HITT- Understanding Connectivity Solutions: Wi-Fi, DAS, and Private Cellular

I am really excited to introduce Graeme Scott, our VP of advanced networking and mobility here at Telarus. Today’s conversation’s all about something that your customers are dealing with every day, but may not always know how to articulate. How do we actually stay connected everywhere? Graeme, thank you again for being here. I’m gonna go ahead and turn it over to you.

Yeah. Thanks, Cass. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us here again today. As Cass said, we really do appreciate all of you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us for this call week in, week out.

Love seeing some of the names on there, folks that I enjoy seeing out on the road, but also here on the call. So thank you so much for joining us. I am joining you today from Salt Lake City, the mothership, where we have our sales engineering summit going on this week. So our engineers are, often asked to let you guys know what’s going on within the portfolio, and we bring them here once a year to train them on what’s new, what’s going on, and all that stuff.

So a lot of deep dives happening today with our engineering team. So if you’re reaching out to them, just give them a little grace. They’ve got a lot going on here over the next couple days trying to improve, what they’re doing for you guys out there. So go ahead, chat Chandler.

Next slide. Let’s talk a little bit about connectivity. Right? And not the typical kind that we’ve talked about before, but, you know, indoor, outdoor connectivity.

I think it is known out here that, you know, the devices, IoT, there’s all kinds of stuff that needs to be connected now, and the way we’ve connected them has changed and evolved. So the title of this one, who’s connecting this stuff anyways, and those of you guys who know the improv scene, there used to be a show called whose line is it anyways, and I kinda love stealing that because it’s kinda like lot of lot of balls in the air, a lot of things going on within the connectivity space right now. And we’re gonna focus on a couple that I get a lot of questions about. Wi Fi, DaaS, and private cellular and how you can tell which one is best for your customer.

So let’s go ahead and move to the next slide.

I think it all sort of starts with this. Right? Those of you who’ve seen one of my Ascend events have seen this slide before, but this is what I call a day in the life slide, and it really shows what the modern expectation for a user is. Right?

According to Ericsson Mobility, over eighty percent of mobile data traffic now originates indoors, yet users expect a seamless experience across indoor and outdoor environments. Meaning wherever they are, they expect to be connected. And, this sort of journey that we see on this slide from home to the commute to work or some sort of coffee shop to work to lunch back home back on the commute and then back at home, our customers expect to be able to connect and be productive throughout all of those phases, and they expect the same experience. So things have kinda changed in that regard, and I think it’s important to note that.

So go ahead to the next slide there, Chandler.

And the big thing that, you know, is really happening is that it’s no longer just indoor connectivity anymore. Right? In today’s day and age, of course, we’re dealing with buildings, warehouses, health care facilities that are indoors, but we’re also seeing all kinds of campuses where there’s multi business environments, open grounds, outdoor yards for, you know, all kinds of distribution and things like that. So there’s a lot of different experiences for where people are expecting this connectivity.

And, again, if I’m in a campus environment, I wanna go from building a across the campus to building c and not lose connectivity wherever I’m going. That’s the expectation. We’ve got over twenty nine billion connected devices by twenty thirty per Statista, and that includes things like IoT devices, mobile devices, and o operational equipment or OT. So the challenge isn’t just can we get signal where we need it?

It’s can we offer continuous connectivity across space. Right? A space, multiple spaces. So I think that’s the challenge, and that’s maybe a little bit where things have changed.

So let’s go to the next slide here, Chandler.

Customers again expect performance, mobility, and security and control. So according to Deloitte, connectivity performance is now directly tied to employee productivity and customer experience outcomes. Right? They expect consistent low latency throughput regardless of where they are.

Gartner estimates network downtime can cost thousands to millions per hour depending on the business. So, again, that performance is critical. So this is no longer just sort of business infrastructure or background infrastructure. This is business critical infrastructure.

And, of course, security and control, we have to talk about that. Identity based access. Right? If we’re gonna have a whole bunch of people in these environments, we we need to make sure we know who’s connecting and who has access to what.

So security is incredibly important in these environments. So we’ll go ahead to the next slide.

