Preparing for the 5G indoor coverage era

Michelle Engarto, VP, wireless product management at Corning Optical Communications, is responsible for its wireless portfolio, which includes small cells, DAS and hybrid wireless solutions. Corning had an established presence in the DAS market, but added a new string to its bow when it acquired pioneering small cell provider SpiderCloud in 2017.

There are plenty of enterprises still crying out for 3G/4G indoor coverage, and Engarto is keen to capitalise on this need using the established portfolio of solutions. However, looking to the near future, she says: “Our task now is to get enterprises ready for 5G and all the applications we expect to come with it.

“First, we need to provide an upgrade path to 5G for our 4G small cells and DAS platform, and second, we need to make sure we have solutions that are attractive for enterprises. At present, providing indoor coverage for middle-sized buildings is not an attractive proposition for mobile network operators (MNOs) to solve, but they are too small for enterprises to solve themselves with a full-blown DAS solution.”