CASE STUDIES

tower

Intracom Breaking the distance barriers for E-Band

Florida, USA

Venue

  • 11 counties in Florida
  • Rural communities
  • Multiple industries from mining to healthcare

Solution Overview

  • UltraLink™-GX80 (E-Band PTP system)
  • UltraLink™-GX80’s failover license package
  • high-capacity E-Band (71-76  /  81-86 GHz), with 10 Gbit/s capacity

Services

  • Full internet and IT services
  • Providing mixed wireless to multiple counties
  • Building permanent and temporary broadband solutions
  • Engineering designs, builds and managing infrastructure services for public and private entities
Problem
Rapid Systems has been providing full-service Internet and Information Technology since 1996. To interconnect their network towers, they have been using licensed 11GHz microwave links with a capacity around 1 Gbit/s per link. In order to support their plans for expansion, they need to upgrade their links to support up to 10 Gbit/s moving forward. Rapid Systems considered E-Band as their solution, but the biggest challenge is that some of their towers exceed distances of 8 miles. Keeping the radios synchronized and deployment costs low would require an innovative solution.
Project Details
  • UltraLink™-GX80 radios installed in parallel to existing radios
  • UltraLink™-GX80’s failover license package to switch priority traffic during adverse weather conditions
  • System gain that exceeds 70 dB at 10 Gbit/s
Solution

UltraLink™-GX80 radios were chosen and installed in parallel to the existing 11GHz licensed links, so that Rapid Systems’ current infrastructure would remain intact. The Intracom radios would now be used as the primary capacity transport medium to deliver multi-Gigabit service over the large distances of existing towers. In addition to the new radio hardware, UltraLink™-GX80’s failover license package was utilized to ensure that priority traffic would be switched from the E-Band path to any interconnected microwave link during adverse weather conditions.

“It is an absolutely huge deal to have massive amounts of reliable bandwidth at locations to provide gigabit bandwidth in rural markets. The Ultralink™- GX80 millimeter wave radio can offer up to 20 Gbit/s full-duplex capacity over a single antenna in 2+0 XPIC configuration, which can be very useful and cost effective in rural deployments where optical fiber is not available or too slow/expensive to deploy.” - Dustin Jurman CEO/CTO, Rapid Systems

Outcomes

Results

  • Rapid Systems was able to upgrade their existing 11GHz links to 10 Gbit/s capacities utilizing the E-Band technology of UltraLink™-GX80 radios
  • Stable synchronization over distances of 8 miles are achieved during clear-sky conditions
  • UltraLink™-GX80’s failover license package ensures that both the existing and new infrastructure are utilized efficiently to ensure connectivity, especially in the rainy state of Florida
  • The Intracom solution was able to provide massive amounts of bandwidth via rapid and cost-effective deployment, compared to other means such as optical fiber that would not suit the rural landscape

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