26 Sep 2013 ISPs – The importance of high quality backhaul

There are many low cost access solutions on the market for wireless ISPs, with Ubiquiti’s Air Max probably being the market leader. These systems are very low cost and so allow ISPs to get off the ground very quickly with minimal CAPEX investment. Typically operating in the 5GHz unlicensed bands, these systems offer CPE at around £60 and can operate at a realistic 20-50Mbps. The CPE are essentially disposable, if one breaks down no one is really going to bother returning it, it will just be replaced.

The backhaul link is a different matter entirely. This is the main data feed into the local point of presence. Using the same frequency bands as your access network is a high risk strategy, the potential for co-interference is huge. Frequency diversity is the sensible approach and 80GHz gives you very high potential data rates of up to 1Gbps at up to around 2km. This means there is no risk of the access and backhaul networks interfering with one another, in fact the 80GHz band suffers virtually no interference whatsoever due to the very narrow beam antennas used. Siklu offers the most cost effective 80GHz solution on the market, both full duplex and TDD depending on your requirement.

One customer without a connection for a day or so is a pain, but it’s not the end of world. Losing the connection to the whole point of presence and the potentially hundreds of disconnected users is a PR disaster.

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