Frequently asked questions

Counterintuitively, modern buildings are often worse than old ones. Energy-efficient windows with metal coatings, foil-backed insulation, concrete and steel act almost like a Faraday cage and stop the mobile signal from getting in. The more energy-efficient the building, the harder the operator signal has to work to reach inside.

Yes, it does. Many people assume slow networks are caused by too many users, but most connection problems come down to a weak signal. When the signal is clean and strong, the base station does not have to spend capacity correcting errors, and can send more data faster to everyone.

Cheap boosters cannot tell a real mobile signal apart from electronic background noise. They amplify everything, and can actually cause problems for the mobile network around the building. Smart, operator-approved repeaters filter out the noise and lift only the clean signal, so the building gets good coverage without interfering with anyone else.

Passive DAS uses thick coaxial cable that loses a lot of signal along the way, and operators now advise against passive DAS. Active systems use ordinary network cable, and the signal is equally strong however far the antenna sits from the head end. In practice that means a cheaper installation, easier upgrades later, and a better 4G and 5G experience.

No, often the opposite. To deliver the highest 5G speeds, operators use high frequencies (3.5 GHz and above), and those stop almost dead at the outer wall of a modern building. The more the network leans on 5G, the more important it becomes to have a coverage system that brings the signal inside.

WiFi calling is a useful supplement, but it does not replace mobile network coverage. It only works for people logged on to your WiFi, not visitors, customers or people passing through. And if the WiFi goes down, they lose voice as well.

Because the security advice points the other way. NorSIS, Norway’s centre for information security, warns against free WiFi at airports, hotels and cafés, because those networks can give attackers access to your device. The advice is simple: use mobile data where you can, and turn off automatic connection to open networks. Microsoft said the same in August 2026, after business travellers were attacked through hacked hotel guest networks. Treat the network as untrusted, and use a cellular connection instead. But that advice only works if there is coverage inside the building. Where coverage is poor, people have no real choice. They end up on exactly the network they were warned about. That is why an indoor coverage system is also a security measure, not just a comfort.

Sources:NorSIS: digital travel tips (Norwegian) · Forbes: Microsoft issues hotel Wi-Fi warning

Europe’s emergency networks are being rebuilt from dedicated TETRA systems onto Mission Critical Services (MCX) over 4G and 5G. That brings voice, data and video, instead of narrowband voice alone. What matters for a building is where the signal comes from. Norway, Sweden, France and the UK are putting their new networks on commercial mobile networks. Police, fire and ambulance then use the same frequencies and the same base stations as the phone in your pocket. Germany is going the other way and building its own broadband network, using commercial networks only during a transition phase. The consequence is simple. Where emergency services used to need a separate TETRA system in the building, the ordinary indoor coverage system now carries their communication too. Poor indoor coverage stops being a comfort problem and becomes a preparedness problem.

Sources:Nkom: Norway’s new emergency network (Norwegian) · BDBOS: BOS broadband (German)

Norway: the new network is being built in all three commercial mobile networks, directly on 5G. Responsibility moved from DSB to Nkom in August 2025, and the goal is to migrate every current Nødnett user by the end of 2031. Sweden: Rakel is replaced by SWEN, previously called Rakel G2. Migration is planned for 2028 and 2029, full operation in 2030, and the Rakel TETRA network is switched off the same year. United Kingdom: ESN is in service, but shutting down the Airwave TETRA network has been postponed repeatedly and now stands at 31 December 2029. France: the Réseau Radio du Futur runs on commercial networks and opened for service in 2025, targeting 300,000 users by the end of 2028. Germany: the TETRA network is planned to be retired around 2030, and BDBOS is building its own broadband network starting in the early 2030s. Denmark: SINE has been extended on TETRA to 2034, with an option to 2039, while a long-term broadband solution is being assessed. Spain: SIRDEE is being developed towards broadband, with services planned from 2027. These are targets, not guarantees. Several of these programmes have already slipped by years.

Sources:Nkom: Norway’s new emergency network (Norwegian) · Airbus and MSB on the Rakel migration · GOV.UK: ESN summary business case · ACMOSS: Réseau Radio du Futur (French) · BDBOS: BOS broadband (German)

4G (LTE) has been the standard since 2010 and gives good speed and coverage for most needs. 5G is newer and offers higher peak speeds, lower latency and room for many more simultaneous devices, which matters especially at crowded events, in industry and for IoT.

