MCF 2025 – Australian Standard for Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)
Multi Carrier Forum (MCF2025) has been a journey for the DAS industry. We had an MCF released in 2022, which was subsequently withdrawn due to property owner pushback. MCF2025 was first drafted for consultation in 2023, following two rounds of feedback, in which WCS responded to the consultation. Now, MCF2025 is upon us, essentially a pragmatic evolution of MCF2018. The newest edition clarifies the pathway to facilitate the industry’s transition to 5G, mainly around the 3300-3800 MHz spectrum.
The much-anticipated MCF 2025 was released in May 2025, providing the industry with clarity to the Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) requirements. Mostly, there are not too many surprises, with the overall focus on additional 5G coverage metrics, 3300- 3800 MHz band support. This article will outline some key differences between MCF2025 and the former MCF2018. The article doesn’t cover everything you need to consider in DAS design, but rather highlights the key differences between the iterations of the MCF specification. You may find our introduction to DAS helpful if you are not too familiar with DAS.
The Mobile Carrier Forum (MCF) is the governing body for DAS specifications in Australia and comprises of Telstra, Optus, and TPG/Vodafone. The MCF2025 specifications and other relevant information are published on the AMTA website.
The Transition to MCF2025
Unlike previous iterations of the MCF, little detail is provided regarding the transition or ‘grandfathering’ between standards to MCF2025. The impact of MCF2025 on a specific project will vary significantly based on the current stage of the project, contractual obligations, building type, the DAS topology, or even the tenants’ or telco carriers’ expectations.
Some sites with a Passive DAS may already be able to support the 3300 – 3800MHz band and require no changes to meet the MCF2025 requirements (score). Other Hybrid DAS sites may need to consider adding additional remote hardware to meet the new 3.5GHz band requirement for 5G
The industry has mostly kept pace with these changes, and many installations have already informally complied with the expected requirements of MCF2025 long before its release.
Wireless Coverage Solutions is intimately familiar with the requirements of the MCF2025 across all asset types, having provided extensive feedback during the consultation period since 2023. If you want to understand what impact the MCF2025 is going to have on your upcoming or inflight projects, get in touch
Solution Categories in MCF2025
Previous iterations of the MCF were largely prescriptive in the minimum solution suitable for a building type. MCF2025 provides a little more flexibility for the more common building types. This allows building owners who fit within the “standard” category to pick a solution that’s appropriate to their use case, as per the below MCF2025 extract.
High-capacity buildings, such as stadiums and airports, and extensive infrastructure fall within the “custom” category, which calls for an 8-band 2×2 MIMO DAS to support the expected capacity demanded by a high-traffic site.
MIMO DAS in MCF2025
If you are not familiar with MIMO, you can read our dedicated article here. In short, a MIMO system offers increased data speeds and, thus, capacity, particularly effective in the outdoor tower-based network
Wireless Coverage firmly feels the MCF2025 overstates the capabilities of 2×2 MIMO as per our submission to the consultation (linked here). While a doubling of data speeds does inherently increase capacity, various other means for increasing capacity exist that offer better value to property owners. The MCF2025 suggests that MIMO technology will “increase coverage… [and] … better service” whilst alluding to (but not detailing) 5G features limited to MIMO. However, more often, MIMO antennas have worse coverage patterns. MIMO technology essentially assists the telcos in meeting the expectations of speed test numbers promised to consumers in 5G marketing. However, MIMO does not improve the coverage area or the ability to make and receive phone calls.
For most asset classes, there is a time and a place for MIMO, such as busy food courts at the base of an office building or a shopping centre where sectorisation cannot assist with the sheer density of people, but for most use cases, it’s excessive.
The new considerations for buildings that fall into the MCF2025 standard category are whether to opt for Option 1 or Option 2 . A brief description and explanation are included below, however, generally based on feedback to date and the desire of our customers to provide call connectivity above all else, we suspect Option 1 will continue to be popular, particularly given its support for the low bands, or for those wanting genuine premium options we suspect they will go for a 8 band MIMO system.
Standard Solutions – Option 1 – 8 Band, SISO
This is typical of the DAS solutions provided in these buildings types in recent times. The support for all 8 Australian spectrum bands, most importantly the low bands 700, 850E and 900MHz maximises the penetration of the system’s coverage (side bar: Low frequency signals travel further, so fewer black spots in fire stairs, plant rooms, etc).
The support for low band also greatly helps in penetrating the dense materials of building lifts (and fire stairs), which are notoriously difficult without more involved solutions.
Low Band spectrum (typically 700MHz) also carries the IOT connectivity services used by a lot of ‘smart’ devices, so if you are exploring these solutions today (or in the future), you’ll want to make sure the building has low band connectivity options
Standard Solutions – Option 2 – 3 Band, 2×2 MIMO
The rationale behind this option is that whilst it has less bands, the bands chosen are common to all operators and particularly the 3500MHz band offers a large amount of capacity. The omission of a low band is concerning in relation to the penetration into the various nooks and crannies of a building.
