backhaul
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Sprint testing LTE cell sites in San Francisco, we pay one a visit
It's not everyday that you get to mill around rooftops like Spider-Man, so when Sprint invited us to visit one of its LTE cell sites in San Francisco, our answer was a resounding "yes." While the company's been testing LTE in the city by the bay for several months now, we're still a few weeks away from an official rollout. Cell site SF33XC664 is located high above Van Ness Avenue with phenomenal views of the Golden Gate and Telegraph Hill. Sprint showed us around the various pieces of equipment and let us run some speed tests. Take a look at our hands-on gallery below then hit the break to join us on a complete tour. %Gallery-191173%
UK regulators approve Vodafone and O2's network merger
Observing the mantra that the enemy of its enemy is its friend, Vodafone and O2 have gained regulatory approval to begin merging their cellular networks to better compete with Everything Everywhere. As such, they can begin spinning off infrastructure and towers to a new company called CTI, which will manage both company's hardware as a single network. It's hoped the new tie-up will cover 98 percent of the country and enable LTE services to roll out two years ahead of Ofcom's 2017 deadline. Worried about another awkward T-Mobile and Orange-style merger? Don't be, since in every other respect, the pair have pledged to operate as competing entities in a quest for your custom.
Ubiquiti Networks beefs up outdoor wireless broadband networks with AirFiber
We won't be satisfied until we live on a planet where wireless internet waves travel at all points where oxygen is readily available, and it sounds as if Ubiquiti Networks is right there with us. The outfit has just rolled out a new outdoor wireless backhaul radio platform dubbed AirFiber, which represents its first proprietary in-house radio design effort that was purpose-built for the Wireless ISP Industry. It hums along in the license-free 24GHz band, and provides optical fiber network performance without the significant capital costs associated with fiber cable network deployment. At $2,995 per link, it's hardly meant for consumer consumption, but but we're hoping it'll bring the world wide web to more of the world when enterprise outfits start deploying 'em later this year.[Thanks, Shawn]
Auckland amps up free WiFi for Rugby World Cup
Just in time for play-by-play tweets about the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, Auckand has instituted a fully-integrated WiFi network across its Link public transit system. According to officials, buses and some trains will get the free internet treatment, giving passengers up to three 30 minute sessions a day between September 1 and October 31st. Powered by Tomizone and sponsored by Localist, the network promises 2 - 6Mbps downloads and is based on point-to-point links around town using fiber assets for backhaul. If that wasn't enough connectivity, CallPlus and Slingshot are dishing out some gratis WiFi of their own with an additional thousand hotspots sprinkled throughout the city. Hopefully, the added infrastructure will mean WiFi access par excellence year round for maximum non-Rugby related tweetage. Check out the full PR after the break. [Thanks, Scott]
TeliaSonera already upgrading LTE network, 'practical speeds' of up to 80Mbps promised
There's no rest for the wicked -- and perhaps nothing in the world of wireless describes "wicked" better than Nordic carrier TeliaSonera, which holds the distinction of having deployed the world's first commercial LTE network last year. Thing is, the network's been taking a little heat for being effectively no faster than some of the recent HSPA+ deployments around the globe, but no worries -- they're already working on it. It seems that central Stockholm is the first area to benefit from upgrades that will take the LTE airwaves to a theoretical max of 100Mbps with "practical" downlink throughput alleged to be down around 80Mbps, still a fine upgrade from the real-world peaks of 40Mbps that folks have been seeing so far. If you're outside Stockholm, TeliaSonera expect to upgrade the rest of the LTE network in Spring. Where's the carrier suddenly finding all this extra bandwidth? It's said to be more of a backhaul upgrade than anything else, which sounds kind of familiar.
Time Warner Cable offering its tubes to AT&T, Verizon
Wired broadband is all well and good, but significantly more high-speed internet access is going to come via wireless over the next several years, and everyone involved -- the carriers, the CTIA, and the FCC -- knows that it's going to be a technical challenge to meet that reality. Spectrum is one thing, but the bytes need somewhere to go once they hit the towers; that's where backhaul comes into play. AT&T and T-Mobile have both recently pimped fiber upgrades that should significantly widen the tubes connecting cell sites to the backbone, but they aren't going it alone: cable companies see the writing on the wall, too, and are looking to backhaul for a profitable new line of business. It turns out that Time Warner Cable tripled its backhaul revenue last year alone and is said to be making a heavy push to sign new deals with both AT&T and Verizon; AT&T, of course, has famously had trouble keeping its 3G network humming smoothly in Manhattan over the last 18 months as an endless barrage of iPhones slam it, so TWC probably sees this as a clutch opportunity since they basically own the cable market in New York. For its part, AT&T won't discuss its backhaul deals -- but it's told us in recent months that it has a backhaul advantage over some of its competitors since it operates a huge DSL business, so it's hard to gauge exactly how much benefit AT&T could reap by taking TWC up on its offer. Now, if Time Warner had some spectrum it wanted to offload, that'd be another matter altogether.
