Gigabit wireless

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A site with multiple Gigabit Wireless radios Will-MonkeyBrains.jpg
A site with multiple Gigabit Wireless radios

Gigabit wireless is the name given to wireless communication systems whose data transfer speeds reach or exceed one gigabit (one billion bits) per second. Such speeds are achieved with complex modulations of the signal, such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or signals spanning many frequencies. When a signal spans many frequencies, physicists refer that a wide bandwidth signal. In the communication industry, many wireless internet service providers and cell phone companies deploy wireless radio frequency antennas to backhaul core networks, connect businesses, and even individual residential homes. [1] [2]

Contents

Common frequencies and bands

In general, indoor protocols follow a cross-vendor standard and communicate in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and (soon) 60 GHz bands.

The outdoor carrier link protocols vary widely and are not compatible across vendors (and often models from the same vendor).

Examples of frequency and bandwidths at and approaching Gigabit Wireless
CategoryFrequencyBand size (MHz)ModulationsFull Duplex capacity (Mbit/s)DistanceReferences
Indoor Consumer Grade AC5 GHz80 IEEE 802.11ac ~200Same room [3]
Outdoor PtP AC5 GHz80 x 2 (160) IEEE 802.11ac 75050 km [4]
Unlicensed carrier grade24 GHz100256 QAM100015 km [5]
Licensed modern carrier grade11 GHz100256 QAM750100 km [6]
Carrier grade V-Band 60 GHz125-50064 QAM500 - 10001 km - 2.4 km [7] [8] [9]
Carrier grade E-Band 80 GHz125-125032 QAM1000 - 10,00010 km [10] [11]

Note: the higher bandwidth devices require a less complex modulation to achieve high speeds.

Capable of a Symmetric Gigabit Link
BrandDescriptionIn Production
Mikrotik [12] V BandYes
Mimosalicensed 11 GHz antennas, and unlicensed 5 GHzYes
SikluV and E BandYes
UbiquitiUnlicensed 5, 24 and 60 GHzYes
BridgewaveV and E BandYes
VubiqV BandYes [8]
AthenaV BandNo (bought by Google) [13]
IgniteNet [14] Unlicensed 60 GHz + 5 GHz FailoverYes
Facebook [15] V BandR&D only

Wireless broadband

Internet service providers (ISP's) are looking for ways to expand gigabit per second (Gbit/s) high-speed services to their customers. These can be achieved through fiber to the premises broadband network architecture, or a more affordable alternative using fixed wireless in the last mile in combination with the fiber networks in the middle mile in order to reduce the costs of trenching fiber optic cables to the users. In the United States, 60 GHz V band is unlicensed. This makes the V band an appealing choice to be used as fixed wireless access for Gbit/s services to connect to homes and businesses. Similarly, 70/80 GHz E band is lightly licensed which can be more accessible to more providers to provide such services. [16]

There had been some early adopters of the hybrid fiber-wireless approach to provide Gbit/s services to customers. One of those ISP's was Webpass, a company founded in 2003 in San Francisco as a wireless ISP focusing on buildings in big cities. Since then, Webpass had been increasing the speeds along with improved wireless technologies. By 2015, Webpass offered 1 Gbit/s connections to commercial customers, however, the residential customers were limited to speeds of up to 500 Mbit/s to share the 1 Gbit/s wireless link among many residents in the same building. The company utilized a combination of various licensed and unlicensed bands. [17]

In January 2016, a startup company Starry from Boston introduced Starry Point with the goal to provide Gbit/s speed internet wirelessly to homes. The device is a fixed wireless unit attached to a window as an access point to connect to Starry core networks using a millimetre wave band communication. The company did not reveal the details of the band, but claimed to be "the world’s first millimeter wave band active phased array technology for consumer internet communications". [18] However, in January 2018, at the time that the company announced the expansion of its beta service to cover 3 cities: Boston, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, the speeds were still limited to up to 200 Mbit/s. [19]

In June 2016, Google Fiber acquired Webpass to boost its effort in its experiments with wireless technologies. [20] As a result, Google Fiber put its effort on fiber to the premises on hold to explore more on the cheaper wireless alternative. [21] By early 2017, the Webpass division of Google Fiber expanded 1 Gbit/s wireless service to customers in many cities in the United States. [22]

In November 2016, Atlas Networks, an ISP that serves Seattle, deployed its V-band Gbit/s service to customers within the 750-metre (0.47 mi) to its fiber networks. The maximum throughput for each connection was 1 gigabit per second. [23]

In October 2017, Cloudwifi, a startup ISP based in Kitchener, Ontario started using 60 GHz band fixed wireless to provide Gbit/s connectivity to customers within the 2-kilometre (1.2 mi) range of its fiber connection points. [24]

In October 2017, Newark Fiber enabled its first customer in Newark, New Jersey with 10 Gbit/s fixed wireless service. [25] Newark Fiber used V-band 10 Gbit/s transmitters with the distance of up to 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi). [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wireless broadband</span> Telecommunications technology

Wireless broadband is a telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term encompasses both fixed and mobile broadband.

Wireless local loop (WLL) is the use of a wireless communications link as the "last mile / first mile" connection for delivering plain old telephone service (POTS) or Internet access to telecommunications customers. Various types of WLL systems and technologies exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet access</span> Individual connection to the Internet

Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wireless Internet service provider</span> Internet service provider with a network based on wireless networking

A wireless Internet service provider (WISP) is an Internet service provider with a network based on wireless networking. Technology may include commonplace Wi-Fi wireless mesh networking, or proprietary equipment designed to operate over open 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 4.9, 5, 24, and 60 GHz bands or licensed frequencies in the UHF band, LMDS, and other bands from 6 GHz to 80 GHz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WiMAX</span> Wireless broadband standard

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options.