So given all this, I think we’ve now sort of come to the realization that we’re no longer in a one size fits all environment. Used to be back in the day, Wi Fi was where it’s at. Right? Where are we?

What’s our environment look like? Let’s slap up some access points. Wi Fi, call it a day. Everybody’s access there.

But, unfortunately, there are challenges. Right? What each each one of these things sort of fail. You know, we’ve got Wi Fi for there, but then cellular, and then, of course, there’s the security concern.

So each technology has a failure point. Right? Wi Fi, it’s mobility and interference. Right? The more we move, the different places we move, we’ve gotta pass from one AP to the other.

And, of course, there’s all sorts of interference that can cause signal issues. Cellular often has a lot of issues with indoor or environment penetration. Maybe cellular works good in one area, not in another. Right?

Warehouses, this is a major issue where you potentially have parts of the facility where people could not get a nine one one call out. These are very concerning things and really important to the business. And then, of course, as I talked about, there’s security limitations for each of these technologies. Some, it’s much more important to be secure than others.

And I think, in some environments, it’s much more important, and I think that has to be considered. So as we look at our customers, we’re we’re taking an one size does not fit all approach now. We need to understand where each of these technologies thrives and where each of them has limitations. So what we’re gonna do is I’m gonna break down each of these areas.

We’re gonna start with Wi Fi, go to DaaS, and then I’m gonna talk a little bit about private cellular. And I’m gonna intentionally not get technical because I don’t think this is a technical conversation. This is a conversation about business outcomes and business needs. So if you wanna get technical and get it to the nitty gritty on how some of these things are delivered, certainly willing to have that conversation.

But I’m not gonna get into it here today because I think the most important elements of this is understanding your customers’ needs, understanding what their desired outcomes are, and pairing it to the right solution.

Okay. So let’s start with Wi Fi because Wi Fi is still the starting point. Right? Almost every conversation does and should, candidly, start with Wi Fi.

IDC estimates that over seventy percent of enterprise traffic is now carried over Wi Fi networks. K? It’s familiar, it’s flexible, and it’s cost effective. So the real question isn’t where should I use Wi Fi.

It’s when when should when do I need to supplement Wi Fi with something else? I think Wi Fi should be part of almost every conversation because it does deliver a lot of value. And, again, it’s super economical. But there are places where Wi Fi reaches its limits.

Even within the Wi Fi thing, we’ve got a couple of different options. So, Chandler, if you wanna go ahead to the next slide, public Wi Fi versus managed Wi Fi. Not all Wi Fi is considered equal. Right?

So you’ve got managed Wi Fi, which brings things like identity based access, segmentation, and visibility. And then, of course, you’ve got your public Wi Fi where open SSIDs, there’s no authentication, shared meeting with unknown users, no segmentation, those kinds of things. And those are fine for some environments, but not others. So understanding your customers’ needs from a security standpoint will tell you, hey.

Even within the Wi Fi segment, am I okay with just a public Wi Fi here like we’ve got in a coffee shop, or do I need something that’s a little more secure, a little more segmented? According to Cisco, over fifty percent of enterprise security incidents involve unmanaged or poorly segmented network access. So this distinction really matters. K?

What kind of security do I need? So let’s go ahead to the next slide, talk a little bit more about managed Wi Fi. So this is where managed Wi Fi can really deliver for your customers. Okay?

It continues to evolve. Over the last couple years, we’ve moved and Wi Fi itself has advanced. We’ve moved from Wi Fi five to six. We’re, now sitting at six e, and Wi Fi seven is starting to, enter the marketplace here.

So what we’re seeing is an evolution within Wi Fi itself. So what does Wi Fi seven introduce? Multilink operation, lower latency, and theoretical throughput exceeding thirty gigabits per second. So that’s gonna meet the demands of a lot of your customers.

Okay? According to the Wi Fi Alliance, Wi Fi seven is specifically designed for high density, high performance environments. So Wi Fi is getting better at things like speed, density, and latency. And as such, it should remain the default starting point for all of these conversations.

Okay? Wi Fi should be part of the conversation. Whether you go managed or public, that said, depends on your customers’ needs, but make sure the starting point is Wi Fi.

