February 24, 2017
State-Wide Microwave Network Case Study: Extra High Power Radios
This large western US state had a longtime relationship with a microwave radio vendor and would have continued buying from them if their radios and support evolved with the State’s needs. However, over time its needs changed and it had to have more capabilities from its communications network. But it did not want to unnecessarily build new sites and erect costly new towers.
April 30, 2016
Why we Created AviatCloud
Photo credit: incredibleguy via Foter.com / CC BY
Through various innovations, wireless transport technology has consistently surpassed capacity demands through 2G, 3G and 4G transitions and remains on trajectory to continue in a 5G network. Reliability of wireless backhaul products has never been better, and costs continue to decline especially relative to fiber-based options. From a product point of view, many good and reliable options exist that cover all frequency bands and form factors to solve the problem of backhaul, small cell and other sub-applications.
September 11, 2015
Case for IP/MPLS Routers at the Small Cell…but not Just any Router!
With the goal of a hyper-meshed 5G street level network, clearly today’s small cell deployments represent just an interim phase in a progressive network densification—pushing the network outward. This means today’s small cell sites will become tomorrow’s macrocells, or hub sites.
Future-looking mobile operators have planned for this eventuality. In the developed world, small cell and the Internet of Things (IoT) drive mobile network densification. However, in the developing world the primary goal of enterprise connectivity spurs network densification, due to lack of wireline infrastructure to business buildings. The end result of network densification is the same.
June 26, 2015
3 Ways to Get Smart About Nodal Microwave
At a time in the not-so-distant past, there was only one way to implement microwave radio: one radio link per microwave terminal. Did not matter what type of link it concerned: protected, non-protected or multi-channel. From the advent of digital microwave radio in the 1980s and 1990s, terminals typically had no options for integration of co-located telecom devices. And to interconnect muxes or switches required external cabling and possibly a patch-panel.
Then in the early 2000s, so-called “nodal” radios came into vogue. Designed to address the drawbacks of the one-radio-one-link paradigm, a single microwave radio node could serve as a platform for multiple links. There were still limitations when it came to radio and switch interactions, but multiple sources of traffic could now be integrated and connected on the nodal platform.
April 7, 2014
Up to the Challenge? Mobile Operators Look for New Business
The mobile phone industry has been mature for some time. Around the world, most people who want and are able to use a cellular handset already have one—sometimes more than one. Even with innovations such as HSPA+, LTE and LTE-A becoming mainstream, average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to decline. Mobile operators may be at the crossroads. They are certainly at an inflection point. How to counter the trend is what operators must decide.
May 17, 2013
What Does it Take to Get the Most out of Your Wireless Backhaul?
Many wireless operators, such as MTN in Ghana, need to optimize management of their networks and Aviat can help with products, services and software capabilities. Photo credit: Rachel Strohm / Foter.com / CC BY-ND
Wireless backhaul operators, both mobile phone networks and others carrying dedicated traffic, face the constant issue of maximizing the functionality of their systems.
In the emerging markets around the world, the pressure can be most intense. Wireless network reliability, availability and capacity all need to be increased. Customer expectations are on the rise, and operators must take the appropriate steps to meet and exceed them.
In working with MTN Ghana, Aviat Networks recently completed an implementation to increase network visibility (i.e., intelligence) by close to one-third. Aviat’s professional services experts designed the mobile operator’s backhaul links for high capacity and resiliency. Using ProVision, Aviat’s leading network management software, MTN Ghana can now administer its wireless backhaul efficiently and effectively with a reduced level of manpower.
April 5, 2013
Possibly the World’s Oldest Microwave Link Still in Service
John Lennon was still alive when Aviat’s oldest microwave link first went operational in 1980. Photo credit: Roy Kerwood / Foter.com / CC BY
The year was 1980. The Americans beat the Russians for the Olympic gold medal in hockey. John Lennon of The Beatles was killed. Mount St. Helens erupted. The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan was elected president. The hostages were still in Iran. People asked themselves, “Who shot J.R.?” and caught Pac-Man fever. Voyager 1 flew by Saturn and left the solar system. The Empire struck back. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were on a “mission from God.” The Clash came calling on London. Led Zeppelin broke up. And Farinon Electric, Aviat Networks’ direct predecessor, put into service a series of analog microwave radio hops for the Canadian province of Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources. The radios in question were the SS2000 model.
