Working with Telenet, a Belgian internet service provider (ISP) which is part of Liberty Global, the trial demonstrated that mmWave FWA technology is able to deliver fibre-like throughput of 1Gbps in real-life scenarios.
The hardware used in the trial was built by Unitron, a Belgium-based telecom technology and manufacturer, and contains radio chips (RFICs) and antenna arrays from Pharrowtech and a baseband processor unit delivered by semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Electronics.
The field trial was executed at the Telenet premises, and the network topology was interconnected via 60GHz wireless nodes running a dynamic mesh control protocol. The locations were selected to be representative of typical deployments scenarios, and consisted of façade, rooftops, and poles in addition to a Telenet radio tower.
The trial, leveraging 60 GHz spectrum, achieved between 750Mbps and 1Gbps data rates, based on the distance between the links' end points and explored the capabilities of unlicensed mmWave technology to deliver reliable, high-speed consumer and business broadband access.
FWA is seen as a highly attractive complementary technology to fibre, both in rural areas and more densely populated areas as it offers fibre-like throughput and quality of service, at reduced cost and deployment time. FWA could help internet service providers reach customers at a lower cost than fibre, as well as increase the footprint to include users once considered financially unprofitable through fibre.
Commenting Luk Bruynseels, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Telenet said that the initial results of the mmWaves FWA trial had been promising.
“This technology could one day reinforce our fibre strategy by enabling a fibre-like connectivity experience at a faster rollout speed yet reduced environmental impact when compared to wired solutions. Throughout the project we were able to work with and experience Pharrowtech’s network-grade RFICs showcasing the required performance levels within the trials which would be needed to consider any sort of scale up in any wireless gigabit connectivity experience.”
Wim Van Thillo, CEO and Co-founder, Pharrowtech, commented, “This trial is a significant milestone for Pharrowtech, enabling us to validate our products and confirm that they meet the requirements of device manufacturers and operators in real-life conditions. Collaborations like these also enable us to strengthen our long-term innovation roadmap as we work to delivering high speed connectivity to everyone, everywhere.”