So let’s move on to our next slide here, Chandler. So where does Wi Fi break down? Okay? Wi Fi still has some challenges.

Even Wi Fi seven does not solve for things like RF interference, roaming gaps, and outdoor consistency through things like signal fade because Wi Fi is still a shared spectrum technology. Okay? So you’re still sharing spectrum there regardless of the advancements. According to Cisco, performance degradation in dense Wi Fi environments is still a primary enterprise complaint, meaning customers are still complaining about Wi Fi.

Right? So the issue isn’t necessarily capability. It’s consistency. Right? I think most people would agree that Wi Fi is often better in some parts than others depending on what you wanna do.

But, again, I think it is still the starting point for most of these conversations. Next slide, Chandler.

Another limitation that we’ve got with Wi Fi is scaling. Wi Fi can scale, but not always seamlessly. Right? To expand Wi Fi, expand coverage for Wi Fi, we need more access points.

Right? That costs money. We need to wire those access points. We need more tuning. And, of course, the larger area we cover, the more roaming challenges we introduce.

Okay? So we’ve got more issues with moving from AP to another and going through the environment. Large campus deployments often require high density AP design and backhaul optimize optimization to maintain performance, and that’s per Aruba. Okay?

So, again, is Wi Fi good enough, or is Wi Fi alone enough? That’s the question that we should be asking for our customers. Right? We wanna start with Wi Fi, but are those limitations that Wi Fi brings to the party, are those deal breakers breakers for your customer and your customer’s environment.

So next slide here, we’re gonna pivot into something called DaaS. Right? Daas stands for distributed antenna system, and there’s a couple of different versions of DaaS. So in many cases, sometimes it’s not the Wi Fi that’s the problem, it’s the cellular that’s the problem.

So studies show significant indoor signal degradation often between twenty to thirty decibels of loss due to building materials like concrete, metal, and glass, and that’s for, per three GPP. So, that’s a industry, section there. Industry, one of those industry experts. You know?

So, basically, what that means is based on the construction of the building that you’ve got, the materials you’re using, the size of it, you may have issues with cellular penetration.

And where does that become a problem? And it for things like drop calls, app failures, and those types of things. Like I mentioned earlier in the call, there are some warehouse facilities out there where certain parts of the facility, someone would not be able to make a nine one one call in the events of an emergency. Obviously, that’s a major concern for people who operate in those kind of environments. But I think it’s important to realize that when you’re talking about that, you’re solving a different problem. You’re solving a problem of coverage, not connectivity architecture.

So let’s talk a little bit about what DaaS does. Let’s go to the next slide, Chandler.

So DaaS solves this problem by extending the carrier signal indoors. It essentially takes the signal that is outside and brings it inside the facility to allow it to penetrate the environment. And the key benefit is simplicity. Right?

You bring that in. You do that. Users don’t have to change their behavior. This is why things like DAS are widely used in places like hospitals, stadiums, and airports.

You know, you’re not asking the users to change anything they’re doing. They’re just using their cell service, their cellular devices as they would anywhere else. They’re just now getting better coverage because we’ve extended the signal.

So very, very popular in a lot of areas. Like I mentioned, hospitals, stadiums, airport, anywhere that cellular reliability is critical. So a distributed antenna system essentially, again, just rebroadcast the carrier signal throughout a building or campus by distributing small antennas connected to a central signal source. Okay?

Now that’s DaaS. Daas is transparent to users. The carrier connection simply works. K? So that’s a big thing.

Again, the users don’t experience anything different. Let’s go to the next slide.

There are a couple of DaaS variants. Right? So, basically, when you’re talking about a traditional DaaS, you’re going to your major cell carriers, the Verizon’s, the AT and T’s, the T Mobile’s, and you’re creating, you’re asking them to extend their signal through the campus. Now that can take a long time, and it can be expensive.

So there’s a lot of a a heavy lift there for the carriers. So with the traditional DAS, you’ve got a fairly expensive solution, and it’s often considered custom by the carriers. And, of course, it relies on the carriers themselves to execute. So there’s a couple of variants that we’ve got within the portfolio.

