—to be able to allow operators to share the same sites in a way that doesn't impact the performance of the network, and also make it cost effective for them.

How important is Asia in your business plan?
Asia is very important in our business. From our Andrew Wireless Solutions business last year, 19 percent of our business comes from Asia. We see Asia as a very strong business for us; and we are making investments accordingly. For example, in February last year, we inaugurated a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Goa, India, to serve the Indian market and the Southeast Asian region. As CommScope, about 30 percent of our 16,000 employees globally are in Asia-Pacific. We are investing in design as well as manufacturing, field sales and customer support.


CAPTION
Ben Cardwell