Cambridge Broadband Intros Wireless Backhaul Solution

VectaStar Gigabit, purported to be the world’s first microwave backhaul product that allows network designers to create point-to-multipoint (PMP) networks and individual links using a single platform, now is available from U.K.-based Cambridge Broadband Networks Limited.

VectaStar Gigabit, which Cambridge Broadband says provides 150 Mb/s Ethernet link capacity, features a “zero-footprint” design, thus eliminating external cabinets or indoor units, and reducing deployment time and design complexity in the construction and upgrade of mobile broadband networks. “VectaStar Gigabit is a flexible, rapid-response microwave backhaul solution that incorporates the same spectrum sharing, PMP topology found in the radio access network,” the company says. “This fundamentally more efficient traffic management approach ultimately delivers savings in both capital and operational resources.”  

Adds John Naylon, head of development at Cambridge Broadband Networks, “Microwave technologies are a crucial element in the creation of mobile backhaul and access networks but the demand for data services has dramatically changed the traffic profile. Recent measurements from a live network showed that VectaStar was saving over 63 percent of backhaul bandwidth compared to the provisioning that would have been required for alternative microwave technologies.”?

Here’s how it works: Designers can select VectaStar when they first start planning their networks – laying down individual links and then expanding them to multipoint sectors or hubs as their network grows. Whereas other multipoint systems require a hub “rack” containing control and interface equipment, VectaStar Gigabit integrates all operation and control functions into a “power over Ethernet” zero-footprint access point. VectaStar Gigabit also incorporates gigabit Ethernet optical and copper interfaces throughout to help ensure that all resources of the system are available to all devices in the network.?