Ericsson and Liberty Global have successfully joined forces to deliver high speed gigabit broadband and linear TV services to residential customers using Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) over a wireless backhaul ‘Trunk’ link.
The wireless backhaul was delivered using Ericsson’s MINI-LINK radio technology.
According to the companies, it makes Liberty Global to world’s first multiple-system operator to deliver the feat.
Using millimetre wave radio frequencies in the E-Band (70-80 GHz), an on-network location in central Newbury (UK) was connected to an off-network location in Greenham over a three-kilometre line-of-sight 10Gbps link using Ericsson MINI-LINK 6352 radios.
Liberty Global carried out the trial within their Virgin Media UK business which now believes that build costs can be reduced by up to 90 per cent as a result of the wireless trunk link.
Seamus Gallagher, VP for Access Networks at Liberty Global, said: “Alongside Ericsson, we have made the concept of wireless trunk backhaul a reality with this trial. We are very proud to present this as a new tool as part of our network expansion toolkit and look forward to continuing to collaborate on solutions with Ericsson’s leading technology.”
Everth Flores, head of Ericsson Netherlands, added: “This innovative solution will bring speed and economic benefits to fixed MSOs which didn’t exist before. Potential applications for this trial solution include network expansion without having to compromise performance quality, faster-to-market applications, small-cell aggregation backhaul and business-to-business connectivity. It shows the value that Ericsson’s radio solutions bring to the industry beyond mobile telecom operators.”
