With consumers increasingly expecting constant coverage and data-heavy services as standard, communications service providers are looking for innovative new ways of expanding the capacity of their networks. A new backhaul and access solution with its roots in military technology may provide the means of doing this. The implications for emerging markets are considerable.
The multigigabit solution – known as Fibre Through the Air (FTTA) – originates from technology created for battlefield communications. Military R&D contractor Thales Communications commissioned wireless firm Bluwan to develop FTTA after seeing potential backhaul and access applications for the technology in the carrier market.
FTTA has been modified from the original military technology, removing the specialised military aspects of the equipment and software and adapting it to harmonise spectrum. To date FTTA has been deployed in Central & Eastern Europe over the 40.5GHz – 43.5GHz band, a frequency that hasn’t been fragmented or harnessed by existing equipment. This allows for the creation of equipment which leverages wide-band spectrum.
Currently deployed in three Slovakian cities, FTTA functions via compact radio units which generate a throughput of 2.5Gbps. This is significantly higher than traditional point-to-multi-point (PTMP) architectures which operate on 28GHz or lower – in these cases, throughput would be around 150Mbps, with very high levels of modulation and a range limited to around 500 metres.
By contrast, FTTA can achieve up to 2.5Gbps on a 90-degree sector with a range of around 3km. This extra capacity can be used effectively for backhauling. This makes the solution’s potential applications in emerging markets all the more clear: compared with traditional PTMP architecture, FTTA can reach and backhaul a significantly higher number of base stations with better quality links.
FTTA technology can, in addition, provide significant savings for network operators and service providers on capital expenditure (CAPEX). The current trend is for network operators to deploy more, smaller size cell sites to improve the quality of their coverage.
FTTA requires equipment to be installed only at the end point without any intervention at the central base station. Essentially this halves the amount of equipment required as compared to PTMP. In previous Middle Eastern FTTA deployments CAPEX savings of up to 40% have been realised as a result of this.
Similar levels of saving can potentially be made on operating expenditure (OPEX) too. Due to the FTTA technology’s compact equipment size, operators could achieve significant OPEX savings regardless of whether they use their own towers and cell sites or rent third-party towers.
In the UK, the rental fee for a 30cm dish is roughly US$1,600 per month, meaning that backhauling just one site costs around US$20,000 a year. FTTA network architecture uses a compact dish of less than 10cm in diameter. This could therefore potentially reduce costs by two thirds or even more as tower rental prices for smaller dishes are considerably lower due to their reduced size.
Smaller also means lighter weight, which in turn means that towers don’t require reinforcement. This is particularly important for operators planning to install and maintain their own towers. Moreover, only one base station is required in a single-ended FTTA configuration. Together these measures can reduce OPEX by around 55%.
Communications service providers in emerging markets are feeling increasingly squeezed. On the one hand significant investment is required on the access side, to secure 3G and LTE licences for example, and to build out infrastructure into new service coverage areas. On the other hand competition is intensifying and ARPUs are flat. At the same time users are demanding better quality of service and more bandwidth for data services.
In this environment it becomes critical to reduce capital and operating costs in order to make the business sustainable. Backhaul is a key component of any mobile network and reducing the total cost of ownership on the backhaul side is therefore a vital issue for all emerging market network operators. FTTA technology could be the increased capacity and cost reduction solution that communications service providers need.
