When Asymmetrical Bandwidth Works Just Fine

Asymmetrical bandwidth has been pooh-poohed for business applications in favor of symmetrical bandwidth options. In some cases, you can wind up spending too much for the service you really need. In other cases, picking the wrong option will leave you frustrated and unproductive.

How do these symmetries work? Symmetrical bandwidth means that the upload and download speeds are exactly the same. You’ll see this identified as 3 x 3 Mbps Ethernet or 100 x 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet. The classic example of symmetrical bandwidth is the venerable T1 line. It offers a fixed 1.5 Mbps in the upload or transmit direction and 1.5 Mbps in the download or receive direction.

T1, DS3 and SONET are all symmetrical bandwidth services. The reason for this is historical. These are standards developed by the telephone companies to transport phone calls in bulk. The same bandwidth is needed for talk as well as listen on both ends. Ethernet over Fiber and Copper also tends to be symmetrical. It’s because these services were designed as replacements for T1, DS3 and SONET when used in business.

Asymmetrical bandwidth is characterized by differences in the upload and download speeds. This can be as much as an order of magnitude or 10x. You might order a service with 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload or 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload.

Asymmetrical bandwidth is dominant in consumer broadband services. These include DSL, Cable, 3G and 4G wireless, two-way satellite, WiFi hotspots and WiMAX. Why? It’s the nature of the Internet.

Most people browse the Web or download software and video while they are online. When you are doing these things, you are sending commands via your keyboard to the remotely located Web server. These commands are inherently low bandwidth and are based on text you type or links you click on. Neither of these has very many bytes of data involved. Downloads are another matter. Web pages, video clips and streams, music and other audio, software updates and large files are all bandwidth intensive because of their large file sizes. You want the maximum bandwidth available for downloads to minimize load times. You don’t need much bandwidth at all in the upload direction for the usual Web browsing.

What changes this picture? Any process that results in sending out large files as well as receiving them. Examples are remote backups, video conferencing, posting photos and movies online, and making large updates to Web servers. Most consumers do some of these things some of the time. Businesses are far more likely to be sending as much as they receive. But... not all.

If you are heavily involved in big data, cloud computing, enterprise VoIP, video production and distribution, medical image transmission or similar large file operations, you’ll want to opt for symmetrical bandwidth. Fast download speeds may not be so valuable when you wait forever to upload something or try to conduct an HD video conference.

Why pick asymmetrical bandwidth options? The primary reason is to save money. The asymmetrical services like Cable, DSL and 3G wireless are usually priced at a fraction of the cost for symmetrical services. This is generally due to more than symmetry. Asymmetrical services are most often shared rather than dedicated bandwidth. This reduces costs dramatically but means that your bandwidth will vary depending on what other users are doing. There are generally no service level agreements or performance guarantees on asymmetrical bandwidth services. That may be changing as business service providers begin offering dedicated asymmetrical bandwidth options.

What is the best bandwidth option for your business? Find out by comparing prices and features for a wide variety of asymmetrical and symmetrical bandwidth options on carriers serving your business location. Free consulting is also available to help you make the appropriate choice.

Gigabit WiFi For Video Streaming

WiFi hotspots, routers and access points have been deployed to such an extent that WiFi really is the default wireless connection. Bluetooth range is way too short. WiMax never deployed far enough, wide enough or fast enough. Cellular 3G and 4G are only valuable when you are away from WiFi access, since bandwidth is limited and overages are painful. Recent reports show that most tablets never use the built-in 3G wireless. WiFi is a replacement for cellular broadband, but it’s also becoming a replacement for wires.

Think about it. How much trouble and how expensive is it to string Ethernet cables through a home or office? Most people don’t have the skill or determination to snake wires through the walls of their two story home and don’t dare to try to wire an apartment. That means you are stuck with being in the same room as your DSL or Cable modem. Inexpensive WiFi routers got rid of that cable limitation. Now many PCs and printers come with WiFi access so that you can place them anywhere you want.

The other big tether is the television coax or HDMI cable. If you want to connect video, you have to string wires. The standard means for that has been RG-6 or RG-59 coax. But HD outputs are now HDMI, so your old coax is limited to SD video. That’s assuming you were able to get coax installed in every room you wanted.

Complicating matters now is that traditional video sources, such as satellite and DVD, are merging with the Internet. Many TVs, Blu-ray players and games now come with Ethernet jacks. You still need an Ethernet cable, but now it’s for video broadband not just web browsing. Or... do you?

Video is a need screaming for a wireless solution. The legacy WiFi 802.11b&g versions clearly are not up to the task. WiFi 802.11n does much better, but has trouble finding a clear path through the crowded 2.4 GHz ISM band. It's also pressed for enough bandwidth to support all things video. The solution? It’s an enhancement to WiFi-N called WiFi 802.11ac.

What’s better about WiFi-AC compared to WiFi-N? Most importantly, it pushes wireless bandwidth above the Gbps level. Total capacity of an 8 antenna system will reach almost 7 Gbps when this technology is fully developed. That should be enough to keep up with the rapid advancement of HD and 3D streaming video devices and become the way to eliminate Ethernet, HDMI and coaxial cabling in the home and office.

How does 802.11ac achieve this performance? First of all, it completely abandons the crowded 2.4 GHz band and uses the lesser populated 5 GHz band exclusively. That cuts out a lot of interference. Next, the transmission channels are widened to achieve more data carrying capacity. Channels are 40 MHz maximum in 802.11n. These are expanded to 80 MHz minimum and 160 MHz optional for the new standard.

WiFi-N introduced MIMO or Multiple Input Multiple Output antenna technology. MIMO is a way for transmitters and receivers to deal with scattering radio waves and interference by intelligently analyzing the received signals to determine which ones are valid. It’s a little like being able to tell which direction a sound originates by using two ears rather than one. Beamforming compensates for phase shift of multiple received signals to increase the total signal level. This allows higher bandwidth over a longer range.

A more complex modulation scheme is being introduced in 802.11ac called 256 QAM. The term QAM refers to Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. It uses both amplitude and phase shift to send data over two combined carriers differing by 90 degrees, called quadrature. Each combination of phase and amplitude represents one digital number. 802.11n used 64 QAM to send 6 bits per symbol. 256 QAM sends 8 bits per symbol, a third more efficient in use of the spectrum.

When will be see 802.11ac equipment on the market? Probably near the end of this year or the beginning of next. Broadcom recently announced the first chipset to support the protocol. They are dubbing it “5G WiFi” to emphasize the considerably higher performance from previous wireless standards, similar to how cellular carriers use 2G, 3G and 4G to describe their generations of technology.

The Next Decade of Bandwidth - Part IV

It won’t be long until wireless broadband has commandeered all the spectrum it can between a few hundred and a few thousand MHz. These are seen by the industry as being the most desirable frequencies. They offer high bandwidth capacity, good penetration into buildings and small antennas. Unfortunately, there are only so many of these channels available. Just like in real estate, when all the best locations are bought up expansion continues into whatever is available.

