Sub-Band Free Radios – Do they really help?
- December 20, 2018
- all-outdoor, Microwave Radio, MTBF, ODU, outdoor radio, radios, RF, RF Performance, sub-band free, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership
By Stuart Little, Director of International Product Line Marketing
In the past years, a few microwave vendors have introduced ‘sub-band free’ RF outdoor units into the market. The main claim of these radios is that a single hardware variant can be deployed in any frequency sub-band, simplifying and lower costs involved with ordering, deployment and sparing of microwave networks.
However, these new radios are not available in all bands and come with a number of limitations, including lower RF performance, larger size, and weight, higher cost, limitations in modulation and channel sizes, amongst others.