Why struggle to get additional wireless backhaul spectrum, when you can reuse the spectrum you already have?

By YaronKatriel 3 min read

Operators are natural hunters, hunting for ways to optimize valuable spectrum, especially as they need to ramp up bandwidth to accommodate greater 4G/LTE traffic. Our natural response is “just throw more at it” - more cell sites, more links, and more spectrum.

As the need to handle additional RAN capacity increases, you add new cell sites. But as they’re added, the inevitable happens: more wireless backhaul links are needed. And the more links you add, the greater the chances of having to deal with interference between links using the same frequency. You need a minimum angular separation of 90◦ in order to use the same frequency, but with such a dense network, that is simply impossible. Which leads you to the inevitable – the need for more spectrum… meaning more expenses and more complexity.

 

But what would happen if you didn’t need to go down the road of more spectrum, and instead learned to reuse the wireless backhaul spectrum that you already have?

Advanced frequency reuse (AFR), is a technique based on breakthrough multi-core technology that allows you to reduce the need for spectrum by simply reusing your existing frequencies.

AFR enables you to decrease the angular separation between links using the same frequency from 900 to as little as 150. This capability saves you the time and money involved in acquiring additional backhaul spectrum, as well as maintains excellent quality of experience for your subscribers as it enables dense, low-angle, adjacent links to co-exist, with no fading or quality degradation.

It can also double the capacity of your existing links because you are free to reallocate frequencies more efficiently – you can combine two adjacent channels into one wider channel capable of transmitting twice the capacity.

 

So, before you think about adding new frequency channels to new sites and links, watch this short video about AFR or download the AFR technical brief and learn how you can reuse what you already have and save on your network expansion costs.

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