Going up or down the electromagnetic spectrum in search of more broadband capacity has its challenges. As you go down in frequency, up in wavelength, channels have to be proportionally larger to get the same carrying capacity. A 1 MHz channel at 10 GHz seems small. A 1 MHz channel at 10 MHz eats up a huge chunk of that band. At 1 MHz, there would only be room for a single 1 MHz channel.

One way to deal with this is to divvy up your transmissions into hundreds or thousands of smaller channels. This is the principle behind OFDM or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. The system generates an array of carriers spaced out across the available spectrum. Each carrier transmits only a portion of the data. When those pieces are combined at the far end, you have a single continuous transmission again.

OFDM is the system used for BPL or Broadband over Power Line Internet services. It uses the shortwave frequencies, with some carriers omitted to avoid interference with other services. By using many, many small channels instead of one big one, any packet losses are small and easily replaced. It also offers a way to fit a wireless service into a band that doesn’t have big open chunks of spectrum. Just use the channels you can and combine a bunch of them to create a larger bandwidth service.

BPL may not be going anywhere because other wireline and wireless services are more cost effective competitors. WiMAX uses OFDM, as do LTE, WiFi and digital radio broadcasting. Seems like there is no reason a wireless equivalent of BPL couldn’t be deployed to use available lower frequencies that haven’t been previously considered for broadband use.

Going up the spectrum in frequency is also challenging. The higher you go, the more line of sight transmission becomes. The Ku band that broadcast satellites use from 12 to 18 GHz has lots of capacity, but not much ability to penetrate obstacles. Even tree leaves will interrupt service, as will a heavy rain. Wireless point to point transmissions in the Super and Extremely High Frequency bands is via outdoor antennas within line of sight.

That’s the state of the art today, but does it need to be so limited? Perhaps someone will come up with a way to flood areas with many very low power cells to ensure that a mobile antenna can receive a signal no matter where it travels. That same idea is being put to use now with mesh networks consisting of WiFi radios. Each WiFi hotspot communicates with the radios nearby to share traffic, so you don’t need backhaul connections to a central controller.

This idea of mesh networks with low power transmissions and short range coverage has application for even higher parts of the spectrum. Above 300 GHz, electromagnetic waves start to be called infrared light waves. Infrared light is the carrier used in fiber optic cables. You can eliminate the fiber and use infrared beams from point to point, as long as you have a direct line of sight. This is called free space optical transmission. With enough emitters and receivers connected in a mesh network, you can create a very high capacity network with decent coverage.

In Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV, we’ve seen how wireless broadband has a near insatiable need for bandwidth and how that may be satisfied by reassignment of desirable channels and more efficient use of underutilized frequencies up and down the electromagnetic spectrum. In the fifth and final part of this series on the next decade of bandwidth, we’ll take a look at wired connections that include both copper and fiber to see what else is in store for business bandwidth.

Is your business running short on bandwidth or simply looking to get a better deal? See what's available for your business location in the way of T-carrier and Ethernet copper, SONET and Ethernet fiber, fixed wireless and Hybrid Fiber Cable (HFC). Get instant bandwidth pricing up to 1 Gbps and fast quotes on other services.

The Next Decade of Bandwidth - Part I

The recent disintegration of the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile might seem like a victory for consumer choice versus telecom monopoly, but it was never really about that. Even if these two GSM carriers became one, there would still be the counterbalancing force of CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint. It wasn’t about owning the space. It was about owning the bandwidth.

Is there any doubt in your mind about this? OK, consider that no sooner had the deal fallen apart than AT&T went out and bought $1.9 billion worth of spectrum from Qualcomm with the FCC’s blessing. Verizon just announced that they bought $315 million of 20 MHz AWS spectrum from Cox right after buying $3.6 billion for 122 spectrum licenses from Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

What’s with the bandwidth buying frenzy? It’s all about mobility. There are two laws of physics that must be dealt with to satisfy our appetite for everything on the go. First, you have to use wireless spectrum. You can’t be trailing a wire everywhere you go, even if it is a nice fiber optic cable. Second, the more bandwidth you want to support the applications, the more bandwidth you need to transmit through the air.

Not all bandwidth is created equal. We’ve gotten used to cell phone services delivered on the lower microwave frequencies around 2 GHz. The next deployments will be over the old TV frequencies around 700 MHz. That’s significant because the higher up the spectrum you go in MHz and GHz, the less those transmissions can penetrate into buildings. Light is really nothing more than a really high frequency transmission in the same electromagnetic spectrum. Just about anything will stop a light beam. At the other end of the spectrum are VLF (Very Low Frequencies) around 100 KHz that go around the Earth, hugging the surface. Those are used to synchronize our “atomic” clocks with national standards in Colorado.

The other thing you should know about the spectrum is that if you want more Mbps you need more MHz. If you want Gbps of Internet bandwidth for your mobile device, you need GHz of spectrum to carry it. This is why VLF isn’t much good for anything but sending low bandwidth voice and data long distances. Microwaves have the capacity to transmit massive amounts of data, but they tend to be line of sight. Even heavy rain or tree foliage will stop satellite TV in its tracks.

This is where life gets tough for the FCC. AM radio stations are flickering off and going dark one by one, but those frequencies aren’t of much use for video transmission. Shortwave radio is being usurped by the Internet. Only problem is that the shortwave channels don’t have massive data carrying capacity, either. What’s really desirable are those juicy frequencies between 200 Mbps and 2 Gbps. That range includes UHF television and GPS satellite bands. Note the big squabble between LightSquared’s 4G broadband and the L band GPS satellite systems. Both services want the same band around 1500 MHz for different purposes and they can’t both be there without interference.

What AT&T bought from Qualcomm was UHF channels 55 and 56, formerly assigned to broadcast television and repurposed for Qualcomm’s FLO TV. It wasn’t hard to see this coming. FLO TV was an idea that came too late. Who wants to buy a separate device that only picks up a few video channels now that you have a smartphone or tablet that can get anything over the Internet? AT&T will dump the FLO technology and press those channels into service for LTE, the 4G mobile broadband standard.

Mobile Internet is becoming a black hole for spectrum and 4G is the standard that will try to feed it. Nothing else is fast enough, although WiMAX and EVDO could be if they had the momentum behind them. It appears that nearly all carriers, including WiMAX pioneer CLEAR, are headed to the LTE standard within the next few years. Everything else will shutdown from lack of available transmission channels.

What everybody wants is a single big pipe from the Internet to whatever they are using. That could be a smartphone, a laptop or tablet computer, an Internet-powered radio, weather radar and information system in their car, high definition television set or applications still to come. Giving them that without turning over the airwaves completely to the Internet will be the challenge.

In Part II, we’ll take a look at what is likely to happen next in the battle for bandwidth, especially in the lucrative UHF TV spectrum being jealously eyed by cellular carriers for 4G expansion.