AT&T announces slew of network investments for 2010
AT&T's preaching about the mucho dinero it's dropping into renovating its network to pretty much anyone who'll listen these days, and a veritable cornucopia of press releases this week start to go into detail on some of the upgrades we'll be seeing over the course of 2010. We're counting at least a dozen here, covering everything from New York City to Florida to Oklahoma, but the message is basically the same in every one: more cell sites, more 3G coverage, more backhaul. AT&T liberally pimps its nine-figure investments in most states over the past several years, too -- but of course, phones need spectrum to communicate, not blank checks and promises. Let's see how we finish the year after those iPads, next-gen iPhones, and AT&T-compatible Nexus Ones (our fingers are crossed) have had a chance to slam the airwaves for a bit, shall we?
T-Mobile lighting up tons of fiber-powered backhaul 'within the next few weeks'
Realistically, most Americans won't have a chance to enjoy the full spoils of T-Mobile's shiny new 21Mbps HSPA+ network any time soon, but hey, at least they appear to be making solid progress. In a recent chat with GigaOM, T-Mobile's VP of engineering Dave Mayo has said that the requisite software for HSPA+ service is already rolled out to cell sites along the California coast and in major cities between Washington, DC and Boston, but like AT&T, it's not the software that's the concern -- it's the width of the backhaul pipe. The company says that it's got 20Mbps fiber connections to just 7 percent of its cells presently but plans to rapidly expand that to around 25 percent "within the next few weeks." Ultimately, that's going to be the key for every carrier around the world that's deploying 3.75 to 4G networks -- the cells themselves might be easy, but getting enough data piped to them is another story altogether. [Thanks, Burnside]
AT&T says it's 'closing the gap' on dropped calls
AT&T spent a good bit of its earnings call today talking about its network -- not too surprising, really, considering the cozy relationship between dropped calls, subscriber count, and profit. The overall takeaway was that the company is pleased with its progress and continues to improve thanks to the addition of new carriers at existing cell sites (read: increased over-the-air capacity), an ongoing backhaul renovation, and the recent roll-out of 7.2Mbps capability across most of its 3G footprint. In terms of dropped calls specifically, AT&T claims that the statistic dropped network-wide from 1.41 percent to 1.05 percent between December '08 and '09 -- not bad, though the real problems seem to be in key high-density, high-visibility markets like Manhattan where it hasn't yet met its vaguely-defined "performance objective." That said, it seems convinced that it'll patch things up over the next few months as it continues its infrastructure push -- and considering that Apple's entrusting AT&T with the iPad, we don't doubt that there's some work underway to mute the cries of "we want Verizon" about 90 days from now. Then again, there's no substitute for real-world experience, so we'll dare pose the question: are you seeing improvement in your neck of the woods? Follow the break for another juicy slide out of AT&T's earnings deck.
AT&T kicks it into overdrive, rolls out 7.2Mbps everywhere -- but there's a catch
AT&T was quick to steal a smidge of T-Mobile's thunder today with the announcement at an investor's conference that has sped up its 7.2Mbps HSPA software upgrade to all 3G cell sites, moving up the original deadline of 2011. Here's the thing, though: they didn't really move up the 2011 date because 7.2Mbps-capable cells don't do much good without a wide-enough pipe to feed them on the back end. That's the other part of AT&T's one-two punch for boosting network speeds, and that part won't be wrapped up for a while yet. The company says that it expects "the majority" of the mobile data it handles to operate over its upgraded back end by the tail end of this year -- and it's already started the upgrades in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami -- but the reality here is that we probably won't be blazing anywhere near the theoretical max throughput for a little while yet.
AT&T slinging HSPA 7.2 to six cities this year, adding backhaul capacity too
If there's one thing AT&T's network could use, it's more network. Particularly in major cities (we're looking at you and your dastardly street parking situation, San Francisco), AT&T's 3G network is perpetually overwhelmed, oftentimes forcing users to switch to EDGE just to tweet about how awful the coverage is. Thankfully, the operator is making good on its earlier promise to roll out HSPA 7.2Mbps to select cities, with Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami now destined to get lit this year. Potentially more interesting, however, is the deployment of "additional backhaul capacity to cell sites," which will also support LTE when the time comes. All told, around 2,000 new cell sites should be added before the year's end, and at least a half dozen 7.2Mbps-capable smartphones should be in AT&T's portfolio by the same deadline. Feel free to express your joy in comments below -- that is, if you can get comments to load on your existing 3G connection.
