Aviat Puts the Plus in A2C+
- September 9, 2021
- A2C+, Adaptive Dual Carrier, capex, double capacity, High Priority Traffic, higher MTBF, lowest TCO, OPEX, rural broadband, simplify deployment, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership
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.
Lowering TCO with All-Indoor, Single Antenna 6+11 GHz Multi-Band
- April 22, 2021
- 11 GHz, 11GHz, 6 GHz, 6GHz, 80 GHz E-Band, IRU 600, L1LA, Layer 1 link aggregation, multi-band, multiband, multiband radio, OPEX, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, WIFI 6e
With the current landscape of network economics and challenges associated with capacity and spectrum, having multiple tools for link deployments, capacity growth, and future-proofing are necessary. In this blog, we’ll discuss the concept of Microwave Multi-Band, or the use of two different microwave frequency bands over one link, and specifically the combination of 6 GHz and 11 GHz.
Part 1: Aviat’s System Gain Advantage and the Positive Impact on your Microwave Network’s Total Cost of Ownership
- October 13, 2020
- antenna sub-system, capex, how to reduce CAPEX, microwave antenas, MIMO, smaller antennas, Space Diversity, system gain, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, Tower Lease, transmit power, wind-loading
One of the most significant contributors to the total cost of ownership of a microwave transmission network is the antenna sub-system.
Case Study: Lowering Backbone TCO in PNG with All-Outdoor Radio
- March 28, 2019
- all-indoor, all-outdoor, IP/MPLS, lowering tco, OPEX, Space Diversity, TCO, Trunking, WTM4000
By Stuart Little, Director of International Product Line Marketing
Papua New Guinea, or PNG, is one half of the island of New Guinea, along with offshore islands, located in the South Pacific immediately to the north of the Australian continent. The country is rugged and heavily covered by dense rainforest, which presents enormous challenges when it comes to establishing a national communications infrastructure. In most cases, deploying fiber routes is simply not practical nor affordable. Wireless is the only answer in these cases.
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.
85 Microwave Operators tell us their Biggest Backhaul Challenge
- July 30, 2013
- backhaul, custom survey, Ethernet, internet, Internet Protocol, microwave, microwave antennae, MIMO, Mobile network operator, network throughput, quantifiable data, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership
England: Campion Hills communications mast with microwave antennae. Photo credit: David Stowell [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
85 mobile operators were selected and surveyed globally, including a good cross-section from both developed and emerging markets. The respondents were screened to ensure that they all had a stake in microwave-specific backhaul: 93 percent had deployed microwave and the rest had plans to deploy it. In fact, 45 percent were categorized as heavy microwave users—those where more than 50 percent of their cell sites were served by microwave backhaul.
So we asked this select group, which consisted of mostly planners, engineers and strategy leaders, “What is the biggest challenge your company faces regarding the future development and deployment of microwave backhaul?”
The results were interesting in that “total cost of ownership” actually eclipsed “increasing capacity” as their biggest challenge, as shown in the pie chart of survey responses below.
Diverse Wireless Network Topologies Cost Savings
- March 15, 2012
- Aviat Networks, backhaul, Cell site, Gary Croke, hub and spoke topology, network topologies, Network topology, product marketing, Ring network, TCO, Topology, Total Cost of Ownership, Wireless network
To compare how different wireless backhaul network topologies perform under the same operating scenario, let’s analyze how a traditional hub-and-spoke and a ring configuration compare in connecting the same six sites (See table below). For the hub-and-spoke configuration, each cell site is provided 50 Mbps capacity in 1+1 protection. With five links and no path diversity, full protection is the only way to achieve five nines reliability. In this configuration, 10 antennas are employed, which average a large and costly 5.2 feet in diameter. Total cost of ownership for this six-site network is close to $700,000 for five years.
For a ring design for the same six sites, throughput of 200 Mbps is established to carry the traffic for each specific hop and any traffic coming in that direction from farther up the network. Designed to take advantage of higher-level redundancy schemes, the ring configuration only requires antennas that average 2.3 feet in diameter, which are much lower in cost compared to the antennas in the hub-and-spoke configuration. And even though the ring configuration requires 12 antennas and six links, its overall TCO amounts to a little under $500,000 over five years—30 percent less than TCO for the hub-and-spoke design for the same six sites.
This comparison is based upon deployments in the USA, where most operators lease tower space from other providers.
Gary Croke
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Aviat Networks
Related articles
- Network Topologies (computrnetworking.wordpress.com)
- Microwave Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Pt. 1 (blog.aviatnetworks.com)
- Microwave Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Pt. 2 (blog.aviatnetworks.com)
- Tower Technology Summit: Microwave Backhaul Gaining Momentum (files.wordpress.com)
- Strategies for Lowering Your LTE/4G Backhaul Bill – WCAI Webinar (wcai.com)
Microwave Backhaul Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) pt. 2
- March 30, 2011
- Aviat Networks, Initial CAPEX, Initial OPEX, Microwave backhaul, Microwave Total Cost, North American Operators, Private Network, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, Tower Lease
How Important is Initial CAPEX?
Are we seeing the forest or the trees?
Based on microwave Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model posted earlier, the most significant contributor to total cost is ongoing OPEX.
We see an increasing trend of operators making decisions on backhaul solution based mostly (sometimes solely) on price (or initial CAPEX). While initial CAPEX is important, if the goal is lowest cost, this can be problematic approach as initial CAPEX it is not the most significant contributor to total cost. Ongoing OPEX is key.
Perhaps a better approach would be to focus on features most impacting lowering total costs. For instance, adaptive coding and modulation can lower antenna sizes – which can reasonably reduce 10 year TCO by as much as $48,000 (which is 2-3x more than initial CAPEX). Deploying ring architectures with high layer (L2/L3 or packet-based) failure recovery techniques can enable lower per hop reliability and smaller antennas – further lowering costs.
Microwave Backhaul Total Cost of Ownership
Gary Croke
Product Marketing, Aviat Networks
Microwave Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Pt. 1
- March 16, 2011
- Aviat Networks, Microwave Total Cost, North American Operators, Private Network, TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, Tower Lease
When choosing the right backhaul technology, total cost of a microwave system is a critical, often overlooked, consideration. TCO is not widely understood today. Lack of understanding of microwave TCO can lead to poor decisions about choice in backhaul technology and obscure the relative importance of features. Features that lower critical components of TCO are often not given enough attention.
A summary of a TCO model for a mobile operator in North America is shown below. Clearly, ongoing OPEX resulting from tower leases represent largest contributor to total cost. These lease costs include tower space for antennas and cable runs, shelter/cabinet space and power, and ongoing move/add/change fees regularly paid to tower companies. The largest portion of this tower lease is related to the antenna size. Microwave products and features that enable smaller antennas sizes, less indoor space, and fewer cables are most important for operators.
10 Year Microwave Total Cost of Ownership
*Note: for private network applications (like state/local governments, public safety organizations, and utilities) who generally own towers, initial CAPEX is often higher, leading to an overall reduction in ongoing OPEX and TCO.
Make sure to check back next week for post #2 ” How Important is Initial CAPEX?” where I breakdown the true costs of initial and ongoing CAPEX.
Gary Croke
Product Marketing, Aviat Networks