VoLTE stands for Voice over LTE, meaning voice carried over the 4G network. It is why a call connects almost instantly and sounds crystal clear, instead of falling back on older 2G or 3G voice. All recent handsets use VoLTE by default.

No. VoLTE calls run on a separate channel segment within the 4G network and do not consume your data allowance. You can still make calls once your data bundle is used up.

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, and is the official name of the 4G technology.

WCDMA stands for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, and is the technology the 3G network was built on. It has now been phased out in many countries.

NR stands for New Radio and is the technical name for the 5G radio interface, that is, the way 5G actually communicates between the base station and the handset.

Signal strength is how powerful the signal is, in other words how many bars you see. Signal quality describes how clean the signal is, that is, how much noise and interference is mixed into it. You can have full bars and still get a slow connection if the quality is poor. Quality is what decides whether 4G actually delivers high data rates.

NSA stands for Non-Standalone. It means 5G leans on the existing 4G core to manage calls and data traffic. It was the fastest way to roll 5G out, but the design still depends on 4G underneath, and most 5G deployment worldwide still runs NSA.

SA stands for Standalone. Here 5G runs on its own core without depending on 4G. The benefits are lower latency, more consistent performance, and the ability to offer genuinely new services such as network slicing and industrial IoT.

Slicing lets operators divide the mobile network into several virtual networks running at the same time with different characteristics. One slice might be optimised for low latency for critical applications, another for very large numbers of IoT devices, and a third for ordinary mobile use, all on the same physical infrastructure.

5G-Advanced is the next major step in 5G, defined in 3GPP Release 18 and later. It builds on current 5G with AI in the radio network, better battery performance, more precise positioning, and support for new uses such as extended reality (XR) and drones. It is still 5G, just a clearly matured version.

NB-IoT (Narrow Band IoT) is a low-power mobile technology built for machine-to-machine communication, typically sensors, smart meters and alarm systems that send small amounts of data a few times a day. Batteries in such devices can last for years.

RedCap (Reduced Capability), also known as NR-Light, is a mid-tier version of 5G for devices that need more than NB-IoT can deliver but have no use for full 5G performance. Typical applications are wearables, cameras, smartwatches and industrial sensors. The result is cheaper devices with longer battery life than full 5G.

Yes, and it probably already does. Most modern EV chargers use LTE-M (also called LTE Cat-M1) or NB-IoT to report status and handle payment with the charging operator. That is why the charger needs to sit somewhere with mobile coverage to work properly.

Who the system must serve (staff, the public, IoT devices, building management systems), what coverage and capacity levels are required, whether redundancy is needed, whether emergency calling must be guaranteed, and whether single or multi-operator access is wanted. The construction and materials of the building matter too, as does the existing outdoor coverage at the site: that outdoor signal is all a repeater-based solution has to work with.

Signal strength and signal quality per operator and per technology (4G and 5G), the capacity available, and where the dead spots are. Strength alone does not tell you enough: a building can show full bars and still perform badly if quality is low. The survey result is what decides whether a repeater will do, or whether an active system is required.

It depends mainly on how good the outdoor signal is and how large the building is. Where the incoming signal is strong and clean, a repeater can be enough. Where it is not, a compact base station brings the operator signal in over a fixed line instead. Large or complex buildings need a full distributed antenna system, and hybrid designs combining active and passive sections are common.

Single-operator means only one mobile network is carried into the building, so only that operator’s subscribers get coverage. Multi-operator means several networks share the same infrastructure. Multi-operator is more demanding to design and requires each operator to take part and deliver its own signal, but it is far cheaper than building separate systems, and it is usually what a building with mixed tenants and visitors needs.

Because it retransmits licensed spectrum. The frequencies belong to the operators, and anything that amplifies or redistributes them affects the network beyond the building as well. Approval covers which equipment may be used, how it is configured, and who owns and is responsible for each part. The requirements differ from country to country, but the principle that you cannot simply connect your own equipment to licensed spectrum is common to all of them.

Antenna positions and types per floor, the cabling and passive components between them, the link budget along each signal path, the expected coverage level in each area, and the power and cooling the active equipment needs. It also records which frequency bands and how much capacity the design assumes, and where redundancy exists. The radio plan is what the installation is built from, and the reference it is checked against afterwards.

By measuring the finished system the same way the building was surveyed beforehand: coverage across every area and floor, a capacity and function test, and verification that emergency calls actually connect. The measurements are documented and compared against the design. That documentation is what shows the system delivers what was specified, and what an operator will ask to see.