The province used them to carry government data traffic for firefighters and police, where data bits were stuffed into 4kHz voice channels. Remarkably, 33 years later, three hops of these SS2000 radios are still in operation, making these, quite possibly, the world’s oldest continuously in-service microwave links.
Farinon SS2000 analog microwave radio transmitters (but not entire units) were available for sale on eBay as recently as 2011! How’s that for longevity?!Offering 120, 300 or 600 voice channels on the old 2GHz band, SS2000 radios were considered cutting-edge technology at the time—check out their cool retro-style data sheet—and highly reliable with their ability to provide microwave links despite the challenging weather and difficult propagation conditions of Nova Scotia—snow, ice, sleet, fog…they have it all! As proof, four other SS2000 radio hops were recently decommissioned and found to still be working up to spec as per the original, accepted level of performance. Then there was someone selling SS2000 radios on eBay in 2011!
But we challenge you, our loyal blog readers, to tell us of any even older microwave links that have been in operation for more than 33 years. So if you have an Aviat Networks link, or that from a predecessor company, which is still operating today and was installed before 1980, please comment! We want to hear from you!
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- Critical Role of Microwave in LTE and Small Cell Backhaul (ytd2525.wordpress.com)
- Research and Markets: Advances in Microwave Radio Communications – Assessments Technologies and Markets (sys-con.com)
December 7, 2012
3 Important Questions for Ultra-Low Latency Microwave Networks
Are you considering building an ultra-low latency microwave network? Then you are not alone. Microwave is quickly becoming the default transport choice for low latency networks. However, building an ultra-low latency microwave network is not simple; there are many considerations. Latency through the “box” is important, but it is not the only factor, and too much focus on this metric may be a distraction. What is most important is end-to-end latency of the link. Aviat Networks recently addressed this topic in a webinar (registration required) and free presentation download and answered three very important questions regarding ultra-low latency microwave technology.
Also in this webinar, Travis Mitchell, Aviat Networks director of low latency business development, and Sergio Licardie, Aviat Networks senior director of systems engineering, consider the best practices for ultra-low latency microwave networks as they explore the techniques, technologies and design approaches necessary to ensure lowest end-to-end latency. They also discuss some innovations to look for in microwave networking to ensure continuous improvement in end-to-end latency performance. Other topics covered include:
- Main contributors to end-to-end latency of microwave networks
- Best options to reduce overall latency
- Strategies to avoid compromising overall availability
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August 14, 2012
Got Protection? Diversity Schemes and Other Methods
Dick Laine, longtime principal engineer for Aviat Networks, delivers one of his patented presentations on microwave networking during an installment of the video blog Radio Head Technology Series.
Microwave radios come and microwave radios go, but the sage advice of Aviat Networks Principal Engineer, Dick Laine, has no end-of-life. In our seventh installment of the very popular video blog Radio Head Technology Series Dick talks about the diversity of diversity schemes and other protection methods available to microwave networking engineers.
Using examples from the radio legacy of Aviat Networks (e.g., Constellation, MegaStar—you must remember these, it hasn’t been that long) and our current microwave networking solutions (e.g., Eclipse, TRuepoint 6500, WTM 6000) he expounds on the past, present and future of protection. From Angle Diversity (one of the earliest diversity schemes used in Line-of-Sight digital microwave) to Hybrid Diversity (HD) and Frequency Diversity (that need licensing waivers to be used in many applications) to comparisons of fiber-like protection methods, Dick covers it all. For example, did you know that a four-dish HD antenna arrangement offers little to no performance improvement over a three-dish HD configuration?
So with free registration to the video series you can have the benefit of all of Dick’s wisdom and nonpareil presentation style on Diversity. You get access to all the earlier videos, too. (Did we mention there are six previous episodes?) And the presentation slides. And the podcast. And all for FREE! Wow! If you don’t see a topic that you think needs to be covered, feel free to submit your suggestion into our inbox. Register today!
