From Coverage Fix To Smart Buildings

What if one install could fix coverage and unlock an entire layer of building intelligence? We sit down with Michiel Lotter of Nextivity at Mobile World Congress to explore how modern enterprise DAS has evolved from “make the bars appear” to a multi-use platform that delivers public cellular, plug‑in private 5G, and sensor-driven insights across the same footprint.

We break down the Do More with DAS philosophy and why it changes the ROI math for facilities that once viewed in-building coverage as a reluctant expense. Mikhail explains how Nextivity’s system lets teams map antennas to solve dead zones, then mirror that design for private networking by simply connecting a 5G signal source. From there, smart server antennas act as nodes for panic buttons, leak detectors, asset tracking, and environmental sensors, streaming data to an on‑prem edge compute node for fast, secure action.

You’ll hear concrete examples: big box retailers lighting up service in under a week with overnight work; hotel-casino operators meeting staff safety mandates while stopping costly water damage; aged care facilities giving residents dependable connectivity and instant alerts; and hospitals turning their coverage grid into an acoustic awareness network. With embedded microphones and lightweight AI in each antenna, teams can measure noise levels across wards, improving patient experience without deploying a separate sensor mesh.

Along the way, we touch on global carrier approvals, a channel-first approach with system integrators, and the operational win of controlling timelines instead of waiting on lengthy builds. If you care about enterprise connectivity, private 5G, and practical building intelligence, this conversation shows how a single DAS can become the backbone for communications, safety, and analytics.

Subscribe for more deep dives into real-world connectivity, share this with a colleague wrestling with in-building coverage, and leave a review to tell us which multi-use DAS application you’d deploy first.

Transcript

Setting The Stage At MWC Barcelona

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And it's Evan here, and I'm with Mikhail Lauter at Nextivity at Mobile World Congress Barcelona. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

I'm doing great. It's uh awesome to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Well, great to be here. So much innovation happening in mobile. And you guys are right at the forefront. Tell us more about Nextivity and doing more with Daz. I like your catch-all.

Nextivity’s Enterprise DAS Focus

Three Ways To Do More With DAS

Go-To-Market With MNOs And Integrators

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yeah, um, yeah, we like it as well. Um, you know, I think the you know, uh when a company needs to invest in inbuilding uh coverage, it's often like a really reluctant buy, right? I mean, I want my phone to work, but you know, I really think that the operator should be responsible for that, right? And um, so our focus is uh, you know, providing inbuilding DAS systems specifically focused on the enterprise. And uh the value proposition that we have is that we think that once uh enterprises paid the money to install this physical infrastructure in that building, we need to be able to leverage that infrastructure in multiple different ways to provide value to the end customer. And that's what Do More with DAS is all about, right? We have um you know some very strong IP around the uh concept of using the DAS and all of the uh server antennas that are scattered throughout the building as essentially a network to do uh multiple things for the end customer. And there's sort of three primary uh vectors there. So, first is when you install the DAS, you get to improve the uh public cellular coverage that you have. Um that same infrastructure though, with the our quatro product, you can use that to deliver private networking as well. So, someone, you know, when you install the DAS, someone has gone through this effort to figure out exactly where all these antennas need to go. And so when you when you want to upgrade your DAS and to be able to provide private networking, for example, you don't want to go and you know like reinvent the wheel. And so what the uh the quattra system offers you is the ability to just essentially take a uh private network, private 5G signal source and just plug it into the into the quattra, and then that private network signal is delivered across the same footprint as you have for the uh for the public network. And then finally, uh when you deploy uh the DAS using what we call our smart server antennas, each one of those antennas actually become a node that is able to communicate with sensors that you have scattered inside of your building, and we can pick up any of that sensor information and use the DAS as sort of the pathway to get it back to uh edge compute node that we have that sits at the customer's premises. So we can, yeah, so we can essentially collect any information. And so the you know, the the pitch that we have for the end customer is install the DAS once, but expect for you know your partner that is going to deploy the DAS to offer you value across multiple different aspects of your business, right? And so we have a couple of great examples where you know where folks have um have embraced that and where it's allowed them to solve you know really critical business problems in addition to making the phone work.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

That is fantastic. And what's your go-to-market? How do you uh work with the through the telcos in the US and beyond?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah. So um we have sort of two different go-to-markets. So one with uh directly to the MOs. Uh we have uh you know great partnership with MOs across the world. Uh our products have been approved in something like 200 different mobile network operators across 100 different countries. So it's a you know definitely a global footprint. Um so that's a very important channel for us, and we work um you know together with them to deploy into enterprises as well. Uh and then the second uh very important channel for us as well is through our system integration partners, right? So, you know, next timity, we're a channel-focused business, so uh we sell through distribution to system integrators, and those system integrators are the guys that would you know do the work with the with the end customer? We're always there to help. Um, you know, but they they are sort of like the boots on the ground for us, right? And they're they're the folks that you know work on a day-to-day basis with the enterprise and really get to understand like what are all the real pain points that the enterprise have, and you know, how can we solve those for them?