Is your business running short on bandwidth or simply looking to get a better deal? See what's available for your business location in the way of T-carrier and Ethernet copper, SONET and Ethernet fiber, fixed wireless and Hybrid Fiber Cable (HFC). Get instant bandwidth pricing up to 1 Gbps and fast quotes on other services.

Fiber Lit Towers Improving Rural Broadband

Anyone situated beyond the city limits knows the frustration of living in a bandwidth-free zone. Consumers and small businesses may be near enough to a cell tower to get 3G wireless and certainly two-way satellite is an option, but with severe download restrictions on both. Business sites and farmsteads can probably get T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps and maybe bonded T1 lines to improve a bit on that. How about high bandwidth wireless? Forget it. Fiber optic Ethernet connections? Are you nuts?

Rural America is truly at a disadvantage compared to the telecommunications resources found in cities and suburbs. The best options are found in the core of large metropolitan business districts. Move downtown in a big city and you’ll find such niceties as Gigabit Ethernet and even 10 Gig E connections. You may even be able to get Ethernet over Copper at 100 to 400 Mbps. Fixed wireless services easily deliver 50 to 100 Mbps bandwidth. If a shared bandwidth solution is OK for what you are doing, it’s hard to beat the Cable MSO prices.

Why the big discrepancy between metropolitan and rural service options? It’s all about infrastructure - the infrastructure that was never installed. Well, that’s in the process of changing right now. Level 3 Communications, one of the premier international telecom carriers, has established a program called EON or Extended On-Net sites. What they are doing is building out 500 additional access points to their fiber optic network. They are mostly in small and rural markets where there are few service options available. This is a wholesale, rather than retail, service intended to give local service providers access to high bandwidth carrier services.

Even with fiber optic gateways in the boonies, you still need a way to get the signals to the businesses and consumers without having to spend a fortune creating the remainder of the needed infrastructure. One technology that makes excellent sense for thinly populated areas is fixed wireless. WiMAX is an example of wide area coverage with significant service speeds. What you need, then, is access to the carrier-class fiber bandwidth plus a tower to transmit that bandwidth wirelessly to users scattered far and wide.

This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a combined effort and such a deal has been made. 52Eighty, a provider of tower infrastructure, has entered into an agreement with Level 3 to create 200 new wireless tower access sites situated near Level 3’s EON gateways. 52Eighty will take care of tower construction. Level 3 will provide transport and services that include private line, Ethernet and wavelength services. EON also offers backhauls that include Internet, VPN and voice services.

If this sounds a lot like what has been called the rural broadband initiative, it’s because that’s exactly what is going on. Level 3 is a key “middle mile” provider in bringing high speed network access to rural areas where local service providers can connect. They were awarded $13.7 million this summer through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and matched it with $4.2 million of their own funds to create dozens of middle mile connections in rural California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas.

Does this mean that relief is coming to disconnected consumers and businesses in Rural America? It’s certainly on the way. In fact, many carriers are expanding their wireline, broadband and fiber bandwidth services to garner new customers. If your ISP or business has been unable to get connectivity in the past, now is a good time to check availability and prices online for fiber optic lines to 1 Gbps, plus T1, ISDN PRI and other bandwidth services. You may be surprised by what has become available recently.

4G Wireless Broadband Options

Wireless broadband is on an upward path to take over many of the applications that have long been the domain of wireline technologies. Wireless has the convenience of portability and mobility. What’s held back deployment and more powerful applications is the limited availability and speed of wireless connections. The move to 4G wireless looks to be a potential solution.

4G or fourth generation wireless doesn’t have a strict definition, but it is roughly stated as the bandwidth typical of Cable broadband or Ethernet over Copper business connections. With this level of transmission speed and a city-wide reach, 4G wireless can take over service for desktop as well as mobile devices.

One might throw WiFi into the 4G category. The bandwidth for a, b, g, and n WiFi technologies fall into the right bandwidth category. However, WiFi is a short distance system. It works well within and nearby particular locations, such as homes, offices, restaurants, hotels, airports and even park benches. But you can’t get in your car and drive away with a WiFi connection. It will disappear as soon as you leave the parking lot. In a way, WiFi is more of a PAN or Personal Area Network like Bluetooth.

The higher power wireless technologies, including 2G & 3G are associated with cellular phone service. These are based on using networks of fixed transmitters and receivers arranged as cells with signals that fill-in the coverage between towers. The trick of turning this system into a metropolitan or wide area network is to coordinate the handoff of an existing wireless connection as the user moves from cell to cell.

The most popular wireless technology right now is 3G. It offers bandwidths similar to T1 lines and basic DSL of around 1.5 Mbps on average in metropolitan areas. You may get two or more times this speed if you happen to be near a tower with few users. This is more than adequate for many mobile uses, such as Web browsing, email and viewing video clips on smartphone screens.

Beyond limited speed, 3G also suffers from limited bandwidth availability. It shares channels with cellular telephone on the same towers. Those channels were originally sized to support expected voice traffic. They’ve been overwhelmed by the higher bandwidth requirements of Internet data traffic. That’s why carriers are so insistent on bandwidth caps.

There are a couple of different approaches to 4G wireless. The one taken by the cell phone companies is to view 4G as an upgrade to their 3G systems. There are two differing cellular system that co-exist. One is a US-centric system called CDMA that is used by Verizon, Sprint and others. The other is a more global standard called GSM that is used by AT&T and T-Mobile.

Right now, AT&T and T-Mobile have upgraded their 3G networks to a faster version of the same thing called HSPA+ that delivers up to 6 to 8 Mbps. Verizon has moved to a 4G technology called LTE that offers downloads of 5 to 12 Mbps. Sprint has gone with another 4G technology called WiMAX that delivers downloads in the 3 to 6 Mbps speed range.

As wireless continues to evolve, 4G is expected to move into two camps. LTE is the technology most discussed as a truly universal standard. WiMAX deployment actually predated LTE and has installations worldwide. Both LTE and WiMAX have technical upgrade paths that can boost download speeds to over 100 Mbps and even 1000 Mbps. This is competitive with many fiber services and ensures that 4G wireless will be with us for a long time.

One thing we’re also seeing with 4G wireless is the use of lower frequency bands that can more easily penetrate buildings. These bands came from the re-deployment of those channels from UHF TV as part of a federal auction. Clear offers 4G fixed and mobile wireless service with a telephone option over WiMAX in over 80 cities nationwide. Right now, this service offers unlimited broadband service.

HTC ThunderBolt Screams On LTE

Get your hands on this Android smartphone and it will hit you like lightning. This is the future of mobile connectivity. The HTC ThunderBolt doesn’t just run on Verizon’s LTE network. It screams.

Not so long ago you could turn a colleague’s eyes green with envy by showing off your cutting edge smartphone with amazingly fast 3G broadband. Remember those days? You couldn’t possibly be that young! It was only a few years ago. That’s how fast things have been moving in the world of mobile devices.

