Overcoming fiber extension limitations using E-Βand

Vianet is an innovative Canadian Service Provider with its head office Sudbury and 13 offices across the province of Ontario. Offering best of breed internet, telephony, television and business solutions, they serve rural and urban markets with an ever-expanding range of fiber and fixed wireless network to serve government, municipalities, business and residents.

UltraLink™-GX80 radios were installed to operate in parallel to the 15 GHz licensed MW links so that the existing MW infrastructure, including its antennas, remained intact. The UltraLink™-GX80 link served as the primary capacity transport medium, and it successfully delivered multi-gigabit capacity at almost 7.4 miles (12 km). The radios quickly synchronized stably during clear-sky conditions and at a 9 Gbit/s speed.

This extraordinary achievement was furthermore complemented by Vianet’s failover mechanism. During adverse weather conditions that normally hinder E-Band’s operation, Vianet used their router to switch traffic between the UltraLink™-GX80 link and the 15 GHz MW link and even to an unlicensed spectrum link when it became necessary. Once the good weather conditions were restored, the network traffic could be rerouted back through the UltraLink™-GX80 at multi-gigabit capacities. As a result, Vianet effectively upgraded their existing 15 GHz MW links to up to 9 Gbit/s capacities using Intracom Telecom’s innovative E-Band technology.

The main driver behind the UltraLink™-GX80’s achievement is its market-leading system gain exceeding 70 dB at 10 Gbit/s. This system gain also contributed to the significant reduction of link alignment time. Such system gain levels made the E-Band link synchronize at 6+ miles (~11 km), even over 50% lake water, and maintain stability of the delivered multi-gigabit speeds.

Intracom Telecom’s UltraLink™-GX80 radio, already widely deployed in MNO and WISP networks, is at the forefront of performance in terms of link range, spectral efficiency and operational flexibility. It can even be combined with third-party vendor radios, licensed or unlicensed, to enable capacity enhancement of existing MW links in a more effective and economical way, compared to adding one or more MW links. Furthermore, Intracom Telecom can offer a dual-band antenna capable of supporting both third-party vendor MW radios, as well as the UltraLink™-GX80, greatly facilitating the deployment of such a dual-band solution.

UltraLink™-GX80 is a high-performance, high-capacity E-Band (71-76 / 81-86 GHz) radio designed for use in demanding transport applications requiring capacity up to 20 Gbit/s as an alternative to optical fiber. It is a uniquely-versatile fully-outdoor radio suitable for a wide variety of applications. It supports Ethernet/IP, eCPRI or CPRI traffic transport, while offering a rich set of standards-based L2 and L3 networking features for the delivery of Carrier Ethernet and IP/MPLS-based services.