Demand for mobile data is soaring, and microwave is seen as the primary transport medium in rural and suburban areas. Aviat’s WTM 4000 enables double capacity (2+0) microwave links by housing two transceivers, two diplexers, and a 3dB coupler in one compact all-outdoor solution.

In March 2020, Ireland was preparing for lockdown, placing additional strain on rural networks. Enter BBnet, an ISP operating in Ireland; Irish Wireless, equipment distributor; and Aviat Networks. The three companies teamed together to design and plan a new link that delivered rural broadband services to parts of County Limerick in a few weeks.

One of the most significant contributors to the total cost of ownership of a microwave transmission network is the antenna sub-system.

In 2015, PNG outlined its Vision 2050, committing the government to promote the social and economic development of the nation by that date. National leaders spoke of W.W. Rostow’s five-stage model of development. The second of those stages is all important: the building of infrastructure necessary for the success of all sectors of economic and social life, which includes manufacturing, technology, transportation, and communication.

In February, Aviat announced the availability of its transport products that conform to the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Wireless Backhaul Project Group specification. Aviat’s products include a modular architecture that allows for an integrated multi-band (E-Band + Microwave) solution with open netconf/yang interfaces. The TIP Wireless Backhaul specification was developed by the Wireless Backhaul Project Group within TIP in collaboration with the world’s premier mobile operators, including Axiata, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, TIM Brazil, and MTN.

Most operators of WISP backhaul networks have had difficult experiences with Power over Ethernet (PoE) cabling solutions, affecting both the economics and operations of their networks. Today, Aviat Networks is recommending, with increasing frequency, a dual cable system: fiber to carry data at high speeds, and copper to carry DC power only. This solution offers significant advantages over CAT5 cabling, which carries both data and DC power over a single Ethernet cable.

Vodafone Fiji needed a solution to provide over 2 Gbps of capacity over a distance of more than 6.5 kilometers, but there was only one problem: lack of frequency spectrum. Vodafone only had a single 80 MHz channel allocation in the 11 GHz band. Aviat was able to design a link using their WTM 4000 all-outdoor radio platform, employing Line-of-Sight (LOS) MIMO to quadruple the efficiency of the single available frequency channel.

For new entrants and smaller WISPs, cost is often the major factor in infrastructure procurement. However, many WISPs who used to be in those categories are today enjoying significant growth, prompting them to rethink infrastructure investments as part of their overall business plan.

By Jim Hong, Director of Wireless Broadband Solutions

The new and exciting news in Government Funding – The latest round of CAF-II has been awarded and now WISPs and Rural Operators are expanding their coverage into rural areas that have little or no Internet access.

What comprises complex rural networks? A combination of microwave Point-to-Point and Point-to-Multipoint technologies are being used to reach remote WISP and Rural Operator customers and deliver high-speed internet: up to 20 Gbps on the backbone and hundreds of megabits per household.