When 3G entered the marketplace it really did seem fast. Well, fast in the way that 56K modems seemed amazingly fast when you remembered poking along at 300 baud. There are all sorts of speeds quoted for 3G and 4G transmission, but let’s say that 3G comes in at about 1 Mbps and 4G takes that up to 10 Mbps. You know that you may get more than that or a mere fraction depending on how strong your signal is and how congested the tower is that you are connected to.

When they say that 4G is an order of magnitude times the speed of 3G, they're not kidding. All that extra speed lets you download apps faster and enjoy video experiences that might not be up to it with lower bandwidth. Also like all technology advancements, there seem to be two competitors trying to claim the market.

First out of the gate was WiMAX technology deployed by Sprint and Clearwire as CLEAR. You’ll find CLEAR capability on Sprint Android smartphones. So fast is this technology and so powerful is the signal that CLEAR is selling wireless service for both desktop and mobile applications. You still have a broadband modem on your desktop. There just aren’t any phone or cable wires running to it.

T-Mobile and Verizon have shunned WiMAX in favor of a competing technology called LTE. AT&T is also planning to deploy LTE and not WiMAX. Some pundits are predicting that LTE will be the universal standard in a few years, but WiMAX is also a worldwide standard and may be more resilient than anyone expects.

Is this the end of the line as far as speed enhancements are concerned? Not hardly. Both WiMAX and LTE are upgrading their standards to offer peak rates of at least 1 Gbps for fixed operation and 100 Mbps in mobile use. Nobody’s talking 5G yet, but those speeds suggest the order of magnitude increase that justifies a new descriptor.

The ThunderBolt itself is a 4.3 inch full touch screen (800 x480 pixels) smartphone running Android 2.2 OS with HTC Sense 2.0. It uses the Snapdragon 1 GHZ processor with 8 GB of built-in memory that’s expandable up to 32 GB via plug-in microSD card. You have enough horsepower onboard to act as a WiFi hotspot for up to 8 other devices. You also have excellent photographic capability with an 8 Megapixel 2x LED flash camera that takes HD videos plus a 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera for video chatting.

Do you live in one of the 39 initial cities where Verizon LTE has been deployed or the 150 markets where it should be installed by the end of 2011? If so, you may have a hard time resisting the urge to move up 5x to 10x the download speed of your once-amazing 3G smartphone. If so, learn more and order your HTC ThunderBolt with Verizon Wireless Service and get a tremendous discount off the suggested retail price.

Ethernet over Fixed Wireless Broadband

Many companies have discovered the cost and performance benefits of Metro Ethernet services over copper and fiber optic cable. But did you know that there was a third option? It’s Ethernet over Fixed Wireless and it can get you the bandwidth you need both quickly and affordably.

Ethernet over Fixed Wireless (EoFW) differs from the portable or mobile wireless services we are most familiar with. While most WiFi, WiMAX or LTE services offer broadband Internet access within a given service footprint, they are intended for general use. There is generally no encryption and no directionality. You use a smartphone or laptop computer, sometimes with a USB adaptor, to get connected to the network. The bandwidth is limited and shared. You’re never quite sure how fast the connection is going to run.

Fixed wireless is a completely different service. The only thing it has in common with 3G and 4G cellular broadband is that it doesn’t use wires. It doesn’t use their microwave channels nor their towers. This is a private service sold to businesses, not consumers.

What does Ethernet over Fixed Wireless have to offer? You’ll get speeds similar to wireline services, secure data transmission, fast installation and a service level agreement. In other words, a dedicated wireline connection without the wireline.

TelePacific is now a major player in this relatively new field, after acquiring the assets of Covad Wireless. They offer two levels of service, one to compete with T1 lines and Ethernet over Copper, plus a higher speed service that competes with DS3 bandwidth.

Wireless Super-T T1-class Business Internet provides scalable bandwidth from 1 Mbps to 6 Mbps. That’s what you’d get from bonding up to 4 T1 lines or an EoC service. But what if you are outside the limited EoC footprint for your area and you don’t want to wait for T1 service to be installed? TelePacific can install service and have it working within days of an order. You’re talking weeks for a T1 line and who knows how long if you want to bring in fiber.

Speaking of fiber, are you in need of higher bandwidth but beyond the capability of bonded T1 or EoC and blanching at the cost of fiber construction? TelePacific can have you up and running in typically 30 to 45 days using their professionally engineered and installed licensed microwave equipment. Bandwidth levels of 10, 15, 20, 30 or 45 Mbps are available in California and Nevada. Higher bandwidths from 50 to 100 Mbps are available in California. No need for expensive DS3 cards and routers. You connection is a Fast Ethernet interface.

Even if you already have high capacity lines to support your business, are you sure that you’re ready if disaster strikes. What if those cables get cut? How long will you be out of business before they get spliced back together? This is where TelePacific’s HiCap wireless service can save the day. The path to your ISP is wireless and they offer a network-diverse route to the internet.

A specialized service you may find valuable is TelePacific Wireless Event Service. They can provide you with standard service from 2 to 6 Mbps or higher bandwidth from 10 to 40 Mbps to support your trade show, sporting event, company or customer event, film festival, concert on on-location film shoot. They even provided Internet access on the beach for a surfing competition. It’s all engineered and handled by TelePacific. You just show up, plug in and access the Internet.

Does this whet your appetite for the benefits of getting your business bandwidth without the usual wired connections? If so, get pricing and availability for Fixed Wireless Broadband Service to support your business needs.

The Samsung Epic 4G offers Epic Performance

What would you think of a smartphone that can run rings around a netbook computer? What if you politely declined WiFi hotspot service because it would slow you down? Can you handle that kind of speed in a cell phone?

There’s a lot that makes this phone special, but the Sprint WiMAX 4G network connectivity makes you believe it’s epic. Peak download speeds can exceed 10 Mbps. That’s an order of magnitude faster than 3G. Instead of being a WiFi user, you’ll be a WiFi provider with mobile hotspot capability to support other devices as long as you are in a 3G or 4G service area. Treat your unconnected friends or colleagues while you’re on the road. Or give yourself anywhere connectivity for the times you need a laptop, notebook or tablet computer.

If the speed of this Android 2.1 smartphone has you drooling, wait till you see the display. This is no ordinary touchscreen. The Super AMOLED thin touchscreen offers a near-HD display at 100x the contrast of other leading phones. It also features pinch-to-zoom, six axis motion and proximity sensors.

This advanced display is a good match with the 5 megapixel digital camera with camcorder mode, dual LED flash, auto-focus, live video share, and geo-tagging. Record in HD and easily playback wirelessly on your HDTV or other DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) certified devices. Oh, by the way, there’s another camera. It’s mounted on the face of the display so that you can enjoy video chats. This is a VGA camera, so you’ll look good in the picture.

