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Wireless Fibre Amsterdam

September 7^th 2006

Radisson Airport Hotel Schiphol

Rhodri Davies

Broadband Wales Observatory

Email:Daviesrj8@ecommerce.ac.uk

Conference Summary

The conference addressed issues, opportunities and solutions for providing high bandwidth services over wireless, concentrating on both the business and technical issues of implementation and realisation. The event was attended by around 20 delegates, mainly representatives of European telecommunications operators and was co-located with the WiMAX Focus Amsterdam event.

Key topics covered included:

High bandwidth solutions in the 60-100 GHz
26/28GHz Multipoint solutions and case studies
Sub 6 GHz High Bandwidth solutions for Backhaul
Operator Case studies
The market - drivers, costs,
Integration into the network
Free Space Optics
Multi Frequency solutions for Backhaul
Hybrid Optical/60-100GHz high reliability solutions
Regulatory status and updates

European Commission Key Note Talk

Francisco Guirao

European Commission

The opening presentation gave an overview of the European Commission's approach to ICT and broadband policy, with a particular focus on wireless technologies. It also gave an overview of the current broadband situation in Europe as well as a look at future trends. Francisco Guirao stated that the European Commission has actively encouraged wider adoption of broadband through initiatives, such as i2010 and eEurope, and that this will continue in the upcoming Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of research and development.

A number of wireless based projects from previous Framework Programmes were briefly discussed including:

EMBRACE (Efficient Millimetre Broadband Radio Access for Convergence and Evolution)
BROADWAN (Broadband services for everyone over fixed wireless access networks)
OBAN (Open Access Broadband Networks)

Guirao went on to discuss the growing levels of broadband penetration in European households and the current barriers to further growth. The main barriers identified by the European Commission were that:

Broadband is considered to be too expensive
There is a lack of coverage in certain areas
People did not believe that they needed broadband or would use it enough to justify the cost

It was also identified that those people who believed that they didn't need broadband or would not use it enough to justify the cost did not truly understand the capabilities or the applications of broadband technology and that if they were educated in these areas this barrier could be overcome.

Future trends were identified as the:

Increasing use of mobile phones; particularly for data
Convergence of technologies and services; in particular the convergence of fixed and voice services
Digitisation of content

As a result of these trends, Guirao believes that wireless technologies will have an increasingly important role to play in the delivery of both fixed and mobile data services in the future. The ultimate aim of satisfying these trends was identified as the provision of ubiquitous mobile broadband.

To conclude, a number of challenges were set for future initiatives, including making broadband ubiquitous throughout the EU and creating fully converged networks and infrastructures. From a wireless perspective one important issue that was highlighted was the challenge of managing the spectrum, both for its use for different services and in terms of bandwidth, contention and backhaul for broadband or mobile data services.

The opening session finished with some questions from delegates. Some of the more interesting questions asked were:

What are the coverage levels of broadband services at higher-bandwidths?
How much demand is there for bandwidth? I.e. How much bandwidth do people actually want?
How much would people be willing to pay for their optimum amount of bandwidth?

Unfortunately these questions were not able to be answered as these questions have yet to be included in surveys carried out by the EC's research. However, the interest of delegates in these areas indicates that these questions would be valuable if included in any future research.

Delivering BWA Triple-play Services – Portuguese Case

Vítor Gonçalves, Chief Marketing Officer

SGC Telecom

This presentation looked at the experiences of a small telecommunications operator in Portugal, SGC Telecom, who have implemented a wireless network for the delivery of triple-play services. Having realised that the infrastructure available at that time was inadequate, SGC was set-up in 1997 with the vision of creating a wireless infrastructure that would meet real market needs.

The company's solution was a high capacity 28GHz platform which they named TMAX. Each TMAX base station has a radius of 3.7km, can provide data services to 12,000 end-users and can offer 8Mbps broadband services with a contention ratio of 1:30. TMAX is a fixed-wireless solution and as such, does not offer mobility. According to Vítor Gonçalves, deployment costs are very low compared to other technologies including LLU deployment.

The company began its Portuguese deployment in 2005 and now provide a triple-play service to a number of households. Services are delivered to the households via a cable network linked to an aerial on the roof of the building. As such, this makes deployment particularly cost effective for apartment blocks. The company offers retail triple-play offerings only and these cost from EUR10 per month, with the most popular service costing EUR35 per month. This includes 30 TV channels, a 2Mbps broadband connection and voice, and also supports TV video-conferencing.

Gonçalves insisted that SGC's system could be replicated in any part of the world as it uses LMDS frequencies that are available worldwide and all of its equipment in is fully certified. As well as being used for triple-play services, the platform could also have other uses, such as, extending the reach of 'wired' broadband services and providing MAN services to mobile operators.

To conclude, Gonçalves stated that this case study was a fine example of how innovation can be used to provide solutions in the telecommunications sector.