Speedy Deployments In Big Box Retail

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Brilliant. Um, how plug and play would you describe your solution being? I mean, how quickly can I turn on services and connectivity and improve my coverage capacity in a whole nine yards?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Great question, right? The best way to answer it is with an example. Um, we have uh a lot of deployments in like big box stores. And uh typical deployment in a big box store from uh setting foot on the you know on at the store to the system being handed over is typically less than a week. Wow. You know, we take um you know normally it's a day or two to uh you know typically use the uh get the antennas uh connected uh that would point to the base station. Most of these deployments are done off-air. And then we spend you know one day pulling the cables, one day installing the uh the you know the active uh components, and you know, the next night you're up and running. We've uh we have a number of these um uh like big box stores, for example, where these deployments are done with a store open and running, right? It's done at night and you know, set typically you know, in less than a week the system is up and running.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

That's fantastic.

ROI Shift Through Multi-Use Infrastructure

Hospitality Safety And Leak Detection

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Almost unheard of in our industry. So that's the big pain point that we're solving, right? You want to, as an enterprise, you want to be able to have control of your own destiny, which means I want to control the timeline of the deployment. I want to know when it's gonna go in, when am I gonna be on air. And then I said, once this infrastructure is there, how do I leverage that, you know, said multiple times to help me to solve um you know real problems, right? One thing that we often see um, you know, is an enterprise would say, Man, I I have a coverage problem in my building, I want to solve it, but it's just I just cannot you know make the the ROI calculation for it, right, to make it work. And then when you add this do more with DAS concept to it, right, it just changes like that, right? So we have a customer um right now it's a um you know it's a hotel casino you know combination, um they have two very specific pain points, right? In um in certain states in the US, if you are uh work if you work in guest rooms, you must have a panic button. Right. And um, so it's one of the solutions that we have is you can have a panic button solution, and that panic button is picked up by the DAS. So you know, moment that the DAS is installed, basically you've got the panic button solution that gives you the compliance that you need for the uh you know for this uh for this hotel. Uh second problem that they have is uh you know water damage in guest rooms, right? People underneath the bathtub running, etc. So we can put uh leak detectors in every single room, right? And you know, when the leak detector triggers, we can immediately call maintenance and say, you know, go to room you know 512 and solve the problem before it becomes a giant issue, right, that you need, you know, that costs you a ton of money to remediate, plus you're actually losing the revenue from that room, you know, and very often from the room below it, because that's how we found out that there was a leak, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah, no, nightmare scenarios in hospitality for sure. And I see you also active in healthcare and aged care. I'm off to the HIMS, the big healthcare IT show in Las Vegas next week. Yeah. And um can you please deploy in every hospital in the US, please? Because uh every hospital has aged networking infrastructure, poor Wi-Fi, yeah, outdated Wi-Fi, uh often poor coverage, you know, huge facilities now. Yeah. Tell us more about what you're doing there.

Smart Antennas, Audio AI, And Noise Insights

Closing Thanks And Value Promise

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah, um, I think healthcare and and and age care specifically are two you know very important verticals. Um, you know, we've done a number of deployments where you know the um the folks that you know that live in the in the aged care facility, uh, number one, they need to have coverage, right? Uh they need to be able to reach their family. It's it's like the most important thing for them. Right. Um and you know, same thing, right? We can give them that coverage and then um uh the panic button solution that we have, you know, we can give the buttons to the the residents that live there, you press the button, and we can immediately you know send a message to uh the nurses station, for example, right, and dispatch someone to you know to help out. So that's uh I think a very common and very uh effective use case that we have. In hospital, the hospital is actually a very interesting one, right? There's you know, I would say the normal um applications that you know we can track stuff and so forth. But one interesting thing is in the smart server antenna that we have, we actually have a microphone embedded inside of the antenna with a small AI engine that can process the audio, right? And so wow, you know, uh one of the applications that uh that we're looking at is if you in a hospital, um, there's actually the like the noise level in the hospital is very important, right? It's uh part of the you know patient uh uh satisfaction um score that that that a hospital would actually get. So, you know, when you deploy all of this physical infrastructure, uh we can tell you what the noise level is everywhere in your hospital, right? And so, you know, if there's something that you need to do to address that, it's very simple for us to do it. Um so there's I think there's there's very we have all of the uh like the building blocks, right, to really craft very unique solutions. And when you, you know, the sensors is one thing, but when you, you know, with the microphone, for example, and the AI ability that's built into the antenna, that allows us to be really creative in you know in in what we do.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Fantastic. Well, congratulations on all the success and all the value you're delivering, much needed for this industry.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

I appreciate the time. All right, thank you.