Back to the blazing speed of this phone. In addition to WiFI, 4G and 3G connectivity, the processor in this smartphone is a 1 GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird. In the 4G and WiFi modes, you’ll have simultaneous voice and data capability for increased multitasking. With many other phones, you have to switch back and forth.

The Samsung Epic is not only faster than a certain competing smartphone that rhymes with grapple, but it has something else eschewed in Cupertino. It’s a slide out QWERTY keyboard. That’s right, real keys for real typing. You also have an on-screen virtual keyboard and SWYPE typing options as a matter of personal choice. Text messaging, instant messaging, multimedia messaging, email and HTML Web browsing are all at your fingertips. Did I mention this thing moves like lightning?

The Samsung Epic isn’t for everyone. Just for everyone who can’t settle for lesser technology once they know the performance bar has been raised. If you are one of those who demands the latest and the best, you’ll enjoy a tremendous online discount when you order your Samsung Epic 4G with a new Sprint account.

Of course, there are many more heavily discounted and even free smartphones available for your perusal. Check out the daily specials now at Cell Phone Plans Finder.

4G Wireless Expands Across The Nation

If you’ve been frustrated by the lack of low cost broadband at your home or business, help is on the way. In fact it may have already arrived.

CLEAR, the innovator of 4G Wireless broadband using the WiMAX standard, is now available in more cities. These include:

Washington DC Metro
Grand Rapids, Michigan
St. Louis, Missouri
Rochester, New York
Syracuse, New York
Eugene, Oregon
Merced, Oregon
Salt Lake City, Utah
Richmond, Virginia
Tri-Cities, Washington
Visalia, Washington
Yakima, Washington

What’s all the excitement about 4G? It’s not only the next step up from 3G wireless, but a service that actually takes the place of wireline broadband in many cases. You get high bandwidths of 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps download with occasional bursts up to 10 Mbps. Unlike WiFi, WiMAX 4G has the power to cover an entire city and even provide desktop computing bandwidth. You get what looks like a DSL or Cable modem, except there is no broadband wire to connect. The signal comes through the air.

Also unlike DSL or Cable, you can have an extra modem that plugs into your laptop computer for broadband on the go. Forget trying to find hotspots when you need them. Just wake up your computer and you’ve got broadband Internet wherever you are. That’s the beauty of wireless. Best of all, you can have both fixed and mobile service on the same account if you want to.

This has got to cost, right? Would you be surprised to know that prices start at $30 a month for unlimited broadband? Perhaps even surprised and delighted?

I thought so. Well, don’t wait a minute longer. Check and see if you can get 4G wireless at your home or business location, or both. If you can, you’ve got an unbeatable combination of fixed and mobile service for a lot less than your other options... if you can even find them at all.

What’s the Difference Between WiMAX and WiFi

The names sound similar. There’s WiMAX and WiFi. Does the MAX mean that WiMAX is just a more powerful version of WiFi? In a way, you could think of WiMAX as a broadband service that creates a giant hotspot. In fact, a hotspot that covers an entire city and can be used inside buildings and cars. But WiMAX is actually more like 3G cellular broadband than the ubiquitous WiFi routers or hotspots. Have a look at this video to see what WiMAX is all about.



WiMAX is a powerful wireless standard that is being deployed all over the world to provide wireless broadband service for both fixed and mobile computers. In more and more cities in the US, WiMAX is being installed on those old analog TV channels that were sold in last year’s spectrum auction. No, your old tube TV won’t pick it up and give you broadband. You’ll have to subscribe to CLEAR WiMAX 4G wireless broadband service. It’s fast, reasonably priced and lets you use the same account for both desktop and laptop PCs.

What is 4G and Why Do You Want It?

You see ads for 3G cell phones and wireless modem aircards. Now here comes 4G. What is this advance in technology all about and why should you want it now?

2G, 3G, 4G. All those G’s, what do they mean? What we’re talking about is a shorthand for the generations of wireless broadband service. It’s been advancing so fast that it’s not unusual for different generations of service to be available in the same area. That’s by design. If you are in a weak service area for 3G, then your device will automatically seek out a lower speed service such as 2.5G or 2G. You won’t get as high a bandwidth, but at least you’ll be connected.

Wireless broadband is generally a companion service to cellular telephone. It uses the same towers and base stations. Coverage areas are pretty much the same. The exception is when a particular tower site hasn’t yet been upgraded to the latest cellular broadband generation. In that case, you’ll get a lower level of service until you move into the coverage of a cell tower that is at the latest standard.

I should mention here that there are two wireless broadband services that have nothing to do with cell phones. One is the WISP or Wireless Internet Service Provider that offers home and business broadband. You need to be within line of site of their tower and install an outdoor antenna on your roof. These WISPs are pretty much locally owned an operated, and generally serve locations that aren’t wired for DSL or Cable.

The other non-cellular wireless service is the WiFi hotspot. There are so many of them, that they could almost form a cellular-like network of their own. That hasn’t happened because hotspots are also largely local services, mostly offered by restaurants and hotels. There’s no network to tie them together, so once you leave a hotspot you have to log into another one at your next stop.

That’s where 4G steps in. Imagine that you are connected to a 4G service and are reading a document while parked in your car. You can go into a client’s office or your own and you’ll still be on the same service. The idea of 4G is to blanket a city with a signal strong enough that you have high bandwidth connectivity without worrying about where you are located.

But doesn’t 3G do that? To some extent, yes. But 4G has the advantage of higher bandwidths. With the 4G service that is available today using the WiMAX standard, you can get 3 to 6 Mbps on a normal basis, with bursts of to 10 Mbps.

WiMAX 4G is also not limited to mobile service the way that 2G and 3G are. It’s designed for both desktop and mobile service. That puts this 4G network in a class by itself. You can get a WiMAX modem for your desktop computer and a plug-in 4G aircard for your laptop computer. You’ll have the same service at your desk as you do on the road. There are even 4G phones coming out sometime this summer that look to become a game changer in the wireless service industry.

There are two standards that will dominate 4G service. One is LTE which will be deployed later this year and through 2011. The other is WiMAX broadband that is available now in many cities and states. Find out if your location qualifies for 4G wireless broadband
now.

3G 4G Mobile Bandwidth

The Internet long escaped the desktop and moved onto the mobile phone. The problem is that it has been following a similar learning curve that took us from 300 baud telephone modems to DSL & Cable broadband and now to high speed wireless and fiber optic service. Mobile bandwidth is undergoing a steady evolution, with the demand for higher and higher speeds pushing the technology. Let’s have a look at what’s available and what’s coming soon.

The benchmark today is 3G wireless. This service offers somewhere between 500 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and is owned and operated by the cellular carriers. The same company that sells you your cell phone minutes also sells you 3G wireless Internet access. The signals come from the same towers, so if you are in a dead spot for phone reception you won’t be surfing the Web or watching videos either.

