Gigabit Ethernet-Equipped, Carrier-Class Microwave Backhaul Systems for High Capacity Ethernet and TDM Applications
The GigE family of licensed and license-exempt microwave backhaul systems is built on a Gigabit Ethernet platform designed to deliver exceptional range, throughput and system gain for high capacity backhaul applications. The GigE family radio systems are ideal for mobile backhaul, including LTE; long haul communications, IP backhaul and fiber backup.
Licensed GigE Microwave Systems: Raising the Bar
Exalt’s licensed microwave radio systems break new ground in capacity, range reliability and availability, delivering a broad feature set and numerous industry firsts.
Capacity Aggregation
Microwave network engineers around the world are trying to find ways to simply and cost-effectively add more capacity to their licensed microwave links. Exalt’s licensed GigE systems provide engineers with a new tool to achieve those objectives: multi-radio, multi-band capacity aggregation without the need for external aggregation equipment.
Now, users can use one radio to aggregate capacity from up to four licensed links over a single GbE interface without using an external Gigabit Ethernet router. So, whether an extra link is operating over the same antenna infrastructure with a different antenna polarity (XPIC operation), or whether it’s a standalone link with its own antenna infrastructure, the traffic from either type can be fed into a primary radio and accessed over a single GbE port.
But engineers can’t always count on being able to add more licensed links to their sites. Exalt has a capacity expansion solution for those cases, as well. Users can combine a licensed 6 GHz GigE radio system with up to three license-exempt EX-5r GigE radio systems to achieve as much as 1 Gbps full-duplex throughput, all accessible from a single GbE port. No external switches or routers are required, nor are additional 6 GHz licenses.
World’s First Semi-protected, 1.5+0 Configuration
Until now, system designers had two options for protecting equipment on microwave links. They could either not protect the radio equipment, an approach referred to as 1+0 (primary radio plus no backup radio); or they could fully protect the radio equipment with a second radio, an approach referred to as 1+1 or N+1 (primary radio(s) plus a backup radio).
Although 1+1 links are fully redundant, they come at a price that can be as much as 2x the price of a 1+0 link.
With the introduction of the EX-6i GigE radio system, Exalt offers the world’s first semi-protected, 1.5+0 configuration, providing system designers with a protection alternative that balances system cost with redundancy. For a little more than the price of an unprotected 1+0 system, designers can now provide redundancy for the critical RF components.
The secret to this capability? Exalt Transmit and Receive Availability (EXtra™), a unique internally redundant architecture that provides integrated dual receivers for built-in receiver protection and/or built-in space diversity, transmit fail-safe switching and other redundancy features in a single system.
As mobile operators migrate their networks to LTE and as other network owners increasingly shift traffic from TDM to IP, redundancy requirements are changing and cost is paramount. The semi-protected, 1.5+0 option allows network designers to combine the inherently redundant nature of IP with RF component protection to strike an ideal balance between cost and redundancy.
Advanced Signal Processing Extends Range and Availability
Ethernet and TDM traffic have different availability requirements. TDM demands 99.999%. Ethernet, because of its packet retransmission capabilities, connectionless nature and network packet routing characteristics has inherent redundancy that allows lower availability levels – 99.9%, for example.
What if a microwave link could be designed to achieve full target throughput at the extended range allowed by a 99.9% availability level, while still guaranteeing 99.999% availability for TDM traffic? With Exalt’s adaptive modulation on the licensed GigE radio systems, it’s possible.
By dynamically adjusting modulation and, thus, system gain to offset link fade conditions, adaptive modulation ensures that the link remains available even if full throughput is not. Since TDM traffic always has the highest priority, TDM availability remains at 99.999% while Ethernet throughput is reduced to the level possible at the current modulation rate. And there’s no worry about lost traffic, since modulation shifting is hitless and errorless.
For situations in which maximum range – rather than maximum throughput – is the objective, Exalt offers available trellis coded modulation (TCM), a software configurable feature that trades off maximum throughput for improved receiver threshold and system gain. With TCM, engineers can design longer links at the same target availability level by making use of as much as 5 dB more system gain.
World’s Fastest 4.5 GHz and 5 GHz Microwave Radio Systems
Who says you have to go to high frequencies to get blazing speed?
The license-exempt 5 GHz GigE and licensed 4.5 GHz GigE radio systems deliver both the highest throughput and the longest range available in their bands, with an ability to support up to 440 Mbps aggregate throughput with 99.999% guaranteed link and throughput availability over a distance of 13 miles (21 kilometers). Even longer ranges are possible at other acceptable availability figures.
And because the 4.5 and 5 GHz GigE radios have adjustable throughput symmetry, in their 80:20 symmetry configuration these systems can deliver as much as 352 Mbps in a single direction. For applications such as data center backup with highly asymmetric throughput requirements, a single 5 GHz GigE system can simultaneously deliver high capacity, high availability and long range.
Like all Exalt CarrierTDD™ radio systems, the 4.5 and 5 GHz GigE radio systems support the industry’s highest bandwidth efficiency at any given level of modulation, delivering the highest system gain for any throughput level. That means longer paths and extraordinary signal resiliency that competitors can’t match.
The 4.5 and 5 GHz GigE radio systems also offer path designers a high degree of flexibility in determining how best to achieve a desired capacity, range and availability. For example, designers can choose any one of three channel bandwidth-modulation combinations to achieve a 220 Mbps aggregate link throughput. Only Exalt offers this high level of flexibility.
In addition to RF and system performance characteristics, 4.5 and 5 GHz GigE backhaul radios are equipped with the full complement of leading-edge Exalt features, including QoS, VLAN and CarrierTDD™.
For high density collocation, the all-outdoor GigE systems support both ExaltSync and ExaltSync GPS, providing flexible timing source choices.
