Bringing WiMAX to the reservation

As WiMAX operators penetrate further into rural communities, they're not only faced with the task of bringing broadband access to some of the most underserved areas of the country, they're also forced to find new ways of backhauling those connections.

While service providers can erect a WiMAX cell site anywhere, linking it to their transport network is another thing altogether. The reason many of these communities don't have easy access to broadband is a lack of fiber infrastructure. Now, however, several rural operators have begun deploying WiMAX despite those daunting realities, using innovative means to create high-capacity backhaul networks where none previously existed.

On the Navajo reservation in New Mexico, Sacred Wind Communications is trying to extend voice and broadband to 6000 homes completely off the telecom grid. Many of these homes are not only far apart from one another but 100 miles from Sacred Wind's nearest facilities. As president of Qwest New Mexico, John Badal tried for years to extend voice services to unconnected homes, but after four years, he'd only succeeded in bring 42 families onto the Qwest network. When he took over as CEO of Sacred Wind, he decided it was time for a new approach.

“The way to solve this puzzle was to apply a different formula than what we'd used in the past,” Badal said.

That new approach was a two-tiered wireless system fed by a single fiber trunk running through the reservation. Sacred Wind is building towers, with tribal council permission, on sacred mountains. From those sites, Fujitsu WiMAX radios on 3.65 GHz unlicensed frequencies link to homes miles away. To backhaul those connections, Sacred Wind is using Harris Stratex point-to-point radios to create long-haul links to a fiber backbone it is building between its two points of presence on the reservation. The operator is using wireless wherever it can to add capacity — even using it to transport DSL traffic in towns back to its central office — but due to the sheer size of the area Sacred Wind must cover, it won't be able to complete the network until 2012. Even then, it won't be able to reach every Navajo home in its territory with WiMAX, Badal said. To get 100% penetration, Sacred Wind will likely have to resort to satellite services.

Instead of using satellite as a last resort option, Open Range Communications is embracing it, but not as an access technology. The rural operator is working with Globalstar to use its satellite broadband network to backhaul WiMAX networks in remote areas. But Open Range also is accessing Level 3's fiber network in places it previously wasn't available. While Level 3's fiber runs through hundreds of rural communities, its wavelengths are merely passing through on their way to larger markets. Level 3, however, is giving Open Range access to its network at its optical amplifier locations, allowing the operator to connect its WiMAX sites directly into Level 3's backbone.