Digital distributed antenna systems and methods for advanced cellular communication protocols are provided. In one embodiment, a digital distributed antenna system comprises: a host unit; a plurality of communication links; a plurality of remote antenna units each coupled to the host unit by one of the plurality of communication links, wherein the communication links transport a downlink digitized RF signal from the host unit to the plurality of remote antenna units, and wherein the remote antenna units are each configured to generate an over-the-air analog RF signal via an antenna from the downlink digitized RF signal; and a localized signal conditioning and control module that extracts from a first digitized RF signal at least one data stream and converts the at least one data stream to baseband data stored in a memory.