Faster wireless networks can connect ‘last mile’: DragonWave

Canadian telcos can use wireless, point-to-point technologies as a cheaper substitute for fibre-to-the-home and other wireline “last-mile” connections, Chris York, product marketing manager at DragonWave Inc., said in an interview. Incumbent telcos like BCE Inc. and MTS Allstream Inc. are rolling out fibre-to-the-home networks that offer increased bandwidth capacity and help cope with Canadians’ increasing consumption of online data. Fibre-to-the-home networks, which take the fibre connection to the end-user, can cost companies up to $200 per foot of fibre in urban areas that require telcos to bury their wires, said York, whose company provides wireless network infrastructure and technology. “In a lot of cases, trenching fibre is quite expensive,” he said. The “last mile” in a cable or telecom network is the final stretch of wire, capable of carrying television, Internet, and phone services, connecting a provider and the consumer. York said point-to-point wireless systems like those deployed by DragonWave are now capable of handling increased data capacities with the use of sophisticated bandwidth accelerators, which compress online data to facilitate more efficient data transmission. “These point-to-point high capacity links, in a lot of cases, would be a substitute for fibre when either the timelines required are short or it’s cost prohibitive,” he said. This week, DragonWave released upgrades to its wireless radio systems that promise to transport “up to 37% more data through existing microwave channels.” The upgrade “significantly improves spectral efficiency” and “lowers operators’ cost per bit,” the company said in a release. The upgraded radio systems can increase spectrum efficiency by 25 to 100 per cent, depending on traffic patterns, the release said, allowing data at speeds of up to 2 Gbps. York said using high-capacity wireless technology can be, “in order of magnitude, less expensive than a fibre network.” He said such wireless technologies can be used for data-intensive tasks and not just for last-mile purposes. “Our large operator customers have extensive, essentially backbone networks,” he said. “These can provide much more than that last-mile connectivity.” York said international infrastructure providers like Ericsson, NEC Corp., and Alcatel-Lucent been behind the rollout high-capacity wireless networks. Duncan Stewart, director for technology, media and telecom at Deloitte Canada, said he expects wireless and fibre-to-the-home technologies to be used for last-mile services. He said in an interview that fibre is being deployed more frequently and is a “continued trend globally” but consumer demand continues to drive wireless technologies. In many cases, he said, geography will dictate how carriers choose to connect individual homes or businesses in the last mile. “If you’re close to a chunk of fibre and it’s easy for you to get that fibre access, that tends to be the way to go,” Stewart said. “If it is not economically viable to run a couple of kilometers of fibre to your office, you do it over wireless. That’s true around the world,” he said. Stewart said the rate at which data consumption grows will play a factor in carriers’ decisions to go with wireless or wireline. If consumption grows at about 100 per cent per year, wireless options may provide enough capacity to service the demands of consumers and carriers. If data consumption continues to grow at its current pace of about 200 per cent per year, carriers will find more benefits in higher-capacity fibre, he said. Amit Kaminer, a research analyst with the Seaboard Group, said in an interview that the boundaries between wireline and wireless services will fade over the next 10 years. He predicted that a “two-channel access to the home” will become the norm for connecting the last mile. “In a 10-year time frame, I don’t see a serious communications carrier not investing in fibre,” he said. “It takes time, it’s costly, and there’s work to be done on that, but essentially, the angle is to push fibre as close to the homes and businesses as possible.” Kaminer said fibre and wireless networks will be “complementary” in the coming years, making the user experience “ubiquitous and seamless.” Independent technology analyst Carmi Levy said in an email that Canadian carriers will come to a point “where pulling wires the last mile to houses will seem very quaint.” Advances in wireless technology and spectral efficiency mean wireless will become a more cost-effective way to deliver content now carried through wireline networks, he said. “Wireless will continue to expand its presence and influence not only on the client side—i.e. delivering services wirelessly as an extension of a broadband landline infrastructure—but also as a backhaul alternative to conventional cross-country wired trunks as well as a potential complement to wired last-mile solutions,” Levy wrote. dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

Faster wireless networks can connect ‘last mile’: DragonWave

News | May 11, 2012

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