CASE STUDY

EXTENDING BROADBAND TO RURAL

COMMUNITIES USING WIRELESS
UNDERSERVED BY BROADBAND

CHALLENGE
A major European Telco needed to extend triple play broadband Without laying out any
services out to residential subscribers in rural areas, to extend the additional fiber, the Operator
reach of their DSL network and add a new valuable subscriber base. was able to deploy a DSLAM
unit within the community to
Extending their fiber network was cost-prohibitive and the distance to
serve subscribers who have
the rural community was beyond the reach of high-speed DSL.
not been able to access
broadband services in the past.

SOLUTION Aviat Networks’ Eclipse

platform provides a simple and
Aviat Networks provided a wireless solution to extend the reach of the very cost-effective way to
fiber network out to the rural community. wirelessly extending
The solution consisted of an Eclipse microwave transport link broadband fiber, cable and
delivering a full 1 Gbit/s of capacity. The radio link combined multiple DSL network to underserved
radio channels using co-channel operation to preserve frequency communities.
resources, and advanced traffic aggregation combined data onto a
single GigE interface without the need for external equipment.

INTRODUCTION
For many people and small businesses that are located in rural communities, the
lack of broadband services is a reality of life. Telecoms operators have little incentive
to extend their high speed networks at significant cost to serve relatively small
populations.

In Europe, a major national carrier needed to extend their DSL services to a remote
rural community to deliver triple play services over IP (Internet Protocol)—that is
telephone (VoIP), internet and TV (IPTV).

NO FIBER, TOO FAR FOR DSL

However, the operator could not justify extending their fiber network out to the
point where DSL could reach all of the potential subscribers.

This is the most common reason why communities are starved of broadband
—the so-called digital divide. However, wireless technology offers the means
for operators to extend their networks to remote communities cost-effectively,
while also delivering the bandwidth needed to support the latest services.
CASE STUDY

Underserved by Broadband

WIRELESS DSL EXTENSION

Aviat Networks was able to design, test and deploy a wireless transport link to breach the
digital divide, using their market-leading Eclipse platform. Eclipse can easily deliver fiber-
like capacity and reliability, but for a fraction of the capital cost and with minimal recurring
operational expenses.

Eclipse enabled DSL services over 10 miles from the fiber network, over terrain which
would have made fiber deployment difficult and extremely expensive.

In many countries wireless is providing the means to extend fixed broadband fiber, cable
TV or DSL networks out to communities that have long been unable to participate in the
Internet boom. In many instances this is being driven by new government funding, such as
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in the USA.

LINK AGGREGATION
The Eclipse system consisted of four parallel radio paths, with each radio carrier bearing
the equivalent of over 300 Mbit/s. The integrated Layer 1 Ethernet intelligence of the
Eclipse platform enables the traffic from the 4 independent paths to be aggregated
together to form a single ‘wire speed’ Gigabit link, i.e. 1.2 Gbit/s of Layer 2 throughput.

INHERENT PROTECTION
Even though the microwave link does not include any equipment redundancy, the inherent
capabilities provided by the aggregated link means that should any one of the four paths
fail, any high priority traffic (e.g.: voice and video related services) can be automatically be
directed over one of the three remaining links. Lower priority traffic, such as internet
browsing, etc, can be dropped until the broken path is restored. This load balancing is
integrated into the radio Layer 2 functions, without any external Ethernet switch.

4+0 PROTECTED LINK

This type of arrangement is called ‘4+0 protected’, where redundancy for high priority
traffic is supported by a nonprotected link, avoiding the need to maintain expensive
duplicate equipment in the event that there is an equipment failure.

SAVING ON FREQUENCIES
The Eclipse 1.2 Gbit/s link was realized using just 112 MHz of frequency bandwidth by using
both available polarizations with the benefit of built-in XPIC (cross-pole interference
cancellation). Re-using the same channel to double the link capacity saves the operator
recurring annual licensing fees.

UNIVERSAL IPTV
This operator is now able to offer IPTV Video on Demand services to new subscribers who
could not previously be addressed from their fiber and DSL

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Aviat, Aviat Networks, and Aviat logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aviat Networks, Inc.
Eclipse is registered trademark of Aviat Networks, Inc.

© Aviat Networks, Inc. (2009-2010). All Rights Reserved.

Date subject to change without notice.
_c_RuralBB_Ecli_20Jan10