One of those is called Sellfy, which is a faster and lower cost, and it is more of a targeted solution that basically is purpose built for specific buildings. Much less, much less expensive and a lot easier to deploy. Granite is one of the companies that has that, and it’s a it’s a good cup it’s a good product. And what it does is it is carrier neutral.

So it’ll come in there and extend the signal for all of the, the carriers in there. Important to realize, though, this doesn’t replace a DaaS solution. It’s just an ex expansion of the accessibility. Okay?

So pre integrated pro approaches to delivering cellular, services. So so the trade off. So let’s go to the next slide here.

Talk a little bit about the trade off. Coverage without control. So DaaS solves coverage extremely well. It gives us more coverage.

It extends that cellular signal into the space that we want it to, but it is still controlled by the carrier, which means that we have no visibility, we have no segmentation, and we have no control. So if you wanna put your security hat on right now, according to NIST and and the enterprise security framework, lack of visibility into network traffic is a major risk factor in modern security models. So DaaS becomes coverage only, no control. Okay?

So I think that’s an important thing to realize. Again, you are still relying on the carrier networks regardless of the model of DAS you use. And as the property or building owner, you don’t have control over the traffic that’s on there. That is still done and maintained by the carriers.

Maybe in your environment, that’s not a big deal, but in some environments, that will be incredibly consequential. So let’s move over to the next slide here. So mobility and control have really kind of changed everything. When devices move, the cup the requirements change.

In logistics and health care environments, real time connectivity is required for operational systems like WMS, EHR, and asset tracking. So now it’s not just about the signal. It’s about session persistence, meaning continuing that connection throughout the environment and performance. Right?

We wanna make sure that that thing the the devices that we have that are critical to our mission can perform. These are very important things and things like logistics and warehousing. Right? I don’t know if you’ve seen video of Amazon warehouses, but the forklifts are automated.

They’re running around. They’re doing their own thing. They’re getting their direction over the wireless communication there. So if they lose that communication or it breaks for whatever reason, they hit an area of the warehouse that doesn’t have good coverage, what do you think happens to that forklift?

It just stops. It stops and waits for its next signal. So that is not good from a productivity standpoint for any and all of these types of buildings. So enter private cellular.

Let’s go to the next slide.

So private cellular is a different model and is kind of the, I think, the evolution that we’ve seen, or the the end the end result of sort of a lot of these challenges that have bubbled up on the Wi Fi side and the cellular side. Private cellular solves for a lot of these challenges. It flips the model. Right?

Instead of a shared, like Wi Fi, or a carrier controlled, like, DaaS network, the enterprise owns and controls the network within their, facility. Okay? So why does private cellular exist? Well, it delivers on all three of these pillars.

Right? You can deploy on dedicated spectrum. You can manage access for via the SIM, and you can integrate with enterprise systems. Why?

Because you have control over the infrastructure. Essentially, private cellular is is you operate on licensed spectrum that is owned and operated and controlled by the enterprise. So somebody like *** Private Networks will provide you with private spectrum for your facility. Tons of advantages to that.

So let’s go to the next slide.

Why does private cellular exist? Well, it delivers on all three of those pillars that businesses require. Mobility. Right?

Seamless handoff across all the cells with no reauthentication. Essentially, it works the same way your cell phone does as you go from tower to tower to tower, except within the facility, you’re going from, access point to access point to access point. No need to reauthenticate at each one as you see in a Wi Fi environment. Right?

Delivers all three pillars. It delivers mobility, and it delivers performance. Right? Dedicated spectrum means no contention with public users.

Low latency, high reliability. There’s no competition for that spectrum within the building. You own it. You control it, and you get to decide who gets what.

If you’ve got certain devices that require more spectrum, you can prioritize that because, of course, you have control. And then the last thing, security. In some environments, security is paramount. And what private cellular does is it’s a SIM based authentication.

So full IT visibility, you can see who is use which SIMs are accessing the network at any and all times and cut off access for those you don’t want there.

The private five g market is projected to grow at about thirty to forty percent compound annual growth rate through the decade. That’s per Gartner. Why? Because it delivers deterministic performance, not best effort. And I think that’s a big differentiator from some of the others. So let’s go to the next slide.

