White Paper On Wimax Backhaul at 70/80 GHZ

White Paper on WiMAX Backhaul at 70/80 GHz
Introduction
WiMAX promises to bring high-speed data connectivity to a wide coverage area,

opening up ubiquitous internet access without costly investment in wire-line
infrastructure. A lot of consideration has been given to the access portion of WiMAX
networks: the fixed and mobile specifications 802.16-2004 and 802.16e-2005
respectively have both been ratified; the first WiMAX certified fixed products are
available and mobile products are expected in late 2006. The WiMAX Forum, an
industry group of nearly 400 member companies, estimates that there are already more
than 150 announced commercial trials and deployments of fixed WiMAX networks.
Despite this, little attention has been devoted to WiMAX backhaul needs and evolution.
With multi-sectored antennas likely and high data throughput possible, conventional
point-to-point (PTP) wireless transport solutions will quickly reach capacity. Recently
released spectrum at 70 and 80 GHz is allowing a new generation of high speed radios
to be realized. Data rates to gigabit-per-second and beyond are possible in cost
effective radio architectures, opening up a host of new applications including economic
altering WiMAX wireless backhaul networks.
A WiMAX Network’s Building Blocks
To provide blanket, ubiquitous WiMAX coverage of a wide geographical area, several

basic building blocks are required.
• A fiber node (or POP – Point of Presence) to provide connectivity to the
metropolitan Wide Area Network (WAN) or existing Internet infrastructure.
• A high capacity wired or wireless PTP backbone, often called the transport or
backhaul network, to carry the high capacity traffic from the fiber POP to each
WiMAX Access Point (AP) at locations relatively close to the end users. Ideally a
ring configuration of consecutive PTP links is used because of the rotational
diversity it provides. If one point in the ring was to fail, full network integrity is
maintained by simply rerouting traffic in the opposite direction around the ring,
allowing time for maintenance and repair to be undertaken without any costly
system outages.
• A WiMAX point-to-multipoint (PTMP) data delivery system consisting of the APs
providing the data connectivity to the many Customer Premise Equipment (CPE)
devices at each subscriber’s location.
An example of this concept is shown in Figure 1 (page 2). The number of links deployed
will depend on the equipment employed, the area to be covered, the geographical
location and topology of the network.
Release Date: October 2006 Page 1 Copyright © 2006 GigaBeam Corporation

Confidential All Rights Reserved
Fiber
On-fiber
POP
End user coverage provided

Point-to-point by point-to-multi-point
backhaul ring WiMAX system
Figure 1: Typical WiMAX network’s building blocks.
WiMAX Backhaul Alternatives
A WiMAX backhaul network is used to transport high data rate traffic from the fiber POP
around the rest of the network. Such a backbone can be built using wired or wireless
technologies. Wireless is usually preferred due to the high costs of trenching fiber in
dense modern conurbations, or of leasing fiber from incumbents. Costs of laying new
fiber in urban environments can run from $250,000 to upwards of $1,000,000 per mile.
The leasing costs of 45 Mbps (DS3) circuits average around $3,000 per month.
Furthermore, existing fiber networks are poorly placed to serve end-customers. USA
data shows 95% of the 750,000 US commercial locations with 20 or more employees
are not served by fiber. Existing copper wiring is not a consideration because of its
limited data handling capabilities. Wireless, because of its cost effective economics, fast
time to install and commission, and scalable flexibility is therefore the natural choice for
WiMAX backhaul.
When selecting wireless backhaul equipment, a WiMAX network architect faces many
design decisions and trade offs. Three important questions are:
• What frequency and associated performance characteristics?
• What data rate is available and what is the reliability of delivery?
• Licensed or unlicensed technology?

What frequency and associated performance characteristics?
The WiMAX service provider will have likely placed a lot of effort into obtaining the
WiMAX frequencies. These frequencies will probably have been secured through a
nationwide auction at a significant cost (both financial and time) to the service provider.
By necessity, the service provider will want to extract the maximum revenue and
financial return from his investment, and so should devote this entire spectrum to the
access portion of the network, and use a different frequency band for the network
backhaul. This makes economic sense as well as engineering sense, as using a
different frequency for backhaul will significantly simplify network design and
interference planning.
What data rate is available and what is the reliability of delivery?