The 3G build-out has been proceeding at something of a panic level, especially since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The first iPhone used the AT&T EDGE network, which is actually called a 2.5G network. That means it has considerably less bandwidth than the newer HSPA or High Speed Packet Access 3G network, perhaps as little as a tenth as much. HSPA is offered by GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile and is also known as HSUPA.

A competing 3G service is offered by CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint using a different technology. Theirs is known as EV-DO and EV-DO Rev A. Download bandwidths are in the range of 1 to 2 Mbps, depending on signal conditions.

Note that 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband not only gives cell phones the ability to download videos and surf the Web but also gives you the option of adding 3G to your laptop computer. The functionality is added using a plug-in wireless modem aircard. These are sold with data-only service plans, since they don’t work as telephones. The aircard and wireless service has been a boon to field sales people who don’t always have the ability to set up shop within a WiFi hotspot.

The newest service on the market is called 4G mobile bandwidth. Right now the run away leader is the WiMAX service offered by Clearwire and Sprint under the CLEAR trademark. WiMAX is yet another wireless standard, albeit a global one not associated with the cellular phone system. WiMAX offers a powerful signal that covers an entire city. It’s strong enough to penetrate buildings so that you can have the same WiMAX broadband on your desktop and laptop computers. Download bandwidth typically ranges between 3 and 6 Mbps, considerably faster than 3G networks.

The cellular companies aren’t sitting still, though. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to deploy another standard called LTE to compete with WiMAX. It will likely be a year or two before these two 4G technologies are competing head to head in most populated areas. For now, WiMAX gives you the most mobile bandwidth at the lowest cost in the cities and states where it is available.

Houston, We’ve Got A 4G Solution

How’s your broadband experience? Lovin’ it or... You know. The speed really drags. It’s dead half the time. Even when it works, it seems to cost a lot more than it should. Worst of all, there are lots of places, even in town, where you can’t even get connected.

Well, you won’t have to put up with that treatment anymore if you happen to be living in Houston, Texas and nearby locations such as The Woodlands, Pasadena, Baytown, Mission Bend, Missouri City, Lake Jackson, Alvin, Conroe, or League City. CLEAR, the new 4G wireless broadband service being deployed by Sprint and Clearwire, has installed their WiMAX Internet service and it’s up and running right now. Can you get it? Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.



So, is it only the lucky residents of Houston that can get 4G wireless broadband service? No, not by a long shot. There are 10 states and 30 cities that are already on the air with WiMAX service. Others are in the works right now. That’s millions and millions of users who have the opportunity to cut the cord and get away from DSL and Cable if they aren’t satisfied.

One of the unique features of this service is that you can get both fixed and mobile service on the same account. Remember -- this is wireless broadband. That gives you the opportunity to be working on a project at your desk and then take it on the road using the same broadband service. You don’t need to pay twice to get desktop and mobile WiMAX service from different providers. CLEAR will give you both at an attractive price.

What kind of bandwidth is available? The service runs at 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps for downloads and up to 1 Mbps for uploads. That compares favorably with the better DSL and Cable services and completely blows away 3G cellular broadband.

Do you live in the Houston area? If not, are you curious to see if 4G wireless broadband is available for your location? If so, simply Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.

4G WiMAX Wireless Broadband Available Now

Have you been frustrated by your choices in home and mobile broadband service? How would you like to find a wireless broadband Internet service that you can use at your desk and take with you on your laptop? Would you like it even more if this service was cheaper than DSL, Cable and 3G wireless? Would you go for it right now if this service was screaming fast? You should really check and see if you can get 4G WiMAX broadband.



What’s WiMAX and why is it better than other broadband service options? WiMAX is a new worldwide standard for high speed wireless data service. If you think the name sounds a lot like WiFi, you are right. In fact, you can think of WiMAX as the coming replacement for public WiFi hotspots. The MAX in WiMAX hints at why. This service gives you a hotspot that covers an entire city. It can extend for 20 or 30 miles. Compare that with WiFi that disappears in a couple of hundred feet.

If you want to go mobile and not have to constantly look for WiFi hotspots to connect, you are probably considering or have a 3G modem aircard. This is a USB device that looks like a flash memory dongle. But the modem aircard has a two-way digital radio inside that connects to a cellular broadband signal. That gives you broadband at speeds similar to entry level DSL but without the wires. The upgrade is 4G or fourth generation wireless broadband. WiMAX is the implementation of 4G that is deployed and working right now.

What does 4G WiMAX have to offer? How about typical download speeds in the range of 3 to 6 Mbps with occasional bursts to 10 Mbps? How about a service that needs no telephone or cable TV wiring even at a desktop location? How about a service that you can run at your desktop and then take with you on your laptop? That pretty much rules out the wireline services doesn’t it? Combine that with a service plan price that starts at $30 a month, and even 3G wireless is left in the dust. You can order home service, mobile service, a combination plan and a plan that even includes 4G VoIP phone service in the bundle.

Now the question is can you get 4G WiMAX broadband at your location? CLEAR offers this service in parts of Texas, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Idaho, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania. More locations are under construction right now. The only way to know for sure is to check for CLEAR 4G WiMAX broadband service availability. Give it a try and see if you’ve been missing out on faster, cheaper wireless broadband service.

CLEAR Sailing for 4G Wireless

You’ve heard that 4G wireless is coming. Well, CLEAR is deploying 4G WiMAX wireless services right now. If you are one of the lucky ones living in an area where CLEAR WiMAX high speed wireless broadband Internet is available, you’ll enjoy bandwidth similar to what you get from DSL or Cable, but without the wires. Various plans are available for home, mobile or both.

So, what’s WiMAX and what is the difference between 3G and 4G? WiMAX is an international standard for wireless broadband service. It’s been described as WiFi with a city-wide coverage area. Technically there are a lot of differences between WiFi and WiMAX, but that’s probably how you’ll use it.

WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It’s defined by IEEE standard 802.16. You’ll remember that WiFi is also an IEEE standard, 802.11. One difference between WiMAX and WiFi is that WiMAX uses licensed frequencies at high power. WiFi shares unlicensed frequencies with microwave ovens, Bluetooth headsets, cordless phones and other devices that operate at relatively low power levels. This is why you can get WiMAX in your car or at home, while WiFi disappears as soon as you drive away from the restaurant or leave your driveway.

Remember all the hoopla about kicking analog TV stations off the air so their channels could be sold to the highest bidder? Clearwire was one of the big winners in that spectrum auction and CLEAR WiMAX is the service they are offering on the channels they won. With no interference and towers transmitting powerful signals, WiMAX service can go for miles and even penetrate buildings. You’ll need a modem for your PC or MAC. It sits next to the computer on your desk or plugs into your WiFi router just like any other broadband modem. A WiMAX picks up its broadband Internet connection through the air. A smaller version looks like a USB memory stick and plugs into your laptop computer for mobile use. But WiMAX gives you service all over town, even in your car.

