Proxim supercharges backhaul products with 4G technology

If advanced 4G technologies can be used to create higher-capacity access networks, they can also be used to create higher-capacity backhaul networks—at least that’s Proxim Wireless’s thinking. The wireless radio vendor has completely revamped the point-to-point and point-to-multipoint systems it acquired from Agere Systems and Western Multiplex to produce a new portfolio of long-range backhaul and transport radios incorporating the same technologies used in WiMax and long-term evolution (LTE) networks.

The result is a new product line, the Tsunami 8100 family of point-to-point and point-to-multipoint radios. Proxim President and Chief Executive Officer Pankaj Manglik said Proxim designed the network architecture using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation scheme and multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna technologies, allowing it to reproduce the best features of its separate radio products in a single radio.

Manglik said the 8100 combines low latency and capacities as high as 300 megabits per second with an extended range of 70 kilometers. It also adds flexibility: Triple MIMO antennas allow reflected signals from obstructions to reinforce the radio’s signals so it can be deployed in areas where there is no clear line of sight between nodes.

The QB-8100 point-to-point system is targeted purely at IP transport, but the MP-8100 point-to-multipoint system is much more flexible, Manglik said. It can be used to backhaul clusters of 3G and 4G cellsites aggregate traffic from public or private WLAN networks or even as a high-capacity access technology for enterprise campuses or multi-tenant units and machine-to-machine networks. Proxim is also trying to sell the two products as a package, using the point-to-point radios to aggregate traffic from point-to-point systems.

Proxim is trialing the systems with multiple customers from Europe and Asia who have used it for a wide variety of different applications. Fortune 500 security company ADT is using the radios to backhaul high-bandwidth video streams from its surveillance cameras. Yonder Media is using the system to aggregate traffic from multiple wireless ISPs to create a single high-capacity transport network.