Posted 07/15/2000
A Buzz in the Air
Fixed Broadband Wireless Vendors Show Solutions for Voice, Data
By Gail Lawyer
Despite the hubbub about construction of metropolitan fiber networks over the last few years, only a small percentage of all office buildings have been connected.
Of the more than 750,000 commercial properties in the United States, only about 25,000 have been wired thus far, according to research from Winstar Communications Inc. (www.winstar.com). And fiber deployment is slowing considerably. Piper Jaffray Equity Research (www.piperjaffray.com) reports that growth of fiber connections to buildings dropped to 9 percent in 1998 from 65 percent in 1996.
With a majority of buildings not on fiber networks, there is a tremendous opportunity for fixed broadband wireless providers to bring high-speed alternative access to these sites. And the odds are in the wireless providers' favor. Wireless services can address approximately 60 percent of all businesses in the United States, compared to a reach of only 30 percent for fiber, Rick Calder, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Winstar, told the audience at the SUPERCOMM 2000 Wireless Plenary Panel.
Wireless is a quicker, more cost-effective alternative to delivering both voice and data services when compared with the time and capital needed to bury fiber. Vendors at SUPERCOMM exhibited a variety of products designed for both licensed and unlicensed bands of spectrum, using both microwave and lasers to transport traffic.
Some of the most intriguing prospects were in the wireless optics space, in which lasers are used to beam traffic between sites. Industry gurus believe commercial deployment of this technology will begin to take off within the next three or so years. Although there are promises of wireless optics being able to go more than 500 meters between sites, industry pundits believe the technology will best be used in the 100 to 200 meter range.
Among the big players in this market is AirFiber Inc. (www.airfiber.com), which first announced its OptiMesh product in April. OptiMesh currently has a beta trial of OptiMesh in Japan, two trials in Europe and four in the United States, says Janet A. McVeigh, vice president of marketing for AirFiber. There has been no commercial deployment yet, however.
OptiMesh is based on wireless optical networking, which relies on lasers, rather than microwaves, to transmit high-speed data. AirFiber uses a short-link mesh architecture--no more than 500 meters between transmitters in the most suitable climates--to ensure carrier-grade reliability. The OptiMesh rooftop nodes automatically track each other in order to keep the signals aligned at all times. The nodes also contain network management software to ensure that the network achieves "five 9s" of reliability.
McVeigh says that the cost to deploy OptiMesh averages about $20,000 per building. That total includes site acquisition and preparation, equipment and overhead such as the development of a network operations center and roof rights.
There are a variety of potential users for AirFiber's OptiMesh system, including CLECs that are looking for fiber-like last-mile access, but don't own spectrum licenses from FCC auctions. McVeigh says that wireless license holders also may be interested in OptiMesh for use in markets where they do not have spectrum rights.
Wireless is quickly becoming the access method of choice by business customers that need more capacity than copper can offer, but who can't justify paying for fiber access services, says Thomas van Overbeek, president and CEO of Wavtrace Inc. (www.wavtrace.com).
Wavtrace, with its patented use of adaptive time-division duplex (TDD) technology, has its sights set on being a major player in the point-to-multipoint broadband wireless data delivery systems.
The BigBurst airlink technology is at the heart of Wavtrace's patent. It provides a burst rate of 180mbps per carrier.
Another player in the millimeter wave band is DMC Stratex Networks (www.dmcstratexnetworks.com), the company formerly known as Digital Microwave Corp. The company no longer is focused on just digital microwave systems used for cellular systems, but rather is setting its sights on the fixed broadband wireless market as well.
The company's main customer is Winstar, which uses DMC's solution for buildings of less than 200,000 square feet that need OC-3 capacity, says Stuart Little, DMC's director of sales for broadband products.
At the heart of DMC's solution is its family of Altium radios, which deliver SONET/SDH capacities in only 288 MHz of spectrum. In addition to the Altium broadband solution, DMC's product line includes the DXR long-haul radios, the Spectrum II, XP4 and DART medium-capacity products. All of DMC's equipment meets North American and international standards for operation within the 400, 600 and 800/900 MHz, and 1.4 GHz to 38 GHz frequencies.
Nokia Networks (www.nokia.com) announced its CityHopper Broadband Wireless Access solution, which creates point-to-multipoint wireless networks designed to handle high-bandwidth access for medium-sized and large businesses.
CityHopper is actually an OEM of the AirStar technology from Netro Corp. (www.netro-corp.com). The two companies announced their OEM agreement at SUPERCOMM 2000. This is Netro's fourth OEM agreement, according to Jonathan Jaeger, senior product marketing manager for Netro.
The CityHopper operates within the millimeter wave bands between 10 GHz and 40 GHz, and provides high-speed voice and data services comparable to DSL and hybrid fiber-coax networks.
The ability to get more out of the existing spectrum also is a concern for broadband wireless vendors.
Spike Technologies Inc. (www.spiketechnologies.com), for instance, has developed technology that allows its HighPoint Broadband Delivery System to reuse frequency so that service providers can accommodate up to 11 times more customers per unit of spectrum.
Typically MMDS spectrum, for which HighPoint's equipment is designed, is reserved for servicing residential and small businesses. But Spike's Simultaneous Spectral Reuse (S2R) technology allows service providers to handle the needs of larger customers. "Because of our 'special sauce' [the S2R], we have more capacity, so we can handle mid-size business needs," says Cristian Parrino, Spike's director of marketing.
