Need More Capacity But Lack the Spectrum? Not an Issue Anymore!

By Dudy Cohen 3 min read

When faced with an ever-increasing network capacity demand for backhaul and last-mile access, mobile operators, Regional Service Providers (RSPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) often face a lack of wireless backhaul spectrum. This forces them to deploy fiber in parts of their network that were otherwise not considered fiber-suitable.

Fiber-based solutions pose multiple challenges from both an operational and business perspective:

  • Cost — a fiber-based solution is costly in terms of CAPEX and OPEX
  • Time — permitting, right-of-way, installation, etc. – all of these things negatively impact time-to-market and competitiveness
  • Feasibility — a fiber-based deployment is not always feasible, resulting in limited service coverage and diminished QoS

Achieving “fiber-like” capacity with wireless transmission, even in spectrum congested areas

For mobile operators facing Gigabit-LTE and 5G deployments and RSPs and ISPs searching for a greater-than-1Gbps connection with minimal use of spectrum resources, wireless transmission ultra-high capacity solutions offer major operational and financial benefits. These include scalability, reduced costs, accelerated time-to-market, and reliability.

Until recently, existing wireless connectivity solutions such as millimeterwave (mmW) and microwave (MW) fell short in capacity and reach (mmW can only be used for short distances and MW is limited in capacity due to the limited availability of spectrum). The news is good, however. With advancements in 4x4 Line-of-Sight (LoS) - Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology, today’s MW solutions are able to overcome the spectrum availability limitation and help avoid the time-consuming process of frequency coordination.

Boosting capacity with LoS-MIMO technology

4x4 LoS-MIMO technology revolutionizes wireless transmission in terms of capacity and spectral efficiency —providing 2Gbps of radio capacity over a single 60MHz channel (or 1Gbps over a single 30MHz channel).

Ideal for medium and long-distance connectivity, this technology provides four times the capacity over the given spectrum, reduces costs, and offers higher immunity to noise and interference.

Field-proven technology

While the theory of LoS-MIMO has been known for decades, in practice, multiple challenges arise in actual deployments, including product maturity, tower space (for a second antenna at each site) and regulation alignment.

This all changed with Ceragon’s multicore technology, which allows operators from all over the world to resolve their capacity crunch without using additional spectrum.

For example, a major operator in India strived to increase the capacity in its backbone links but lacked the spectrum required for such an upgrade. By utilizing Ceragon’s field-proven 4x4 LoS MIMO technology, this provider was able to do this and quadruple the capacity of more than 50 links that would otherwise have required a switch to a fiber-based infrastructure.

Want to learn more about LoS-MIMO technology? 

Download our Technical Brief 

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