With HSPA and EVDO maturing, WiMAX being deployed and LTE getting ready to buzz around, it is soon changing the way mobile phones will access the networks. The bandwidth-hungry new services, applications and the non-stop touch clicks on your smart handhelds are eventually going to obsolete the mature 3G networks.

Whereas, the 4G radio access networks are definitely envisioned to control this ever-increasing wireless broadband traffic, what about the evolution of the backhaul network? Is it ready? Or is it going to be a major bottleneck analogous to the traffic jams seen if only one lane was operating out of a four lane expressway.

The much touted sale of spectrum released through the switchover from analogue to digital terrestrial TV – also known as the Digital Dividend – will generate an additional boost for mobile broadband services. The spectrum to be auctioned on a national basis is suitable for providing blanket broadband coverage based on standards such as LTE and WiMAX, including rural and hard-to-reach areas. Soon accessible literally everywhere, smartphone users will quickly become accustomed to new mobile broadband applications, with the need for backhaul capacity multiplying considerably.

There are four basic requirements for 4G backhaul networks to meet:

• Capacity – a single tail site should be scalable to more than 100Mbps capacity
• Latency – a solution that supports 10msec or less end-to-end latency
• Synchronization –  a network capable to deliver accurate timing information
• All-IP – support of IP traffic from head to tail.

With Carrier Ethernet being nominated as the preferred data link protocol, there are three main transport technologies in the backhaul arena – copper, fiber and wireless point-to-point microwave. Both fiber and point-to-point microwave support significantly higher data rates than traditional copper T1/E1 lines. While microwave links can deliver the best cost-performance and are used in over 50% of all mobile backhaul deployments worldwide today, only fiber guarantees the ultimate scalability, efficiency and the performance metrics suitable for 4G applications in the long run.

 

The migration to higher capacity and lower latency fiber-based Carrier Ethernet backhaul has already begun for many mobile network operators. Their backhaul service provider partners have extended their service offerings by new backhaul products specifically targeted at meeting the requirements of LTE and WiMAX. This, coupled with the inherent scalability of Ethernet, provides growth opportunities with increasing economies of scale – and encourages engineers to develop thousands of new mobile applications ready to consume the bandwidth made available.

To learn more about mobile backhaul, follow the links below:

• White Paper: Mobile Backhaul Evolution
• Application Note: Mobile Backhaul