Infonetics report that mobile backhaul gear remains in high demand

The latest market share and forecast report by Infonetics Research stated that the market for mobile backhaul gear will continue to grow.

The biannual Infonetics report, Macrocell Mobile Backhaul Equipment and Services, ranks mobile backhauling equipment vendors, identifies areas of growth for the market, and analyzes equipment, connections, cell sites, and service charges. The report tracks companies worldwide and covers areas of interest such as market share, size, and forecasts, installed cell sites, and service charges.

The market for macrocell mobile backhaul equipment could look forward to slow but steady growth. Verizon Wireless and AT&T may not be buying any new mobile backhaul equipment since they are close to completing their first big wave of LTE deployments. But they're not the only buyers in a very large one with plenty of room for growth. Rising requirements for capacity have driven network operators outside of North America buy microwave gear for additional mobile backhauling capabilities.

The macrocell mobile backhaul equipment market is forecasted to grow to $9.7 billion in 2016. Infonetics further predicted that $43.6 billion worth of macrocell mobile backhaul equipment will be purchased from 2012 to 2016.

Microwave equipment accounts for more than half of all spending in the mobile backhauling market. Supporting this is the Infonetics report, which discovered that 94 % of total purchased macrocell mobile backhaul equipment are IP/Ethernet gear. And 54% of the IP/Ethernet gear are packet-capable microwave types.

According to Infonetics, revenue for Ethernet mobile backhauling router will probably peak in 2015. The build out of macrocell mobile backhaul is expected to subside during that year. From then on, companies will shift their focus to cheaper, easier to deploy small cells.

ACCC fines CNT Corp nearly $20,000 for inadequate backhaul networks

Telephone and internet service provider CNT Corp, has been slapped with a $19,800 fine for its inadequate backhauling services which failed to deliver broadband speeds the company had initially advertised. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) - an agency which monitors fair-trade practices in the country, and is concerned with consumer protection and welfare - fined the company for falsely promoting that it could deliver speeds of up to 1000 mbps to with its FTTP broadband services. 

Based on an investigation by the ACCC, CNT Corp’s backhaul capacity could hardly support 20 mbps for a single user. This meant the broadband customers relying on the latter’s services were paying for speeds that they were not even getting. The chairperson of the ACCC said the incident with CNT Corp should serve as a warning to various telecom operators not to advertise services they cannot deliver. With demand for faster services increasing with the surge of smartphone users and the rise of other powerful computing devices, operators right and left have been advertising “high-speed” broadband. 

The ACCC is making sure all those offering such services comply to stringent regulations. CNT Corp, on the other hand, has been given 3 infringement notices, and must upgrade its present backhaul networks. They’ve also been advised to give gift vouchers to customers affected by their broadband services.

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Backhauling: Technical And Commercial Definitions

In both the technical and commercial definitions, backhaul generally refers to the side of the network that communicates with the global Internet, paid for at wholesale commercial access rates to or at an Ethernet Exchange, a physical network infrastructure through which Ethernet service provider, carriers and Internet service providers exchange Ethernet traffic between their networks; or other core network access location.

In the broadband Internet industry, the “middle mile” is the segment if a telecommunications network linking a network operator’s core network to the local network plant, typically situated in the incumbent telco’s central office (British English: telephone exchange), that provides access to the local loop, or in the case of cable television operators, the local cable modem termination system. Sometimes, these networks exist between the customer’s local area network (“LAN”), a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building using network media, and those exchanges. This can be a local Wide Area Network (“WAN”), a network that covers a broad area (i.e., any network rgar links across metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries, or  wireless local area network (“WLAN”) connection, which lunks two or more devices using some wireless distribution method (typically spread-spectrum or OFDM radio), and usually proividing a connection through an access point to the wider Internet. For instance, Network New Hampshire Now and Maine Fiber Company run tariffed--a “telecommunications tariff” is an open contact between a telecommunications service provider and the public, filed with a regulating body such as Public Utilities Commission--public dark fibre (“unlit fibre”) networks, an unused optical fibre, available for use in fibre-optic communication, as a backhaul alternative to encourage local and national carriers to reach areas with the following, otherwise it would not be serving: broadband, a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device (and the broader the band, the greater the capacity for traffic); and cell phone (also known as “cellular phone,” “mobile phone,” and a “hand phone”), a device that can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. These serve retail networks which in turn connect buildings and bill customer directly.

Cell phones communicating with a single cell tower constitute a local subnetwork. It is the connection between the cell tower, a site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed, usually on a radio mast, tower or other high place, to create a cell (or adjacent cells) in a cellular network, and the rest of the world beginning with a backhaul link to the core of the Internet service provider’s network (“ISP”), an organization that provides access to the Internet; via a point of presence (“POP”), an artificial demarcation point or interface point between communications entities.
The term backhaul is often generically used to describe the entire wired part of the network, though this is confused by the use of microwave bands, or radio waves with wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as if millimetre, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz (0.3 GHz) and 300 GHz; and mesh network and edge network topologies, a type of networking where each node must not only capture and disseminate its own data, but also serve as a “relay” for other nodes, that is, it must collaborate to propagate the data in  the network--uses a high capacity wireless channel to get packets to the microwave or fibrr links.

See: NewSat Backhauling

How smart functionality improves mobile backhaul performance for LTE networks

As more and more mobile operators offer commercial long-term evolution (LTE) services, mobile users are demanding higher quality of services (QoS.) One way for LTE operators to respond is by installing smart functionality in their mobile backhaul networks.

Smart mobile backhaul is not just about the efficient transport of traffic. It covers a wide variety of services ranging from small cell aggregation to terabit routing. An efficient solution must be up to the task of gathering data, securing the network, and synchronizing backhauling processes on its own.

Network operators can use tools to automate routine tasks and save on operational expenses. These automated networks are important in small cell deployments and similar mass network rollouts. By creating a self-organizing network that automatically deals with routine tasks, operators can spend all their energies on business-critical functions.

Ease and simplicity of operations and management are paramount for smart mobile backhaul networks. They require network manager tools to best direct its evolution and growth.

Compatibility is another important issue for networks. A mobile backhaul network must be able to support both legacy 2G/3G standards and the new 4G standard. It should also be able to smoothly transition to LTE and LTE-A standards while allowing users to continue accessing its services.