Your Building Doesn’t Need a $1 Million DAS. Here’s What It Needs Instead.

For years, Australian property developers have been told the same thing: if you want mobile coverage in your apartment building, you need a Distributed Antenna System, and you need to pay for it.

A mid-size build? Budget $300,000 to $750,000. A large tower? You could be looking at $3 million or more. All of it sitting on your cost sheet. None of it generating a single dollar of return.

There’s a better way. And it runs over the WiFi network your building already needs.

The DAS Problem Nobody Talks About

A DAS, Distributed Antenna System, is a network of antennas installed throughout a building to repeat and distribute mobile carrier signals. It exists because modern concrete and steel construction blocks outdoor cellular signals so effectively that residents in many apartments can barely make a call from their own living room.

Historically, if you wanted to fix that, a DAS was your only option.

But here’s what the telco industry rarely advertises: carriers won’t contribute to the cost in residential buildings. No subsidy. No cost-sharing. The entire capital outlay falls on the developer or building owner. Then you pay ongoing maintenance on top of that for the life of the building.

It’s expensive, it takes months of carrier approvals to commission, and once it’s in, it just sits there. It doesn’t earn anything. It’s pure infrastructure cost, for as long as you own the asset.

The Shift That Changes Everything

In 2024, Australia completed the shutdown of all 3G mobile networks. Every voice call on every Australian network now runs over 4G VoLTE or 5G, and critically, over WiFi Calling (VoWiFi).

WiFi Calling lets any modern smartphone make and receive standard calls over a WiFi internet connection, same number, same carrier, same experience. No cellular signal required.

All three major Australian carriers, Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone, support WiFi Calling. All three support Triple Zero (000) calls via WiFi Calling. Regulatory obligations for emergency call access sit with the carriers, not building owners. And the vast majority of smartphones sold in Australia today, iPhones, Samsung, Pixel, Oppo, support it out of the box.

This changes the entire calculus for in-building mobile coverage.

What a Modern WiFi Network Can Replace

A well-designed enterprise WiFi network, one built for an apartment building, not a coffee shop, can deliver everything a DAS does for voice calling:

• Full building coverage, including corridors, car parks, and common areas
• Seamless mobility, so calls don’t drop when residents move between floors
• Triple Zero (000) access, via WiFi Calling on all major carriers
• Voice traffic prioritisation, so a call never gets starved by someone streaming video

The key word is well-designed. This isn’t about throwing a few consumer routers in a comms room. It requires enterprise-grade access points with WiFi 7, proper RF coverage planning, QoS configuration, and redundant internet uplinks. Done right, it’s a like-for-like replacement for what a DAS delivers, at a fraction of the cost.

The Number That Matters

Here’s a direct comparison for a typical 80-unit, 8-floor apartment building:

That’s a saving of 60 to 85 percent over ten years.

And unlike a DAS, your WiFi network doesn’t just sit there.

The Part That Makes It a Business Case

Here’s where it gets interesting for developers and investors.

The same infrastructure that delivers WiFi Calling throughout your building is the same infrastructure that delivers internet services to every resident. With the right platform, like Liveport’s managed network solution, you’re not just installing utilities. You’re standing up a revenue-generating service.

Every resident connected to your managed WiFi network generates recurring monthly income for the building. Premium speed tiers, additional services, smart building integrations, all running on the same cables, the same access points, the same gateway you’ve already paid for.

You replace a $1 million cost centre with an asset that pays you back every month.

That’s a fundamentally different conversation to have with an investor, a financier, or a board. The infrastructure that used to be a line item in the construction budget becomes a revenue stream in the operational budget.

The Regulatory Position

The question developers always ask: are we legally required to install a DAS?

The answer, confirmed by the NSW Telco Authority, is that there is no building code, regulation, or legislation in Australia that mandates a cellular DAS in a residential apartment building.

What does exist is the Government’s updated Telecommunications in New Developments (TIND) policy, which since February 2024 expects developers of new residential developments with 50 or more lots to actively consider mobile coverage during the planning process, treating it as essential infrastructure alongside water and electricity.

A documented, enterprise-grade WiFi network with WiFi Calling capability satisfies that expectation. It demonstrates to planners, certifiers, and future owners that mobile communications have been properly addressed, without the $1 million price tag of a full DAS installation.

What You Still Need to Know

This isn’t a “set and forget” solution, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise.

A WiFi-based approach requires:

• Redundant internet connections, dual up links from different providers, with automatic failover. If the internet goes down, so does WiFi Calling. Redundancy closes that gap.
• UPS for all network equipment, power your network infrastructure through an outage, the same way a DAS would need its signal source backed up.
• Professional RF design, access point placement must be engineered for the building, not guessed. Coverage in underground car parks and stairwells needs specific attention.
• Resident onboarding, WiFi Calling needs to be enabled on residents’ devices. A clear setup guide at move-in is all it takes for most people.

One area where WiFi Calling has a genuine limitation: location accuracy for 000 calls. A DAS gives carriers better signal triangulation data within a building. WiFi Calling relies on device GPS, which is less precise indoors. The Emergency+ app (developed by Australia’s emergency services) partially addresses this by sending precise GPS coordinates directly to 000 operators, and we recommend all residents install it.

For most residential apartment buildings, this is a manageable gap. For very large or complex buildings, a conversation with your state fire authority is worth having, particularly regarding public safety radio requirements for first responders, which are separate from civilian mobile coverage entirely.

The Bottom Line

Australian apartment buildings have been overpaying for in-building mobile coverage for years. The 3G shutdown, the universal adoption of WiFi Calling, and the availability of enterprise-grade WiFi 7 infrastructure have fundamentally changed what’s possible.

The question for developers and investors is no longer “how much will our DAS cost?”

It’s “why are we still building DAS at all?”