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July 20, 2012
Best Practices for Ultra Low Latency Microwave Networks
For discussion purposes of ultra low latency, two theoretical ultra low latency microwave networks are compared to an existing optical Chicago-NY network.
In today’s ultra-competitive High Frequency Trading markets, speed is everything, and recently wireless technologies, and specifically microwave networking, have been recognized as a faster alternative to optical transport for ultra-low latency financial applications.
Even though microwave technology has been in use in telecommunications networks around the world for more than 50 years, new developments have optimized microwave products to drive down the latency performance to the point that microwave can significantly outperform fiber over long routes, for example between Chicago and New York. This has provided a new market opportunity for innovative service providers to venture into the microwave low latency business.
Although reducing the latency of the equipment is an important consideration, the most important metric is the end-to-end latency. Many factors that influence overall end-to-end latency require a deep understanding of the technology and how this is applied in practice.
This white paper will show that to achieve the lowest end-to-end latency with the highest possible reliability and network stability not only requires a microwave platform that supports cutting edge low latency performance but also a combination of experience and expertise necessary to design, deploy, support and operate a microwave transmission network.
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July 10, 2012
4G Upgrade Path Drives Backhaul Migration in Kenya
Burgeoning WiMAX and 3G data traffic from subscriber devices such as Safaricom’s Internet Broadband Dongle (with SIM Card) are driving the mobile operator to migrate from TDM to hybrid microwave backhaul. (Photo credit: whiteafrican via Flickr)
Migrating legacy mobile backhaul networks that were designed for TDM traffic to add support for high-speed Ethernet data for 3G and 4G mobile technologies is one of the biggest challenges for operators worldwide. Each case is unique and poses its own quirks and potential pitfalls. Mobile operators must juggle new technologies, cost pressures and the need to maintain existing services or risk driving customers to the competition.
For Safaricom, the leading mobile operator in Kenya and one of largest in all Africa, the case involved preserving its E1 capacity for voice calls and simultaneously adding Ethernet/IP bandwidth for burgeoning 3G and WiMAX data traffic. As many mobile operators have done in the past, Safaricom built its network over time. Many parts of the network are still legacy 2G TDM technology. However, things are changing rapidly, with 3G subscriber numbers up 85 percent in 2011 year over year.
Many of these subscribers are consuming ever-increasing amounts of data bandwidth. Safaricom’s TDM based backhaul, making use of Ethernet-to-E1 converters, is finding it hard to keep up with demand. To help resolve the situation, the operator called on Aviat Networks, one of its incumbent solution providers. Using its market leading hybrid radio solution, the modular Eclipse microwave networking platform, Aviat Networks enabled Safaricom to add IP data capacity as necessary while keeping E1 capacity for voice calls.
In addition, the stage has been set for Safaricom to make the eventual migration to all-IP backhaul. With the modular Eclipse platform, it can transition on its own schedule. For more information, read the complete Safaricom case study in the frame below or download the PDF:
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June 22, 2012
Is the Backhaul Really the Bottleneck for LTE?
The popularity of smartphones and tablets, motivated by the launch of the iPhone (2007) and the iPad (2010) have created a dramatic increase in mobile data consumption. The need to provide higher throughputs at the base station level to serve this demand has concerned operators, equipment vendors and industry watchers about a possible bottleneck in the backhaul network.
The basis for this concern is that microwave technology will not be able to provide enough capacity, and that only fiber is able to meet the capacity needs of 4G/LTE networks. This apprehension is being capitalized on by some optical network providers who argue that fiber connections are needed to provide gigabit levels at each base station. Although a gigabit connection in each base station is desirable, extremely high costs, slow deployment and inflexibility of fiber optic networks prevent this from being a viable option for operators who are CAPEX and OPEX constrained.
Aviat Networks’ studies, based upon our early involvement in some of the largest LTE network deployments, show that an average of 100 to 200 Mbps of backhaul capacity per LTE cell site is more than adequate and easily achievable with current microwave technologies. Read the white paper below or see our case study on a national U.S. LTE operator.
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