Isn’t that also true of 3G cellular broadband? Indeed it is. What WiMAX has to offer is generally higher speeds than 3G. That’s why it’s called 4G or fourth generation to indicate that it is a step up technically from 3G or third generation. How fast does WiMAX run? CLEAR says that the average expected download speeds are in the range of 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps, with occasional bursts up to 10 Mbps. Sustained rates of 3 to 6 Mbps are pretty rare for 3G mobile broadband.

Where is CLEAR WiMAX available? Right now it’s in selected areas of the country with more cities on the way as the build-out continues. The greatest concentration of service is in Texas, in almost a dozen cities. You’ll also find CLEAR in Hawaii, the Seattle-Portland area of the Pacific Northwest, Boise, Chicago, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Milledgeville, Georgia, and Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Another advantage of CLEAR WiMAX 4G is cost. Plans start at $30 a month, which is less many DSL and Cable broadband plans and much less than 3G cellular broadband. Being wireless, the equipment is shipped to you and you install and activate it yourself. No waiting around for the cable guys. Plus you can get combined home and mobile service, which is something DSL and Cable can’t offer.

Does this sound like a broadband service you might like to have? If so, learn more and order your CLEAR WiMAX 4G broadband service online now.

The Fiber Gold Rush Is On

We’ve known for some time that ultimately we’d need to move from copper wires to fiber optic strands to get the bandwidth we’ll need as technology advances. Internet service providers, Cable TV companies, medical centers, telephone switching offices and major corporations have gradually embraced this move over the last couple of decades. New services, such as Metro Ethernet, have made fiber optic connections affordable for even mid-size companies. Small businesses and consumers are now getting their turn.

Indeed, there has been one company that saw the light, so to speak, on fiber to the home and made the commitment to build out the infrastructure. That’s Verizon. Their FiOS passive optical fiber service has been moving into one community after another as a replacement for DSL, Satellite, and Cable. You can get bundles of phone, Internet and TV. Or, you can just get really fast Internet service at up to 50 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload.

Did I say really fast internet service? Most people are getting somewhere between 3 and 10 Mbps broadband via DSL, Cable or wireless. But DOCSIS 3.0 is being rolled out on Comcast and other cable systems with 50 Mbps service offerings to rival fiber. The next tier will be 100 Mbps for those who can and will pay for it. DSL over copper telephone wire is going to struggle as the bandwidth wars speed past 100 Mbps. But there’s a new service on the horizon that will blow right past all of these broadband choices. It’s a 1 Gbps fiber optic service about to be launched as a pilot program by none other than Google.

Yes, some lucky consumers in the test markets are going to get their hands on the kind of bandwidth that makes IT managers green with envy. A Gigabit per second. That’s 1000 Mbps. There’s nothing over coaxial or twisted pair copper and certainly nothing wireless that can even come close to delivering that kind of consumer bandwidth. Even Verizon may have to change out a lot of terminal equipment to pump a Gbps into home networks.

Google swears that they are not planning to become a nationwide ISP. Their intention is to create an environment that can showcase the next developments in technology. What sort of cloud computing, virtual reality, telepresence, or HD 3D video applications need that kind of bandwidth? They’re yet to appear. But this does get past the chicken and egg conundrum, where application development stagnates because of bandwidth limitations and only cutting edge aficionados pony up for the top tiers in broadband service. Google plans to make their service cheap and plentiful so that even the common user can have a crack at this massive bandwidth connectivity.

ISP or not, it’s almost a sure bet that Google will prime the pump with some of their own cutting edge experimental apps. There’s probably all sorts of cool things brewing in the lab that just aren’t practical to launch on today’s broadband networks. Once the bottle’s open and the genies start flying out, you can bet that the development communities will fall all over themselves to get their own offerings out for evaluation.

This pitiful era of a bandwidth starved United States is about to end. That’s exceptionally good news for anyone living out in the boonies who’s stuck with dial-up, or paying a goodly price for satellite broadband and swearing at the latency. Google is, perhaps, the last straw in forcing universal fiber optic connections to the premises. Right now, smart telephone and cable companies are grabbing federal stimulus financing to trench fiber everywhere it isn’t already. It’s more than just serving the populations in low density areas who need and deserve better broadband. Another driving factor is the burgeoning wireless bandwidth demand to support smartphones, such as the iPhone and Droid. The cellular sites are bandwidth limited by the copper lines they have for backhaul. They are going to need fiber to support LTE and speed-ups in WiMAX.

How will wireless fare in the long run? It’s hard to tell how fast will be fast enough for wireless broadband. We’re not there yet. Right now, the relatively small size of cellphone screens takes some pressure off the need for massive bandwidth, even for HD video. But what about that iPad? It’s surely just the first in a whole class of tablet size products with bigger screens and more processing power. That’s going to lead to higher bandwidth demands to support content to feed the tablets. The FCC is already eyeing underutilized TV channels and other portions of the spectrum to press into service for wireless broadband. There will likely be some technology advances needed in the wireless arena to satisfy the ultimate need. After all, you can put more fiber bandwidth in the ground that there are Gbps in the entire regulated electromagnetic spectrum.

Celairo Offers Gigabit Wireless MWAN Services

Is your organization bandwidth frustrated? You need telecom network throughput and lots of it. Gigabit Ethernet would be nice, but it’s just not available for your location. Bonded copper solutions can’t deliver anything near the speed you require. Fiber optic line service would surely work, but that costs a fortune to build-out and will take forever even if you have the capital funding, which you don’t. What to do? How about carrier-grade gigabit wireless?

Wow! Gigabit wireless connections for businesses and other large organizations? Is there really such a thing?

Oh, yes, there is. Celairo Wireless Solutions specializes in just such high bandwidth point-to-point and Dedicated Internet Access services. They are experts in MWAN or Metropolitan Wide-Area Networks. They can give you the bandwidth you need from 1 Mbps to 3 Gbps without having to worry about how the wires are going to get to you. That’s because there are no wires. No wires means quick turn up times and often cost savings as well.

Celairo employs a combination of licensed and unlicensed WiMAX technology to deliver their high capacity services that include wireless Ethernet, high speed Internet, metropolitan point-to-point and multi-point services, and temporary high speed Internet for city events, emergency services and conventions. Bandwidth is symmetrical, scalable, reliable and secure. All connections are fully managed from Celairo network operating centers.

You may be familiar with the consumer oriented WiMAX services that are being built-out around the nation by Clearwire. But did you know that WiMAX technology isn’t just limited to wireless consumer broadband? WiMAX, meaning Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a set of technical standards for wireless transmission that’s ideal for feeding WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers), campus WiFi networks, hospitality or hotel and motel broadband Internet, healthcare and general business. With high reliability and security, WiMAX connections are every bit as capable as wireline and fiber optic connections.