Building the system as a 2×2 MIMO system will provide increased data throughput. However, this will typically be a more expensive solution than its SISO alternative. This may suit some building owners looking for ‘bragging rights’ with high-speed tests, but practically, for most day-to-day users who are sharing the capacity in the building at any given time, it’s unlikely to be noticed.
For those looking for a premium solution, the value for money of an 8-band MIMO system will likely be far better suited. Most of the cost uplift in building a DAS is related to the MIMO architecture. Providing 8 bands on a 2×2 MIMO system is the most superior technical solution for ultimate performance and capacity. 3 Bands does feel a little like putting cheap tyres on a performance car. Don’t cut corners at the final hurdle if you knowingly want to provide a premium experience (at a premium cost) and give yourself all the upgrade paths that come with having an 8-band system. This in turn provides all the benefits of low band frequencies in its penetration, IOT support and more.
DAS Architecture Types in MCF2025
The MCF2025 refines the use of industry terminology in describing various kinds of DAS topology and, in doing so, realigns with the international vocabulary. This removes any ambiguity and confusion, particularly around the terms ‘Active’ and ‘Hybrid’ solutions, which are commonly used in the industry. None of these architectures are ‘new’ in MCF2025; the concepts are long-standing, and the equipment for the various architectures has been around for some time. The MCF2025 merely clarifies terminology, ensuring everyone speaks a common language regarding the types of solutions and characteristics.
The choice of solution type is still primarily driven by the building’s size and layout, which will largely determine the best-suited solution based on its physical characteristics (space, layout, shape)
Passive DAS: A system with no active elements, a coaxial RF source plugs directly into a coaxial-based system
Hybrid DAS: A mixture of Active and Passive. Typically, this is done in the form of a ‘High Power Active DAS’ whereby high-power remote units feed segments of coaxial cable.
The term ‘Hybrid’ can also colloquially refer to a site with a combination of Passive and Active segments (for example, passive in a car park only).
Active DAS: A system in which an RF signal is conditioned and then connected to an Active DAS headend, which converts the RF to structured cabling (often fibre), which is distributed to Low Power Active DAS Remotes (similar to a Wi-Fi Access Point).
Digital DAS: This is essentially an Active DAS, but the connection to the DAS is made digitally between the operator’s network and the Active DAS headend.
We have an entire article dedicated to understanding the various kinds of DAS topology in more detail here:
DAS Equipment Rooms (for typical sites)
Every site will have a Primary DAS room, and the requirements from there are often fueled by the DAS’s topology. Or the availability of space can often influence the topology, it can work both ways. For example, having a mid-level plant room on say Level 20 may suit the establishment of a 2nd DAS room to easily deploy a Passive DAS in a building that may have otherwise needed a different approach
If you are planning a stadium, precinct, airport, infrastructure, etc., leave all this out as your requirements will be largely different. But the typical guidance will suit most buildings
We have an entire article dedicated to DAS Room considerations here, recently updated to reflect MCF2025 changes. This goes further into the details of how a DAS room can significantly impact the cost of site deployment through strategic placement in the building.
Operating Frequency Bands in MCF2025
MCF2018 DAS band support included the 700MHz band to the 2600MHz band. Informally, the industry has been giving the 3.5GHz bands considerable consideration to be MCF2025 ready. This has largely been managed by removing legacy components from approved equipment lists that do not provide for 3.5GHz compliance.
Non Passive DAS systems will require additional remote hardware to support the 3.5GHz band in line with MCF2025, but these are largely coming to market with some options already widespread.
A new MCF2025 challenge is a requirement for the newly reshuffled 850E band, with the ‘E’ meaning ‘extended’. This band is not currently supported by any operator-approved Active DAS hardware (High or Low power variants), which leaves some catching up on the approval front. A Passive system will be able to pass the 850E band without issue, but Hybrid/Active systems remain an immediate challenge and are generally being dealt with as a Telstra-specific issue with reduced spectrum deployment where required.
As expected, the MCF2025 highlights mmWave solutions (26+GHz) as a distinct capacity solution, to be deployed independently of the DAS system and on an as-needed basis, likely on an operator-by-operator basis. Realistically, this is not coming up in many environments outside of stadiums right now.
MCF2025 requires 3.5GHz compliance on all systems. 3.5GHz is a somewhat casual terminology for what is actually a very large piece of the spectrum from 3300-3800MHz, so don’t be surprised if you hear people talking about 3.6GHz, 3400MHz or 3800MHz, it’s all casual terminology for the same thing!