The data rates delivered by WiMAX access points will vary enormously depending on
the configuration of the network, the location of the subscribers and the system flexibility
required. The 802.16-2004 specification defines a maximum data rate of 70 Mbps. In
practice, in a typical cell radius deployment of 2 to 3 miles, systems are expected to
deliver capacity of up to 40 Mbps per channel. Broadcast towers will likely consist of
multiple APs – probably four to six WiMAX radios each broadcasting over 90° down to
60° sectors respectively. Therefore backhaul requirements for each tower location will
be several hundred megabits per second. Future WiMAX releases could demand more,
meaning additional flexibility needs to be accounted for. Consider the WiFi evolution,
where initial speeds of 2 Mbps have been increased almost one hundred-fold,
progressively through 11 Mbps, 54 Mbps and now to 108 Mbps through ongoing
specification revisions. Who knows how far WiMAX will progress in the future?
Licensed or unlicensed technology?

Licensed technology provides guarantees of protection from interference, intentional or
otherwise. In return for a license fee, the user is given effective ownership of the
required transmission spectrum, with full federal protection for that piece of spectrum.
Unlicensed technology provides no such guarantees. Given the high data rates required
for WiMAX backhaul and the loss in revenue generating potential when such a system
goes down, network designers will always choose licensed technologies.
A WiMAX radio is a poor choice as a backhaul solution. The WiMAX standard is

designed to operate as a PTMP system and is highly inefficient when configured in a
PTP architecture. Practical throughputs of only a few tens of megabits per second are
realizable. In addition, the WiMAX backhaul radio would use up valuable spectrum
better allocated to generating revenue on the access part of the network. Conventional
microwave radio is a better although still limited choice for WiMAX backhaul. Available
at frequencies from 5.8 GHz unlicensed or 6 to 40 GHz licensed, microwave PTP
systems are limited to practical data rates of up to 155 Mbps or perhaps 300 Mbps or so
in more exotic configurations. This is because these frequencies are heavily regulated
with only narrow channels available to individual users. Typically maximum channel
sizes of 28 MHz in Europe or 30 MHz in USA are the widest available, meaning high

complexity, high cost radios are required to squeeze data rates of 150 Mbps into such
channels.
A Better Backhaul Alternative – 70/80 GHz
In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a historic ruling,

opening up 13 GHz of spectrum at frequencies much higher than had been
commercially available before. This spectrum provides for the first time the means to
provide economical broadband connectivity at true Gigabit data rates and beyond. The
FCC ruling also permits a novel licensing scheme, allowing users cheap and fast
allocations to prospective users. A 10 year license can be applied for, granted and
purchased in less than 30 minutes for the cost of a few hundred dollars. Then-FCC
Chairman Michael Powell heralded the ruling as opening a “new frontier” in commercial
services and products for the American people.
In 2005, the Commission for European Post and Telecommunications (CEPT) released
a European-wide frequency channel plan for fixed service systems in these bands. The
following year, the European Technical Standards Institute (ETSI) released technical
specifications covering these bands. Together this provides the framework under which
70/80GHz products can be sold into Europe.
Of particular interest is the 10 GHz of bandwidth at 70 and 80 GHz. Designed to co-

exist together, the 71 to 76 GHz and 81 to 86 GHz allocations allows 5 GHz of full
duplex transmission bandwidth; enough to transmit a gigabit of data (1 Gbps or GigE)
even with the simplest modulation schemes. With more spectrally efficient modulations,
full duplex data rates of 10 Gbps (OC-192, STM-64 or 10GigE) can be reached. With
direct data conversion and low cost diplexers, relatively simple and thus cost efficient
and high reliability radio architectures can be realized.
Propagation characteristics at 70 and 80 GHz allow for transmission distances in excess