Another Celairo service is called the HotZone Mesh Network. This is a wireless system that can scale up to 1000 nodes that automatically form the mesh network and overcome line-of-sight obstacles. This system is perfect for temporary or portable networks, like you might need for fairs and festivals, sporting events, concerts or even emergency situations.

Are you stymied by a lack of wide area connectivity, or limited by wireline services that simply can’t provide the bandwidth you need or be provisioned fast enough to support your special project? If so, Celairo may have wireless solution that is just what you need. For pricing and availability on high capacity voice and data service from Celairo and other high reliability carriers, speak with a bandwidth consultant toll free or enter a quick request for quote at our GigaPackets service.

Middle Mile Bandwidth Solutions

Most businesses are concerned with last mile network connections. That’s the access bandwidth that connects their local network to their service provider. But what does the service provider connect to?

If you are buying your voice and data services from a larger carrier, they may own an entire network that spans the nation or a large regional area. Smaller service providers have what is called a middle mile connection to a wholesale bandwidth supplier that connects them to the Internet or a major carrier’s telephone switching network.

If your business is running a small metropolitan or rural Internet service provider or an independent telephone company, you’ve probably got an interest in middle mile bandwidth solutions. In rural areas, especially, it’s often expensive and sometimes difficult to get the middle mile connectivity you need. Any competitive service offerings are a welcome sight, even if it is only to validate the cost and performance of your current leased services.

What types of middle mile technologies are there? Fiber optic service comes first to mind. Fiber optic cables crisscross the country and are present not far from most locations. The irony is that you may be standing right on top of a fiber conduit and not be able to get service.

Fiber bundles are much like the interstate highway system. They transport massive amounts of traffic, but access points are limited. To get on the network you need the equivalent of a highway on-ramp. That’s the service middle mile connections perform.

There are three middle mile connection technologies to consider. Fiber optics certainly provides the highest bandwidths. Each strand of glass fiber can transport packets at a data rate of at least 10 Gbps. By using wavelength division multiplexing, basically using multiple non-interfering colors of light beams, you might have 128 or even 256 different 10 Gbps data streams in each strand. A fiber bundle might have dozens, even hundreds of glass fiber strands in one ruggedized trunk cable. That’s a LOT of bandwidth capacity.

The problem with fiber optic connections is that there aren’t a lot of places to plug-in for service. Carriers have POPs or Points of Presence in major metropolitan areas. But between these termination points there are miles and sometimes hundreds of miles of installed fiber cable running point to point. Some carriers are pursuing government financing under the rural broadband improvement project to build-out more middle mile fiber lines in rural areas. This will make it easier for ISPs and telcos in sparsely populated areas to get high bandwidth connections at lower prices.

Another connection technology is wireless. Point to point microwave transmission is cheaper and quicker to install than fiber optic cabling. The newest technology is WiMAX, which can be used as a middle mile backhaul service as well as a public access wireless broadband transmission service. WiMAX has a range of up to 30 miles, making it a good solution to feed remotely located transmission towers.

A technology you might not think of for middle mile services is bundled T1 lines. A T1 line has a bandwidth of only 1.5 Mbps, making it more suitable as a last mile connection for business locations. But multiple T1 lines can be connected essentially in parallel to create larger bandwidths up to 10 or 12 Mbps. That may be all a cellular tower or WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) needs for middle mile connectivity. The advantage of T1 is that it runs on twisted pair copper and can be easily boosted or regenerated over long distances. That means that bundled T1 service can reach out into rural areas where other services aren’t available.

Newer modulation techniques let multiple copper pair also transport Ethernet in a technology known as EoC or Ethernet over Copper. EoC bandwidths are often similar to bundled T1 lines, but may be as high as 45 Mbps in metropolitan areas.

Are you in need of connectivity for your independent telephone company or Internet service? If so, see what middle mile bandwidth solutions are available for your location.

Backhaul Upgrades For Wireless Broadband

A funny thing happened on the way to mobile broadband. We ran out of bandwidth. While everyone was thinking that wireless channels would be the limiting factor, lack of backhaul capacity is threatening to stop wireless growth in its tracks. Fortunately, this limitation is recognized and being dealt with.

Just what is backhaul and why does it stand in the way of mobile services? Backhaul, as the term is used now, means the connection from the wireless tower site back to the provider’s central office or mobile switching center.

Backhaul is something you didn’t hear much about until recently. As cellular sites were originally envisioned, they consisted of a radio transmission system with spectrum divided into multiple channels. Those channels are used to communicate with the wireless handsets to transport telephone conservations. The backhaul system consists of T1 lines that offer up to 24 individual phone lines on a digital trunk.

The beauty of T1 lines is that they are provisioned on ordinary twisted pair copper. That’s right, they use telephone line. Each T1 requires two copper pair. But instead of carrying two phone conversations, the digital line can carry 24 conversations. That’s an efficiency improvement of 12x over analog telephony. Because they use ordinary telco cabling, T1 lines can be easily provisioned to both rural and urban tower sites.

T1 lines can also be used to carry broadband Internet services. Many businesses get their broadband service over a T1 line. All cellular phone companies need do is provide a data T1 line to the tower site and use some of the available wireless channels for Internet service. That gives the user both voice and data on their mobile device.

Everything worked smoothly until newer cell phones, especially the large touch screen models, made streaming audio and video and HTLM Web browsing possible. Video chews up bandwidth like crazy. If people expect to have a television watching experience on their cell phone, the cellular transmitters are going to need bandwidth and lots of it.

This is what’s underway now. The initial response to the increase in bandwidth utilization was met by bonding multiple T1 lines to create bigger bandwidth pipes out to the tower sites. But wireless broadband speeds are increasing by leaps and bounds. AT&T’s HSPA service for 3G mobile wireless offers a max download speed of 3.6 Mbps. They are currently in an upgrade mode to double that to 7.2 Mbps. The next generation technology is 4G using LTE that will offer speeds over 10 Mbps. Sprint and Clearwire are busy building out WiMAX, another 4G technology. Verizon is running EV-DO Rev A for it’s 3G network and will implement LTE for 4G, similar to AT&T.

What this means is a big demand for backhaul service to get the voice and data signals to and from the tower sites. Carrier Ethernet can address some of this demand over multiple copper pair. WiMAX is touted as both an end-user broadband service and a backhaul technology. It just depends on where the signals go. Ultimately, fiber optic cable is the solution to the backhaul bottleneck. Fiber has nearly unlimited capacity, but it is expensive to install where there is no fiber today.

It seems like there should be some synergy between the rural broadband initiative being pushed by the Federal Government and the need for higher bandwidths to carrier-owned cellular facilities. Why not just bite the bullet and get fiber to the boonies now? It won’t be long before that massive bandwidth is going to be a necessity rather than a luxury.

In the meantime, if you have a need for voice or data bandwidth for any business application, see what bandwidth options are available for your location. You may be surprised at how much you can get at a reasonable price these days.