Just How Recyclable is My Radio?

Posted on by Aviat Networks

Just How Recyclable is My Radio?Aviat Networks is working hard to reduce the landfill associated with its business activities and products and this includes ensuring that, where recycling facilities exist, customer units that have been damaged beyond repair are recycled.  For example, every unit that is scrapped at Aviat’s Hamilton repair and return centre is segregated and sent to a recycling centre called Datec in Kilwinning, Scotland.  Datec was chosen because it is the closest authorised treatment facility and this actively reduces the carbon emissions associated with the transportation of the scrapped units.  They complete some manual disassembly of the units to recover the mechanics of the unit and the electrical boards are shredded.  These shredded boards are then shipped to SiPi Metals in Chicago, United States.  This level of processing ensures the highest possible recovery rate.

SiPi Metals specialises in recovering precious metals from electrical boards and these precious metals then obviously go on to live yet another life.
Recently, Aviat was provided with a detailed report showing the percentage by weight that is recycled.  The average percentage across eleven shipments to Datec is 98.7%.
So the answer is that your microwave link is very recyclable indeed!

Better still, Datec has just started a new initiative that will offset the carbon emissions associated with any transportation involved in the recycling process.  Aviat Networks is moving forward with carbon offsetting for all shipments to Datec and SiPi Metals.  Datec’s carbon offsetting involves planting oak, birch, ash, willow and rowan trees in Scotland in recognition of the fact that Scotland has been heavily deforested and now has only 17% woodland coverage, compared with an average of 32% in mainland Europe. Their fledgling woodland is in a beautiful location in Highland Perthshire.  Aviat Networks may attend a future tree planting event – by train, of course!

Recycling these scrap units ensures that less is sent to landfill, brings materials back into the supply chain for re-use and gives Aviat’s customers the assurance of an environmentally sound end-of-life for these units. Aviat Networks recognizes that the packaging that the unit arrives in is also important to reducing landfill.  The Aviat ODU 600 Outdoor Unit ships to customers in a completely recyclable box.  Aviat Networks is currently working on releasing other environmentally sustainable product packs to reduce landfill in all 150 countries where we have customers.

Ruth French
Product Compliance Manager
Aviat Networks

How Many Radio Options Are You Juggling?

Posted on by Aviat Networks

Juggling Radio OptionsBalancing cost and performance is a tough act for most operators dealing with telecom networking, especially when it comes to equipment procurement.  Getting all the bells and whistles can sometimes result in having a lot of options to choose from.   Often times microwave users have to juggle with a variety of radio options that suit a particular site requirement, for example, having to select between low power or high power radios to meet varying distance or system throughput/gain needs.  Depending on location and licensing requirements, this may even translate into different products types for different frequency bands.  More products result in more spares to maintain in inventory, along with added support and maintenance, inevitably leading to higher costs.

To help address this challenge, Aviat recently unveiled the industry’s first universal outdoor unit (ODU) to support software- defined base and high power modes in a single ODU, with Aviat’s unique Flexible Power Mode (FPM) capability.  FPM allows operators to optimize both cost and performance, minimizing their overall total cost of ownership, by paying for the power they need only when needed.  As a result, operators can procure a single ODU for multiple locations and via a simple software licensing mechanism, remotely adjust the transmit output power to meet the needs of a particular site.  No need to spare multiple radios, nor deal with the operational burden of managing and supporting a variety of product options.

Additionally, operators can apply this flexibility to migrate from legacy low power, low capacity radios to a high power and performance ODU  to support much greater link throughput, without having to change their installed antennas. This minimizes both their CAPEX and OPEX while migrating their network from a legacy low capacity TDM microwave link to a high speed Ethernet one.

So while juggling may still be a well needed skill to survive in Telecom, Aviat is reducing the load when it comes to microwave networking. Click here to find out more.

Errol Binda
Senior Solutions Marketing Manager
Aviat Networks

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Migrating Utility Networks to Smart Grid with Hybrid Radios

Posted on by Aviat Networks

What is the best migration strategy for utility networks migrating to Smart Grid using Hybrid Radios? We look at the technology choices that are available to support legacy TDM and IP-based services and investigate the many demands placed on utility networks. Demands include seamless migration, increased capacity, security, and interoperability.

We believe a hybrid network is the best solution and we explain why in this white paper:

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Microwave Capacity: Examining Techniques to Improve Throughput

Posted on by Aviat Networks
Microwave telecommunications tower, silhouette...

Recently we’ve kicked off the “Aviat Technology Series” – which are a series of bi-monthly live video streaming webinars for our customers and partners, giving a detailed overview of various technology topics (these are NOT sales pitches…)

Last week, Stuart Little and I gave a live streaming video webinar where we gave an in-depth analysis of all the possible technology options for getting the most out of your microwave system including what’s possible, what’s not, and a realistic look at what you can expect to achieve.  We covered the below topics:
•    Options for maximizing IP microwave capacity
•    Understanding capacity requirements: What’s real and what’s hype
•    The timing/availability of new capacity improvement technology

We reviewed techniques for increasing spectrum, improving spectrum utilization and growing effective utilization using higher layer protocol optimizations.  Technologies covered included: ling aggregation, co-channel dual polarization (CCDP), adaptive coding and modulation, 512/1024QAM, ethernet header compression, payload compression and asymmetrical RF.

We had lots of great questions and a ton of good feedback.  Please email: marketing@aviatnet.com to get the URL for the microwave capacity webinar replay.

Thanks to all who participated and see you in 2 months for the next one when we’ll talk about “Ethernet Protection and Redundancy”

Gary Croke
Product Marketing

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