of 1 mile with carrier class performance. Atmospheric absorption at these frequencies is
comparable to the popular microwave bands of 23 and 38 GHz. Rain does cause
additional attenuation, but fortunately world-wide rainfall statistics are well documented
and radio paths can be planned accordingly.1 Historical data for the USA shows that
currently available commercial equipment can achieve gigabit per second connectivity
with calculated 99.999% weather availability (equivalent to only 5 minutes of weather
outage per year) over 80% of the country with links of approximately1 mile. For a lower
99.9% available, distances approaching 3 miles can be routinely achieved.
1
From the Crane Rain Model which is based on a nominal worst case rain year.
Summary
WiMAX is an exciting technology that promises to bring high-speed data connectivity

over wide coverage areas. There has been much focus on the access side of WiMAX
networks, with little thought devoted to backhaul needs and evolution.
For most WiMAX sites, fiber connections do not exist, so wireless provides the most
compelling backhaul solution. Being designed as a PTMP technology and using up the
valuable spectrum better allocated to access, WiMAX radios themselves are a poor
backhaul alternative. Sophisticated network designers therefore select conventional
licensed microwave radio for their backhaul needs. These provide a solid solution, but
are limited to data rates of around 150 Mbps in cost effective configurations. The more
demanding WiMAX applications will have backhaul requirements that exceed this, and
experience with other wireless technologies such as WiFi that has experienced a
multiple increases in speed in the few years since it was introduced, has shown us that
flexibility needs to be built into systems to avoid costly system upgrades or rebuilds in
the future.
70/80 GHz radio systems provide a compelling alternative to conventional microwave for
WiMAX backhaul applications. They offer the advantages of extremely high data rates,
a flexible growth path, plus all the benefits of interference immunity guaranteed by
licensed technology. Best of all, the inherent simplicity of a 70/80 GHz radio means it
can be offered at a price competitive to a conventional high data radio, significantly
broadening the business case of any WiMAX operator.
About the Author
Dr Jonathan Wells is Director of Product Management for GigaBeam Corp, a provider of

high performance wireless point-to-point communications access solutions that operate
in the licensed 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz E-Band radio spectrum. Jonathan has a PhD
in Millimeter-wave Electronics for work on novel 94 GHz receivers and an MBA with
specialization in strategic R&D management. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and is
active on the WCA’s Above 60 GHz Spectrum Development Committee. He has held a
variety of technical and managerial roles in a number of countries around the world. He
can be contacted at jonathan.wells@gigabeam.com.
GigaBeam Contact Information
GigaBeam Corporation, 470 Springpark Place, Suite 900, Herndon, VA 20170

(571) 283-6200; www.GigaBeam.com; Nasdaq: GGBM, GGBMW, GGBMZ


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White Paper on WiMAX Backhaul at 70/80 GHz

WiMAX promises to bring high-speed data connectivity to a wide coverage area,

A WiMAX Network’s Building Blocks

To provide blanket, ubiquitous WiMAX coverage of a wide geographical area, several

Release Date: October 2006 Page 1 Copyright © 2006 GigaBeam Corporation

End user coverage provided

Figure 1: Typical WiMAX network’s building blocks.

WiMAX Backhaul Alternatives

Release Date: October 2006 Page 2 Copyright © 2006 GigaBeam Corporation

What data rate is available and what is the reliability of delivery?

Licensed or unlicensed technology?

A WiMAX radio is a poor choice as a backhaul solution. The WiMAX standard is

Release Date: October 2006 Page 3 Copyright © 2006 GigaBeam Corporation

A Better Backhaul Alternative – 70/80 GHz

In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a historic ruling,

Of particular interest is the 10 GHz of bandwidth at 70 and 80 GHz. Designed to co-

Propagation characteristics at 70 and 80 GHz allow for transmission distances in excess

WiMAX is an exciting technology that promises to bring high-speed data connectivity

About the Author

Dr Jonathan Wells is Director of Product Management for GigaBeam Corp, a provider of

GigaBeam Contact Information

GigaBeam Corporation, 470 Springpark Place, Suite 900, Herndon, VA 20170

Release Date: October 2006 Page 5 Copyright © 2006 GigaBeam Corporation

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