A specific coverage target of > -100 dBm RSRP across 95% of the floorplate has been defined for 5G at the 3.5 GHz band to compensate for the inherent attenuation associated with higher-frequency signals. For a further understanding of how frequency bands impact coverage and building penetration our intro to DAS could be helpful, located here
Wireless Coverage Solutions is intimately familiar with the requirements of the MCF2025 across all asset types, having provided extensive feedback during the consultation period since 2023. If you want to understand what impact the MCF2025 is going to have on your upcoming or inflight projects, get in touch
RF Power Sharing
A long-debated topic in the DAS industry is how to split the RF power for shared DAS infrastructure. For example, a Hybrid DAS remote often puts out +43 dBm (20 Watts).
Do you share this power evenly 1/3rd to each operator? This aligned well with the historically commercial model of operators splitting the costs of DAS deployment based on the bands they connected to pro rate. But largely, these deployments are not funded by the operators anymore.
General industry practice has been to divide the highest frequency band (historically 2600MHz) based on the bandwidth available to each operator per their ACMA spectrum holdings. This ensured that everyone would get passing coverage levels at the hardest to comply with KPI band, whereas the lower bands would easily meet it. This approach is precisely what the MCF2025 implements across all bands so that everyone gets equivalent coverage (regardless of how much spectrum they hold). This makes for some fun maths, particularly in the 3.5GHz bands, but ensure that the spectrum is efficiently allocated and nothing is overengineered.
Frustratingly, these spectrum allocations differ state by state and regional vs metro. Sourcing the underlying data is frustrating, as some operators don’t make it freely available.
Closing out legacy issues in MCF2025
A number of longstanding issues in the MCF document have either resulted in poorly built/designed systems or long-term maintenance issues, which the MCF2025 addresses.
Lift Coverage
Essentially unchanged, coverage provided from the lift lobbies remains the predominant solution.
The MCF2025 does allude to ‘in lift car’ solutions to be discussed with the lead operator. This is typically most relevant to newer developments and will require the lift car companies to participate and provide fibre connectivity and power atop lift cars.
Fire Stairs
Previous MCFS often had ambiguous elements, with suggestions of ‘best effort’ frequently unclear. The MCF2025 suggests placing an antenna within 5m of the door as a definition of a best-effort approach, although penetration into lift stairs will always vary (especially if the system doesn’t support low band)
Cable Separation and Protection
Coaxial is somewhat robust in nature, so it is often attached directly to a soffit and can remain functionally intact for the asset’s life. It’s also simple to repair.
With the reemergence of Low-Power Active solutions being considered, MCF2025 has clarified the requirements for protecting structured cabling, requiring physical separation and protection either on cable tray or within conduit, noting that the catenary wire is insufficient.
Great to see, as we’ve had to attend numerous sites with faults related to cabling damage over the life of an asset, which could have easily been protected with appropriate mechanical protection at the time of installation. These systems work on day 0, but if they are not dummy-proofed for future trades working in the region, they won’t last. It would be like buying a car without getting insurance; proceed at your own risk.
If you’ve got structured cabling running your mission-critical services above a ceiling, particularly in a tenanted environment, it needs to be physically protected as a basebuild asset
MNC Locations
A long-abused design technique was for rogue designers to place the Multi-Network Combiner far from the operator equipment (the previous max was 50m), which required tie cables and artificially inflated the predicted coverage. MCF2025 has put an end to that by calling for the MNC to be within the DAS room and no further than 15m from the operator’s BTS equipment.
MNC Terminations
A long-standing ambiguity was who was to provide the cheap termination loads required to terminate all ports on an MNC safely. The number of times we’ve seen them omitted for the sake of $30 or so is mind-blowing. MCF2025 makes it clear that unused output ports require termination.
PIM Testing
We could write a PHD on the topic. But in essence, there were longstanding issues with the PIM testing methodologies that didn’t align with the decrease in DAS loss dating back to 3g 2100MHz DAS systems. It also failed to account for the loss of the MNC in the testing methodology, intertwining compliance metrics and troubleshooting procedures. The MCF2025 puts all that to bed and establishes a pragmatic, repeatable and appropriate PIM testing methodology for DAS systems.
Summary
In summary, the new MCF2025 provides further clarity on the transition to 5G for new Distributed Antenna System (DAS) deployments. The impact on in-flight developments is varied depending on how forward-leaning the system was originally designed and the system architecture in place. Overall, it’s great to finally have clarity in the industry on the expectations of MCF2025. Albeit a prolonged process the final document is largely a pragmatic solution to the 5G transition (evidenced by the industry largely already completing a variety of the practices within it).
To better understand how the recently released MCF2025 could impact your in-building mobile coverage project, don’t hesitate to reach out to discuss specifics with us.