Even here, we see a trend. Right? Gartner highlights a shift towards consumption based and managed infrastructure models across networking. So your customers are asking, do I want control?

Do I need to control what’s happening in my environment, or do I want simplicity? I don’t wanna manage it. I want best effort. I want something that’s very simple and easy to use.

Those are kind of the questions that the customers are asking. Is it important for me to control this, to have visibility, to decide who gets to access what, or do I wanna default you know, pass that off, defer to the carriers, and let them decide that. So those are some of the questions that your customers need to ask. So let’s move on to the next slide.

Great. What does that mean for you guys? Okay. So as I said, I didn’t really get technical on any of this.

It’s really about matching the tech to the environment.

And there’s really no single one size fits all solution. I think in most cases, you’re gonna end up with a mix of a couple of different options. Right? Maybe Wi Fi and DaaS or Wi Fi and a private cellular.

Private cellular. These are the kind of things that your customers are probably gonna be looking for. But each one of these has a trade off. Right?

Wi Fi is very flexible and variable. DaaS has coverage with no control. Private cellular is control, but it’s very complex, and it’s expensive. Right?

Now I know there’s a couple of suppliers probably on the call here saying, wow. The cost come way down. True. But relative to the other solutions, private cellular is still the premium or Cadillac option.

It is a very expensive option within the portfolio for a good reason though. Right? It delivers a lot of value and is very, very effective at what it does. But the key here is matching the technology to the environment.

What is your customer’s outcomes? What do they need? What do they what is important for them? And then we compare that with the solution.

So move to our next slide here. Got a few discovery questions for you guys.

Better questions equal, of course, better outcomes. So the right technology choice starts with the right questions. Right? We wanna make sure that we are asking the right questions to find out what is important to our customers.

So where does when we’re looking at their current environment, we wanna dig in a little bit and ask some questions. Hey. Where is connectivity failing today? Where are you having issues?

Where are dead zones? Where the complaints and the workarounds, what are you guys doing to make sure that you can have, you know, somebody can make a nine one one call in the back of your warehouse? There’s oftentimes things that your customers have put in place that probably create risk in the environment, maybe more more secure you know, more security issues, etcetera.

Do device second question here, do devices move across the space? So stationary users are a Wi Fi problem. Moving devices, forklifts, all those kind of things, that’s a mobility problem. That requires a totally different approach.

So if we’ve got people going throughout the facility going from here to there, we’ve got forklifts, now we need to make sure we’re solving for mobility within the environment. If we’ve got a traditional office environment where people generally tend to stay in one place for long longer periods of time, That is more of a Wi Fi type problem. We just need connectivity at that location. So another good question.

This one really, really important, and I think, Josh Haselhorst, one of our engineers, really loves driving this question. Which applications do you rely on to make money? What can’t fail? Right?

We’ve gotta identify mission critical applications, mission critical technology within, production environments, warehouse environments. What can’t fail? If downtime has a dollar value or a safety impact, the network needs to be deterministic, not best effort. Right?

It needs to be, built for performance. How important is control and visibility? You know, I had a call with a customer. It was a a manufacturer, and they were doing sensitive a lot of sensitive science that they had.

It was a manufacturing facility, but patents and those kind of things were being used. So security was incredibly critical to them. Right? These are a lot of intellectual property that they’ve got that they’re using.

They wanted to make sure that they knew at all times who was accessing, who was online, who was on the network so that if there was something there that they didn’t recognize, they could get it out. Security was incredibly important to them. They had billions of dollars invested in intellectual property. So how important is control and visibility?

Security sensitive or compliance driven organizations care about this a lot more than others do. And here’s the the last question here. Do you need to own this, or do you wanna consume this? Okay?

Does the organization wanna own and operate the network? Meaning, I want control over my network. I wanna be able to decide who has access at what times. Or am I okay with passing that off to somebody else in either a managed Wi Fi environment or, or to the carriers through something like DaaS.

