Warehouses are some of the hardest buildings for cellular signal: metal roofs, tall racking, concrete floors and long distances from any window. Staff phones, handheld scanners and safety communication all suffer. The usual first response is a booster. The usual second response is another booster.
Why boosters pile up
A single-carrier booster or network extender improves coverage for one network in a limited area. When the next complaint comes from someone on a different carrier, or from the far end of the building, another device goes on the wall. Some distribution centers end up with eight or more units and still have dead zones.
What a booster does well
- A small space with one problem area.
- A team that is all on one carrier.
- A quick, temporary improvement while a proper design is planned.
What a DAS does differently
- Covers every carrier from one system instead of one device per carrier.
- Is designed from measured data, so antennas go where coverage actually fails.
- Scales across large floor plans and multiple buildings.
- Replaces the patchwork, which simplifies support and reduces devices to maintain.
Measure before you buy
The most expensive approach is buying hardware first and measuring later. A heat map survey walks the building and records signal for each carrier, floor by floor and aisle by aisle. It shows exactly where coverage fails and why, which turns a guessing game into a design.
A national wine and spirits distributor had extenders from different makers in most locations, and still struggled with signal. SimpleCom is running indoor heat map and DAS surveys at each site and designing multi-carrier coverage to replace the patchwork. Read Warehouses where phones finally work.
Common questions
Will a DAS help handheld scanners that use cellular?
Yes. Anything that relies on the cellular network benefits from stronger, more consistent indoor coverage.
Can existing boosters stay in place?
Usually they are removed once the DAS is live, since overlapping systems can interfere with each other. The design will call it out.
Do we need to survey every building?
Yes. Each building has its own construction, layout and outside signal, so each one needs its own data.
Still adding boosters and hoping?
One team to survey, install and support every site, on your timeline.