On Wall Street Low Latency Microwave Fulfills Faster than Fiber
- December 21, 2012
- Low latency, microwave, Microwave transmission, Optical fiber, point-to-point, Speed of light, Wall Street
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from all of us at Aviat Networks. Just as you are finishing those final gifting ideas for the winter, we would like to share a few thoughts from Travis Mitchell, Aviat Networks director of low latency business development. In the just published article “Microwave Technology for Low Latency Trading Networks” in Wall Street & Technology, Travis clears up the misconceptions that trading technologists may have about microwave communications, many of which have carried over from the age of analog radio and do not apply to digital microwave.
In addition, Travis spells out the advantages that low latency microwave has over fiber optic technology. Two of these are the point-to-point, direct line-of-sight communications between microwave stations and the absolute higher speed microwaves can achieve. In comparison, fiber communications oftentimes do not run directly from Point A to Point B but must instead wind their way around obstacles, burrow underground, climb tall buildings and so on before reaching their destination. This extra distance covered contributes delay to the overall latency experienced by trades sent via fiber as compared to microwave.
Then the immutable laws of nature tell us that microwave communications—even traveling through the atmosphere—approach very close to the speed of light. On the other hand, laser communications traversing the dense medium of fiber optics are much slower than the speed of light—many tens of percentage points slower than the speed of light.
To close, Travis briefly summarizes other factors that go into making low latency microwave networking the choice for traders over fiber, including minimizing the network route, maximizing the distance between microwave hops and using passive repeater technology, when appropriate. For the whole story, see the article. Other resources also include our low latency microwave white paper and low latency webinar replay.
Related articles
- High-frequency trading turning to microwaves (blogs.marketwatch.com)
- The Wi-Fi Microwave Renaissance (beanstalk-inc.com)
- All-Outdoor Microwave Radios: Site Considerations (aviatnetworks.com)
- Know Your Microwave Backhaul Options (ytd2525.wordpress.com)
- 3 Important Questions for Ultra-Low Latency Microwave Networks (aviatnetworks.com)
Fiber Isn’t Everything: Key Role of Microwave in Mobile Backhaul
- August 5, 2011
- 3GPP Long Term Evolution, Aviat Networks, backhaul, Backhaul (telecommunications), Cell site, Director of Corporate Marketing, Fiber Isn't Everything, FierceWireless, Microwave transmission, Mobile network operator, Next generation network, Optical fiber, Ovum, Principal Infrastructure Analyst, Ron Kline, Stuart Little
If fiber is this much of a mess in your wiring closet, just imagine the difficulty of deploying it to your cell site. Image by DrBacchus (Rich Bowen) via Flickr
Last year in August, Aviat Networks presented its argument for why fiber optics technology isn’t everything where backhaul of wireless networks is concerned. If anything, this point has only been reinforced by analyses and anecdotal stories showing that fiber can be overkill for the mobile backhaul requirements of LTE wireless. Plus, there is the simple truth that fiber cannot be deployed to every cell site due to financial and topological issues. That’s why microwave technology remains the world’s first choice for backhauling wireless networks. So let’s look at last year’s FierceWireless webinar slide presentation and refresh our memories.
These slides present the findings of an Ovum survey of North America’s largest backhaul players to understand their strategies regarding media types used to supply cell-site backhaul.
Ovum found that demand for wireless backhaul equipment in North America will continue to grow as mobile operators upgrade their networks to support higher-speed LTE networking technologies. The most common backhaul strategy for mobile operators in the region comprises leasing services over fiber combined with owning and operating microwave-based facilities. Microwave has a distinct advantage vis-a-vis leased services over the long-term due to the opex associated with leasing.
If you would like to see more, you may register for the on-demand replay of the full webinar. It will also present the latest trends and advancements in microwave transmission technology that support the evolution of mobile backhaul networks to all-IP.
Related articles
- Telecom PR: Looking for the “Back Story” in Today’s Wireless Boom (customerthink.com)
- Backhaul for the Mobile Broadband or Wireless Broadband Network (aviatnetworks.com)
- Pictures From LTE World Summit (for 4G Wireless) (aviatnetworks.com)
- Ethernet OAM Meets Demands on Microwave (Wireless) Networks (aviatnetworks.com)
- Small Cell Mobile Backhaul: The LTE Capacity Shortfall (aviatnetworks.com)