Exalt microwave backhaul supports 'pay-as-you-grow'

A new microwave backhaul offering from Exalt is designed to offer carriers the ability to add capacity incrementally and minimize the costs of spare equipment.

For less then $20,000 carriers can get a gigabit connection that can cover distances of twelve miles, said Amir Zoufonoun, CEO of Exalt. Using microwave can speed deployment because it does not have the zoning issues associated with installing fiber, Zoufonoun said.

The new product, weighing eight pounds and dubbed ExloreAir, supports a pay-as-you-grow approach, Zofonoun said. Carriers “can start with 100 Meg in one radio and using software they can turn on more bandwidth up to 500 meg full duplex without compression," he said. "They can add more radios and Cat 5 cables and daisy chain them to get more capacity.”

And because ExploreAir uses field-replaceable diplexers, the need to keep spare radios on hand at numerous frequencies is minimized, reducing sparing costs 50% to 90%, according to Exalt. In addition, the product has a built-in gigabit Ethernet switch and encryption, as well as a built-in spectrum analyzer. Using the latter, Zoufonoun said, technicians can remotely check the device and record results to monitor its performance over time.

The wireless backhaul market has been booming, and although microwave represents a relatively small portion of the total U.S. backhaul market, its share is growing, according to New Paradigm Resources group.