In April, 2020 10Gbps E-band radio was successfully tested on longest in the industry wireless path of 19,482 m (12.1 miles). This is the first independently confirmed case of 12+ miles range for commercially available 10G radio operated in 71-76/81-86 GHz frequency spectrum (E-band).
PPC-10G-E 10G 70/80 GHz radios were installed on telecom towers of undisclosed mobile operator. The installation was done in rural area.
The goal of the tests to confirm 10-gigabit connectivity on wireless path up to 20 km long was successfully achieved. A stable connectivity was established at 9.97 Gbps throughputs. This becomes the significant technological breakthrough for ELVA’s 10G 70/80 GHz radios. Radios were installed on telecommunication towers at an altitude of about 50 m each, the length of the wireless path was 19,482 m (12.1 miles).
PPC-10G-E were tested with antennas with a diameter of 60 cm. Each radio has a built-in switch with 4x10GE ports. The energy budget of the radio for attenuation in the rain for 10 Gbps was 16.6 dB, the fade margin before breaking the connection due to heavy rain was 38.9 dB.
The previous longest routes of 10-gigabit 70-80 GHz links installed by company’s engineers were at distances of 15 km (9.3 miles) and 11 km (6.8 Miles), both of which were successful.
The operator has confirmed the fact of testing the PPC-10G-E at this site and the operation of the radio channel in the nominal capacity mode of up to 10 Gbps.
“In conditions where the installation of a fiber-optic cable is difficult or impractical, microwave links become for us the best solution for providing mobile communications to certain territories. We welcome manufacturers with advanced wireless equipment,” — from customer’s comments.
With this project, it was confirmed that 70/80 GHz E-band 10GE radio links could be successfully used at distances of 10+ miles. As an alternative to fiber or as a backup line, the 70/80 GHz PPC radios provide short deployment time at an affordable cost.
PPC-10G-E wireless link operates in the frequency range 70/80 GHz and provides full duplex 10 Gigabit Ethernet channel. Up to four PPC-10G-E 10 Gbps radios could be installed from the same footprint using various center frequency and cross-polarization of the signal to get 40 Gbps aggregate total bandwidth.
Michael Vaitman, ELVA-1 director, welcomes operators from anywhere in the world to contact ELVA-1 and to repeat 20 km installation and confirm this world record: “First, this is a new awesome world record for wireless range in E-band, as a typical distance for 70/80 GHz links is up to 5 km. Second, logs for 19.5 km link are available on request. Logs data are well matched with numbers of our Link Budget Calculator and also Pathloss 5 calculator, which now could be used for calculating wireless paths for ELVA-1 radios”.
