4G World: Qwest investing in fiber to cell site

Qwest Communications (NYSE:Q) today announced plans to leverage its fiber-to-the-node network to create a high-capacity Ethernet backhaul network for its wireless operator customers. Starting at the fiber nodes it built for residential broadband service throughout its territory, Qwest plans to begin extending those fiber connections to cell sites, offering wireless operators a huge upgrade from the copper pipes they currently rely on.

“We recognize what has happened with respect to the wireless market in recent years,” said Roland Thornton, executive vice president of wholesale markets for Qwest. “We’re providing a critical service that we believe, if it wasn’t provided, would hamper the growth of the wireless market.”

Thornton acknowledged Qwest won’t actually build fiber to the site without a contract in place. The difference between the new initiative and previous efforts to provide backhaul capacity, though, lies in the new capabilities its FTTN network allows and a new willingness to work closely with operators in their long-term efforts to ensure their current 3G networks and future 4G networks aren’t choked by backhaul bottlenecks.

“We’re not just talking to our customers; we’re trying to go deep into their planning process,” Thornton said. “This positions us and them to be partners for a very long time.”

In recent months, wireless operators and the incumbent operators that provide their backhaul have ramped up their fiber-to-the-site deployments. Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) and parent Verizon Communications announced a major initiative to link 90% of VZW’s cell sites with fiber Ethernet by 2014 in preparation for the 4G. AT&T (NYSE:T) is deploying fiber to its cell sites concurrently with a 3G capacity upgrade. Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT) is working with Open Range Communications to use its optical repeater nodes as points of presence to backhaul its forthcoming WiMax network.

Unlike the Verizon and AT&T initiatives though, Qwest isn’t supplying links to its subsidiary wireless operator. Instead it’s extending the service on a customer-by-customer basis. Qwest will offer both shared metro Ethernet connections as well as direct fiber links as part of the program. No request from a wireless customer will go unconsidered, Thornton said, though there will simply be some sites that will be too remote to make fiber feasible.

“If a customer comes to us and says, I want 100% of my cell sites fiber-fed, I am completely willing to sit down with them to see how we can make that happen,” Thornton said. “If a customer requirement is to have fiber up the top of a mountain through very rough terrain, we’ll name a price. It would be very expensive, and we’d probably recommend an alternative access technology.”

The recent push toward fiber to the cell couldn’t have come at more opportune time if Clearwire’s (NASDAQ:CLWR) recent deployment of WiMax is any indication. In a recent interview, Clearwire’s chief technology officer said the company was only able to secure fiber connections to 10% of the cell sites in its current 25-market rollout schedule. Since Clearwire’s sites require a bare minimum of 30 Mb/s today and 100 Mb/s in the future, copper is not a viable alternative, Saw said. Clearwire has had to rely primarily on IP radios from vendors like DragonWave (TSE:DWI) and Motorola (NYSE:MOT).