Low Frequency Microwave – Valuable Solutions for FWA Backhaul

Andy Hunwicks, Director

Westica Communications

This presentation focused on the use of low frequency microwave (LFM) as backhaul solutions. Andy Hunwicks suggested that point-to-point microwave radios were a valuable alternative to cable and fibre solutions as they are easier and cheaper to deploy while providing equal if not better operational availability. Furthermore, it was suggested that LFM could be used in areas where fibre installation would be impossible or too expensive, and in areas where there is difficulty in obtaining construction rights.

LFM, which works in the 1.4GHz frequency band, was said to be a better alternative to high frequency solutions due to its near total immunity to atmospheric conditions and its excellent range and diffraction characteristics.

In conclusion, Hunwicks stated that with its technical advantages over high frequency wireless and economic advantages over leased-lines, low frequency microwave solutions can provide an economically viable backhaul solution to achieve best business case.

Deploying Wireless for High Bandwidth Connectivity

Bruno Cornaglia, Director Technology Strategy and Network Engineering,

Vodafone

In this presentation, Bruno Cornaglia discussed the increasing use of data services over mobile networks and the different solutions for mobile backhaul that could deal with this increase. The solutions discussed were:

Microwave Point-to-Point (PtP) systems
Microwave Point-to-MultiPoint (PMP) systems
WiMAX systems

Cornaglia concluded that microwave systems would be less expensive in terms of cost per bit per Hz but that evolution were needed in terms of higher spectrum efficiency and that new frequency bands were needed for high capacity links. Furthermore, Cornaglia stated that WiMAX would not be useful for mobile backhauling due to the introduction of latency by using IP and the insufficient capacity that it offered. However, Cornaglia did state that WiMAX would be useful for backhauling low capacity IP based sites in non-line of site (NLOS) areas.

Is Wireless Fibre? The two are becoming synonymous but is this over-simplification or a justified claim of 21^st century technologies?

John Berry, Managing Director

ATDI Ltd

This presentation focused on whether wireless technologies could provide a real alternative to fibre. After discussing many technical issues surrounding wireless, John Berry concluded that although we have the knowledge to control wireless, industry doesn't always know how to apply them and that from a purely technical view fibre is still a more advanced solution than wireless.

To conclude, Berry stated that the knowledge available allows the issues surrounding wireless technologies to be controlled and as such, wireless technologies do have their place as fibre substitute solutions.

Key Note Presentation Panel: 60-100GHz

Jonathan Wells, President, GigabeamRomeo Premerlani, Director, RF Communication Division, Huber SuhnerIan Clarke, Director, Sinon

This session comprised of an informal discussion on the subject of backhaul links in the 60-100GHz frequency band. Two case studies of companies that supply point-to-point wireless microwave radio backhaul systems were discussed as well as some of the numerous applications of this technology:

Building to Building Enterprise LAN extension
Backbone connections
Wireless Mesh Networks
Municipal Networks

These systems are small footprint, line-of-sight, fibre-equivalent links that are generally mounted on tower blocks or roofs providing high-capacity links with high operational availability at up to 4km. These systems are regarded as low cost alternatives to fibre lines and will be key systems for LAN expansion and backbone links in the future.

Using Multiple Frequencies for Point-to-Multipoint Wireless Backhaul

Theo Wegbrans

Executive Vice President, Cambridge Broadband

This presentation discussed the advantages of point-to-multipoint backhaul for mobile networks. 3G networks are facing increasing data use with the advent of High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology and, as such, require greater backhaul bandwidth capacity. According to Theo Wegbrans, the current backhaul strategy for 3G will not cope with the increase in data usage and a new approach is necessary. The approach suggested by Wegbrans was the use of point-to-multipoint backhaul. The advantages of this approach are that one backhaul base station can link multiple 2G/3G base stations and that in addition to cellular backhaul a point-to-multipoint system can provide other services, such as, business access services and backhaul for WiFi, WiMAX and other mobile technologies.

Wegbrans concluded that point-to-multipoint backhaul is a future-proof solution which can accommodate varying frequencies and can support multiple applications, and is therefore a flexible and intelligent use of infrastructure.

Fiber and Free space backhauled wireless LAN's

David Britz, Principal Technical Staff AT&T, chairman of the FSO AllianceHitendra

Sonny Soni, SVP Sales & Customer Service, ClearMesh

This session discussed the use of fibre and free space backhauled wireless networks. According to the speakers, the current access market is dominated by technologies that are both expensive and slow to deploy or have limited bandwidth for future growth. Furthermore, it was stated that no one access technology meets all operator and customer requirements and, as such, a mix of technologies is needed in order to satisfy both parties. Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) was put forward as a technology that could fit into this mix to create wireless mesh backhaul solutions.

In conclusion, FSOC was said to be an excellent solution for backhaul as they do not interfere with radio, are license and spectrum free, have high operational availability and have comparable costs to alternative technologies.