DAS execs from CommScope, SOLiD join Comba Telecom
Comba Telecom has hired two high-profile DAS executives with strong backgrounds in public safety. Patrick Lau, formerly director of business development at CommScope, has joined Comba as VP of strategic development and Ken Haberer, formerly a DAS product line manager at SOLiD, is now Comba's director of sales engineering.
“Adding respected and trusted industry veterans like Patrick and Ken will help Comba expand its brand awareness and recognition in the United States to the next level," said Comba GM Augustin Chang in a press release. Comba, which is based in Hong Kong, has 40 global offices, one of which is in Milpitas, California. The company's wireless infrastructure portfolio includes repeaters, antennas and small cells.
“Comba Telecom is establishing a reputation as an innovative provider of DAS and public safety technologies,” Lau said. “I am excited to join a team that actively listens to customers’ needs and then introduces game-changing capabilities in its products to support both public safety and enterprise in-building communications.”
U.S. public safety DAS is clearly a market Comba wants to address more aggressively, and the new hires should move things in the right direction. Lau is an active board member of the Safer Buildings Coalition and Haberer gained extensive experience with public safety DAS at SOLiD, where he was responsible for managing DAS product lines in North America, and was a key contributor to the development and maintenance of SOLiD’s relationships with carriers, neutral host providers, and value added resellers.
"Comba Telecom gets it," Haberer said in a press release. “Given the rapidly changing cellular landscape and the increased awareness of critical communications, the industry needs a manufacturer like Comba Telecom that understands the collocation challenges presented by these two industries. What resonates the loudest with me is the value Comba Telecom places on good customer support."
Haberer recently posted on Comba's site about public safety DAS, noting that even though some commercial DAS may be able to support public safety bands, converged DAS is not always the best answer. Haberer lists variables that companies need to consider when deciding whether to deploy a converged DAS, completely separated DAS, or a hybrid approach. Among the issues highlighted are:
AHJ codes – Some jurisdictions don’t allow a shared DAS. Even if the do, shared DAS may be more expensive than it seems at first. According to most codes, if a public safety in-building coverage enhancement system shares any active components with a cellular DAS, then those cellular components must comply with code as well and that includes the battery backup requirements and the enclosures that house the active components.
Filtering – A converged DAS can increase the cost of filtering by $500 to $1000 per filter per remote locations, Haberer said.
Coverage – Converged systems will require more remotes in most cases. Haberer said that with a converged DAS, the output power for each remote might need to be reduced by 50% to 75% because of the additional insertion loss from the filters.
Read Haberer's post here .