Next-gen switching provider Taqua LLC is branching out into a new realm: wireless backhaul. The company is rolling out what is essentially a pole-mounted, picocell-style box made expressly for urban and metro environments, to bolster capacity in the backhaul network and free up those pesky 3G mobile data logjams that operators have been trying to cut through.
There may be a smartphone-related traffic glut, but the data revenue from all that usage has not kept pace. That has provided a poor ROI for mobile operators who nonetheless are being forced to upgrade their access and backhaul networks to handle the demand. Especially in cities, many operators are turning to offload strategies, using Wi-Fi, femtocells or picocells for access.
Taqua’s new product, the W2600 Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) Backhaul System, is geared to that reality, supporting offload networks and offering a much less expensive option to increase backhaul capacity than the other two options: updating base station feeds to fiber or putting in traditional microwave solutions.
It is, in effect, an entirely new approach to mobile backhaul.
“This is a cell-splitting technology that is a fraction of the cost of other options,” explained John Hoadley, wireless CTO at Taqua, whose product is the brainchild and who came from the wireless organization at Nortel Networks to spearhead Taqua’s wireless division. He says the box makes use of what’s already there (widely available and inexpensive licensed TDD spectrum), in a low-power, small-footprint way that thus lowers costs for operators on a number of fronts.
It’s also tailored to address the boosting of backhaul capacity in cities where fiber and microwave have significant challenges: real-estate and reach/topography. “Being non-line-of-sight, it’s perfect for urban environments,” said Hoadley. “No mountain necessary to provide coverage, and it can be mounted on a pole or roof for easy and cost-effective installation.”
The benefits are not just theoretical. A very large global Tier 1 operator out of Europe is trialing the system and seems poised for commercial deployment, Taqua says. “This is a new area for us, but we’ve been in wireless on the switch side for a while now and we really saw, in talking to customers, a big opportunity for a targeted backhaul play, given the data congestion and smartphone uptake that operators are facing,” said Frederick Reynolds, the vice president of marketing at Taqua. “That idea is being proven out.”
The Taqua box leverages OFDM/MIMO technology. Deployed in clusters of two to four, each is connected to the Taqua Remote Backhaul Module (RBM) via a standard Ethernet connection. The RBMs then send traffic wirelessly over the 2.5 or 2.6 GHz TDD spectrum to a Taqua Hub Backhaul Module (HBM), though other frequencies can be supported in the future. The suite is IP-to-IP ready, for future support of all 3G and 4G technologies.
The HBM connects via wired Ethernet to the carrier’s existing network and can be located at a macro cell site or, really, anywhere connectivity is available (providing added flexibility). Hundreds of clusters can be deployed as a network, managed by a single-user interface system, which manages the elements and interference problems within the network. Each HBM will enable 40 to 60mbps bandwidth in release 1.0, with a planned roadmap to increased bandwidth up to hundreds of mbps in the future.
The Taqua W2600 can be used in conjunction with any standards-based small cell site, be it picocells, outdoor femtocells, and Wi-Fi hotspots and leverages advanced inference management and Self Optimizing Network (SON) techniques.
