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In today's competitive world, to grow your business, it is increasingly crucial that a Telco can move, add and manage subscribers quickly and efficiently. A fast, affordable, secure, and reliable network is paramount to success. Whether you are creating a network from scratch, or need to augment or replace your existing wired links, a wireless based solution is the most reliable and cost-effective, high-speed data networking alternative you should know more about.
Simply put, wireless is the lowest cost and most easily implemented solution today for the increasing backhaul demands for a Telco’s network. In this paper, we discuss how to meet the growing demands for bandwidth by providing connectivity between various network components using high performance wireless radios. The best way is to deploy the smartBridges Nexus Platform based solutions – the backhaul and last mile alternative that gives you the most bandwidth for your investment.
Read on to find out more. |
White paper on implementing a wireless solution for Telcos contributed by Anup Mangla, smartBridges Technical Sales Manager |
The smartBridges Nexus wireless radios, the airHaul, airPoint and airClient, can complement or replace expensive leased lines connecting the various parts of a typical cellular network
Advantages of a Wireless Solution for Telcos
Telcos, carriers and other service providers can realize many benefits from adopting a wireless component into their networks. Some of the advantages are listed below:
- Immediate deployment with subsequent immediate revenue realization
- First mover advantage
- Ease of deployment in challenging terrains
- Disaster management
- Ease of redeployment
- Scalable
- Significant Captial Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operating Expenditure (OPEX) savings per year
- Reliability
A wireless component usually comes in where there is no wired line feasibility due to physical or other reasons. However, even when this is not the case, replacing a wired line with wireless eliminates an annually recurring cost.
Wireless can also complement an existing leased line as a backup link or as a quick upgrade of the link to provide more bandwidth.
A typical GSM/CDMA/3G network comprises the following network elements:
- Mobile services Switching Center (MSC)
- Base Station Subsystem consisting of:
- Base Station Controller (BSC)
- Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
At the user end of the mobile network, the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) is the link that communicates with the cell phone. The BTS connects to a BSC over a T1/E1 line.
The Base Station Controller (BSC) is responsible for handling traffic between a cellular phone and the Mobile services Switching Center (MSC). It carries out transcoding of speech channels, allocation of radio channels to mobile phones, paging and many other tasks related to the cellular network.
Figure 1 – Diagram of a typical Cellular Network
In the following sections, we shall look at where a wireless network component can be introduced into a cellular network.
Point to Point Connectivity Between BSC and BTS
To provide connectivity between the BTS and BSC, a backhaul link with a pair of E1/T1-to-Ethernet Converters can be used. The backhaul link replaces the leased E1/1 line.
Figure 2 – Point-to-point connectivity between the BSC and BTS
The Nexus backhauls from smartBridges can perform ideally in this scenario. Using the latest COFDM technology, the airHaul™ Nexus platform focuses on providing high throughput over long distances for Near Line of Sight Point-to-Point applications.
smartBridges offers two high performance backhauls that are ideally suited for carrying voice: the airHaul Nexus PRO TOTAL (25 Mbps with built-in multi-band antenna) and the airHaul2 Nexus PRO (45 Mbps in a link aggregation mode- a dual radio model). The specific airHaul model can be selected based on the throughput requirement for the link between the BTS and BSC.
Point to Multipoint Connectivity between BSC and BTS
In a cellular network, a single BSC usually manages three BTS. When the bandwidth requirement for each BTS is within the limit of 6 Mbps, the Telco can establish a point-to-multipoint connectivity for connecting wirelessly to these BTS. In this scenario, the smartBridges access point, airPoint, is used at the BSC end and the client device, airClient, is used at the BTS end.
Figure 3 – Point-to-multipoint connectivity between the BSC and multiple BTS
PTP/PTMP Connectivity between MSC and BSC
Similarly, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connectivity can also be established for providing the backbone connectivity between the MSC and BSC. For high bandwidth requirement, the Telco can use the airHaul2 Nexus PRO, which is a dual radio model, in a Link Aggregation mode to deliver up to 45 Mbps of throughput. For a lower bandwidth requirement, point-to-multipoint links between the MSC and BSC using the Nexus access points and client devices can be established similarly to Figure 3.
Figure 4 – High throughput backhaul link from MSC to BSC using the Link Aggregation Mode in the airHaul2 Nexus PRO, a dual radio backhaul from smartBridges
Co-existence of Wireless Link with Wired Lines
Finally, a wireless link can co-exist in a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint mode with an existing wired line for the following reasons:
- Hot stand-by backup of a Leased line/Fiber optics link
- Load balancing of traffic between a wireless backhaul link and wired line connectivity
Figure 5 – Co-existence of wireless link with wired line for increased bandwidth or hot stand-by backup
Summary
The scenarios discussed here show how easily and rapidly wireless links can be implemented into an existing cellular network based on leased wired lines to increase bandwidth, reduce recurring costs and/or provide a hot stand-by backup link. Wireless is the solutions Telcos need to become flexible in rapidly meeting the increasing demands of their markets.
The Nexus PRO series of wireless backhauls, access points and client devices from smartBridges can be used extensively for Telcos’ wireless connectivity requirements. For more details on the Nexus Platform, please click here.
