Broadband wireless secures spotlight

The broadband wireless section at Supercomm last week was hopping, evidence that the access technology is coming into its own alongside wired technologies. Vendors of point-to-point and point-to-multipoint products in the licensed and unlicensed frequencies hawked their wares and introduced new products.

At the forefront of the announcements were the smaller companies, quickly learning that their innovation may get them noticed but that they must partner with more established players. Ensemble Communications, for example, has paired with Lucent Technologies to serve broadband license holder Adelphia Business Solutions, which uses Lucent equipment and has been trialing Ensemble radios.

"We can leverage Lucent's talent in designing, building and support," said David Twyver, president and CEO of Ensemble.

Netro is among other small vendors forming OEM agreements with big-name players. Nokia will incorporate Netro radios in its CityHopper point-to-multipoint product, introduced at the show last week. Because quality broadband fixed wireless radios already exist, Nokia decided it was better to OEM an existing product rather than build its own, said Ari Leppa, general manger of wireless routing for Nokia. The company also introduced the Nokia RoofTop solution, a mesh architecture-based product aimed at the residential marketplace that operates in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency.

Despite all the talk about point-to-multipoint architectures, the decreasing prices of point-to-point radios make them a more viable solution for operators, some of which are beginning to envision a larger ratio of point-to-point configurations in their buildouts.

"Point-to-multipoint can't provide the capacity in demand," said Stuart Little, director of broadband product marketing for DMC Stratex Networks, formerly known as Digital Microwave Corp. For high-capacity, low-density regions, point-to-point radios can offer the most efficient solution.

Giganet showcased its new super high-capacity radios at the show. Its new modular FibeAir products offer 311 and 622 Mb/s data rates in the local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) and 38 GHz frequencies. Current FibeAir supports 115 Mb/s, which can be scaled to the higher-speed options while still using the same standard 50 MHz wide channel.

The prices of point-to-multipoint solutions may begin to drop as more competitors enter the scene. Wi-LAN executives said that by the first quarter of next year it will have radios available in nearly all frequencies under 6 GHz at the cost of $500 per additional end user. Prices will have to drop to closer to $300 per additional user for the market really to take off, said Hatim Zaghloul, chairman and CEO of Wi-LAN.

Other point-to-multipoint suppliers at the show included WaveTrace, which showcased its time division duplexing/TDMA system, which the company believes will be the preferred transport medium in the future.

In addition, Alcatel announced the closing of its Newbridge Networks acquisition and plans to step up its position worldwide in a number of telecom fronts, including broadband wireless. Before the acquisition, Newbridge suffered from preannouncements and a lack of new products, said Pearse Flynn, president of Alcatel's carrier internetworking division. With the weight of Alcatel behind it, though, the Newbridge LMDS products may win a bigger piece of the broadband wireless pie.

Solution providers also showcased their products that operate in the unlicensed bands. Adaptive Broadband touted its relationship with Fuzion, which plans to aggressively introduce services across the nation using Adaptive Broadband's point-to-multipoint offering over the unlicensed national information infrastructure bands. "Our ability to rapidly deploy broadband at economical rates makes us successful," said David Frank, president and chief operating officer of Fuzion.

Nera Telecommunications, a Norwegian-based company, made its U.S. debut at the show with its Velocity 2000 product. Operating in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequencies, the product is aimed at competitive local exchange carriers targeting underserved areas or places where wireline plant is deteriorating, said Robert Connelly, vice president of product line management for Nera.