The V band ("vee-band") is a standard designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a band of frequencies in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from 40 to 75 gigahertz (GHz). The V band is not heavily used, except for millimeter wave radar research and other kinds of scientific research. It should not be confused with the 600–1,000 MHz range of Band V of the UHF frequency range.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GCI Communication</span> Telecommunications corporation operating in Alaska

GCI Communication Corp. (GCI) is a telecommunications corporation operating in Alaska. Through its own facilities and agreements with other providers, GCI provides cable television service, Internet access, wireline (networking), and cellular telephone service. It is a subsidiary of Colorado-based company Liberty Broadband, a company affiliated with Liberty Media that also owns a 26% interest in Charter Communications, having been originally acquired by Liberty in 2015.

Optical Carrier transmission rates are a standardized set of specifications of transmission bandwidth for digital signals that can be carried on Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) fiber optic networks. Transmission rates are defined by rate of the bitstream of the digital signal and are designated by hyphenation of the acronym OC and an integer value of the multiple of the basic unit of rate, e.g., OC-48. The base unit is 51.84 Mbit/s. Thus, the speed of optical-carrier-classified lines labeled as OC-n is n × 51.84 Mbit/s.

Fiber to the <i>x</i> Broadband network architecture term

Fiber to the x or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic cables are able to carry much more data than copper cables, especially over long distances, copper telephone networks built in the 20th century are being replaced by fiber.

Phonoscope Communications is a broadband and communications provider with corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's infrastructure spans eight counties and reaches distant locations such as Baytown, Galveston, Freeport, Magnolia, Richmond-Rosenberg, Splendora, Texas City and Willis, Texas.

Cambium Networks Corporation is a wireless infrastructure provider that offers fixed wireless and Wi-Fi to broadband service providers and enterprises to provide Internet access. An American telecommunications infrastructure company, it provides wireless technology, including Enterprise WiFi, switching solutions, Internet of Things, and fixed wireless broadband and Wi-Fi for enterprises. Publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange, it spun out of Motorola in October 2011.

Skyriver was a business broadband Internet provider headquartered in San Diego, California. It was acquired by One Ring Networks in July, 2018. Skyriver delivered broadband Internet connectivity for enterprise and small-medium businesses, utilizing its proprietary millimeter wave technology. Skyriver offered commercial grade services including dedicated Internet access, Virtual Private Network (VPN), redundancy, and temporary Internet/event bandwidth in California.

Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.

Internet in Brazil was launched in 1988, becoming commercialy available in May 1995. As of 2023, Brazil ranked fifth in the world with 181.8 million internet users. The country had an internet penetration rate of 86.6% as of January 2024. In March 2024, Brazil ranked 27th in the Ookla Broadband Ranking, with a median fixed broadband speed of 158.57 Mbit/s. Also, as per December 2021, Brazil had 41,4 million fixed broadband accesses, most of them FTTH. However, as per 2020, most Brazilians access the Internet through a mobile connection, with more than 200 million mobile internet access.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fixed wireless</span>

Fixed wireless is the operation of wireless communication devices or systems used to connect two fixed locations with a radio or other wireless link, such as laser bridge. Usually, fixed wireless is part of a wireless LAN infrastructure. The purpose of a fixed wireless link is to enable data communications between the two sites or buildings. Fixed wireless data (FWD) links are often a cost-effective alternative to leasing fiber or installing cables between the buildings.

10G-PON is a 2010 computer networking standard for data links, capable of delivering shared Internet access rates up to 10 Gbit/s over existing dark fiber. This is the ITU-T's next generation standard following on from GPON or Gigabit-capable PON. Optical fibre is shared by many subscribers in a network known as FTTx in a way that centralises most of the telecommunications equipment, often displacing copper phone lines that connect premises to the phone exchange. Passive optical network (PON) architecture has become a cost-effective way to meet performance demands in access networks, and sometimes also in large optical local networks for "Fibre-to-the-desk".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G.fast</span> ITU-T Recommendation

G.fast is a digital subscriber line (DSL) protocol standard for local loops shorter than 500 meters, with performance targets between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s, depending on loop length. High speeds are only achieved over very short loops. Although G.fast was initially designed for loops shorter than 250 meters, Sckipio in early 2015 demonstrated G.fast delivering speeds over 100 Mbit/s at nearly 500 meters and the EU announced a research project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ziggo</span> Dutch cable operator

Ziggo B.V. is the largest cable operator in the Netherlands, providing digital cable television, Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers.

Stealth Communications is an American fiber-based Internet service provider (ISP), installing and maintaining its own fiber optic network throughout New York City. Stealth began rolling out its Gigabit Internet services in late 2013 to businesses throughout Manhattan, using in-house employees to lay its own fiber-optic cabling. In July 2015, City of New York and Stealth announced a $5.3 million public/private partnership to expand fiber broadband into the Brooklyn and Queens Industrial Business Zones. As of May 2019, the company reported to have connected hundreds of commercial properties with fiber, over 80 fiber route miles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Starry Internet</span> Wireless broadband Internet service provider

Starry Internet is a fixed wireless broadband Internet service provider operated by Starry, Inc., using millimeter-band LMDS connections, sometimes categorized as 5G fixed wireless, to connect its base stations to customer buildings. Starry currently operates within Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

References

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  12. LHG 60G speeds up to 1 Gbps, mikrotik.com. Retrieved 01 February 2021
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