So, hopefully, these questions will help you guys zero in on a few of the differences that we’ve got here. Again, what we wanna do is pair the tech to the customer’s desired outcome. Before we start talking technical, before we start getting into the nitty gritty of how these services are provided, how the solutions are are delivered, we want to really understand the business needs and the business outcomes. And that will tell them which direction we want to send their, send them in with in terms of connectivity.

So I think, Chandler, that might be my last slide if I’m not, if I’m not mistaken.

So let’s go ahead and open things up for a question and answers. Cass, I don’t know if you wanna jump in here and, help me out with directing some, some questions here. But, obviously, we’re Absolutely. We’ve got fairly active chat this morning, which I love.

One of the ones I picked up pretty early in the conversation is DAS practical for outdoor settings such as, like, golf courses, country clubs, campuses with poor connectivity?

Absolutely. It can be. You know? And, again, because, you know, a lot of times people are just using their cell phones there.

And I think in in a case of a golf course, like, especially a public golf course, that actually might be the ideal scenario for them. Right? Hey. I don’t want to be responsible for providing Wi Fi.

Let me just see if I can extend the existing cellular carriers to these things and let people just use their own devices. So, again, pairing that tech with the customer’s desired outcome, right, and then with the environment. So DAS can work in a situation like that. Depends on the size of the golf course.

Right? You might need multiple antennas to cover a large golf course or, you know, in some cases, multiple golf courses. But, yeah, that that can be a a great solution for them. Especially in a scenario like that, they’re very likely not wanting to control who’s on it at any time.

They don’t care. It’s better for them just to pass it off and say, hey. Use your own device, and then your the carriers are responsible for all those kind of things. Anything else?

Any other? Yeah.

Absolutely. So we had a few questions, I think, that are around the same thing, but I’m gonna go with this one first. Who is the best person, department, role to have these discussions with?

Well, that’s gonna vary within the organization. Right? I think you’re gonna be marrying it. So in an environment like, I’ll tell you the, the one that I was talking about where we had a it was a scientific company and they had a lot of intellectual property.

We were dealing with the CSO. Right? The CSO was very involved in the conversation because he security and control was a big deal to them. They wanted to make sure that they had everybody there.

So you’re talking to a c level person in that case. Oftentimes, and I think this is the case with a lot of these technologies as we start to get advanced, Oftentimes, we’re you’re it’s the IT manager or the procurement division of IT who a lot of our TAs work with on a regular basis. Typically, they do not.

They are not the ones that are gonna be making this decision. Right? They’re gonna be responsible for implementation. However, they are a great place to uncover where there are challenges because trouble tickets, issues, all those kind of things are gonna flow to those individuals.

Now they may need your help to plead their case to the higher ups about, hey. We really need to get a DAS in here. Our Wi Fi, we’re having challenges. We need to make some changes to our Wi Fi policy.

So they may be the ones to uncover the challenges, but, ultimately, oftentimes, they are not the ones making the decisions about what approach to take there. So kind of a mixed Okay. A a let’s the classic IT answer. Right?

It depends. So I love a Yeah.

That’s perfect. Makes perfect sense. Obviously, it would be different across the board depending on who you’re talking to. Absolutely.

One question that kinda came through is, like, how would a new TA determine what is the best solution if they’re in a in a scenario like this?

Yeah. So I think, you know, when we look at our outcome based selling model that we’ve been teaching across all of our all of our swim lanes these days, it starts with the business. Right? We really need to understand how the business operates and what’s important to the business.

So any technical conversation, whether it be Wi Fi versus DaaS versus private cellular, we wanna start with the business. What is important to the business? And I think those discovery questions that we had earlier kinda hit at a lot of those elements. Right?

What applications do you have that can’t fail? Do you have users moving within your environment from place to place to place? Those are business questions. Those aren’t technical questions, and I think that’s typically where you need to start.

Is it important for you to have employees that go from building a on one side of the campus to building b on the other side of the campus and be connected the entire time? Or does it matter if they lose connection between the buildings and they just pick it up with those are business related questions that we need to ask. And, again, I think, like like, we’re talking through all of our swim lanes, whether it be CX, cyber, network, cloud, the you start with the business with all of these conversations. What’s happening in the business and, and what can we deliver there?