Just prior to SUPERCOMM 2000, the FCC (www.fcc.gov) gave Spike certification to sell its HighPoint system in the United States. The certification guaranteed Spike's compliance with FCC safety, security and emission regulations. Spike already has deployed its HighPoint system in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and South America. In the burgeoning U.S. MMDS market, Spike hopes to facilitate the delivery of broadband applications such as Internet access, VoIP, streaming video and video conferencing.
Giganet Ltd. (www.giganet-corp.com), too, is trying to get the most from existing spectrum, with the new IP and SONET/SDH extensions to its FibeAir product suite. The spectrally efficient 311mbps and 622mbps systems can transport ultra-high-speed integrated data, video and voice.
Because of a modular architecture, the systems have a flexibility of interfaces, frequency bands and transport protocols. Interfaces include OC-12/STM-4, fast Ethernet, OC-3/STM-1 and DS-3/E3, while frequencies range from 18 GHz to 38 GHz. Transport protocols include IP, SONET/SDH and ATM.
The new products are out of the labs and in trials with an unnamed service provider, says Elizabeth Stites, Giganet's marketing manager. "We're looking at building high-capacity infrastructure in the metro loop," she adds.
Combining voice and data over the wireless transport is a key in the converging marketplace. L-3 Communications Corp. (www.l-3com.com), a spin-off from military contractors Lockheed Martin and Loral Corp., showed its flagship--a broadband code-division multiple access (CDMA)-based fixed wireless solution that incorporates Class 5 switching capabilities in the equipment, says Jim Thomkins, L-3's executive vice president.
Having Class 5 capabilities within the metro network architecture allows providers to avoid paying for backhaul so traffic can be switched at the CO. "You don't need to pay in the cell and you can bill locally," says Thomkins. The average cost per line is about $500 to $600. Currently, L-3 has the ability to deliver 256kbps data services.
After launching its AB-Access product line for unlicensed bands between 5.25 GHz and 5.825 GHz about a year ago, Adaptive Broadband Corp. (www.adaptivebroadband.com) showed its prototypes for the LMDS and 3.5 GHz versions of the AB-Access.
The AB-Access for the licensed LMDS frequency blends radio-frequency capability from Telaxis Communications Corp. (www.telaxiscommunications.com) with Adaptive Broadband's packet-on-demand modem and digital electronics to create a cost-effective system, says Todd Carothers, Adaptive Broadband's vice president of marketing. The company estimates that costs per subscriber unit will run about $3,000.
The 3.5 GHz version is a second-generation product for use in the regulated MMDS band, providing 16.7mbps of throughput.
In other news from SUPERCOMM, Adaptive Broadband demonstrated its high-speed wireless data solution that it introduced in conjunction with Proxim Inc. (www.proxim.com). The solution incorporates Proxim's wireless LAN technology with the AB-Access to bring a completely wireless alternative for delivery of voice, video high-speed data services and in-building networking to business and residential customers.
Adicom Wireless Inc. (www.adicomwireless.com) is another vendor focusing on the small business and residential markets. At SUPERCOMM, the company added Internet access functionality to its Aditus Wireless Access System. The Aditus 500, which is targeted at the CLEC market, combines POTS and digital data capabilities that will allow users to deliver high-speed Internet service and data with toll-quality voice from a single remote access unit.
"CLECs face pressure from the ILECs to offer data via ADSL [asymmetric DSL]," says Adel Ghanem, Adicom's president and CEO. The Aditus 500 gives CLECs an alternative access method.
The Aditus 500 provides data-grade 64kbps or 128kbps digital channels and includes two RJ-11 ports that can be used for all basic and supplementary POTS services.
Motorola Inc. (www.motorola.com) added to its LMDS cache with the announcement of its LM series of fixed wireless access products. The LM series is designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as multitenant office buildings and multidwelling units.
The LM-2000 is the medium-sized business product. The LM-3000 allows for private, secure and differentiated services to multiple tenants in the same building through a single outdoor antenna.
Some carriers are banking on wireless to be an economical way to bring competitive services to the residential market. Many of today's systems are too expensive to justify mass deployment, but some vendors are trying to make the economics look appealing to service providers while developing a wireless network architecture that meets the needs for residential deployment.
"The real problem is line of sight and cost for high-speed base stations in residential communities," says Lauren W. Hipp, head of marketing and sales for the Wireless Routing division of Nokia Networks. "We created routed mesh networks as a more practical way to get coverage in residential areas."
At SUPERCOMM 2000, Nokia announced its Nokia RoofTop Wireless Routers, which are devices operating in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM spectrum band that are designed for use by residential and small-business customers. Rather than worrying about all homes and businesses having a direct line of sight to a single PoP, the RoofTop is based on a mess-style architecture, in which each RoofTop device needs to have line of sight only to one other RoofTop device, rather than needing direct line of sight to a centralized hub.
In each of the wireless routers is the Nokia AIR Operating System (OS). This software enables the wireless network to self-configure and self-heal by automatically detecting new or removed neighboring routers. Traffic can then be rerouted through the most efficient path. The AIR OS optimizes frequency spectrum use to gain maximum data capacities and allows carriers to service more providers.
Cost for the RoofTop system totals about $1,200 per subscriber site, says Hipp, adding that Nokia will announce a customer for the wireless system later this quarter.
Nokia also has RoofTop bridges, which operate in the unlicensed 5.8 GHz UNII spectrum band. These bridges are designed to allow service providers to extend their network reach into additional neighborhoods or business parks from a single PoP.
