Looking to extend the reach of high-speed fiber Internet service, the city of Santa Cruz, California, along with a technology partner and the local Internet service provider Cruzio, is using millimeter wave radios to provide wireless gigabit Internet service.
Millimeter wave spectrum is expected to be integral to future “5G” mobile networks. The spectrum can handle high-capacity data transmission, but the challenging wave propagation characteristics require radio density. Vendor Siklu is providing the millimeter wave radio tech, which the company bills as “the next generation of wireless backhaul.
“As operators need more and more bandwidth, they are turning to new frequency spectrums to lower their wireless backhaul costs,” the company says. The solution is E-Band spectrum, the 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz bands, which offer “clear technological and economic advantages. In the E-Band spectrum, wireless systems can utilize the significantly larger allocated spectrum and channels to deliver multigigabit data rates.”
In Santa Cruz, Siklu is attaching its radios to Cruzio’s fiber network in what the partners bill as a “first-of-its-kind deployment in the United States.” Radios “can be attached to building facades, the top of buildings, poles and other points in the community to create an ultra-fast wireless extension of fiber,” according to a project announcement. In addition to the cost perspective, Siklu notes a wireless-based system will go live much faster than a fiber-to-the-home deployment.
Santa Cruz Mayor Cynthia Matthews said: “We are thrilled at the prospect of upgrading the wireless service at key locations throughout the city, including Louden Nelson Community Center, the Civic Auditorium, the Tannery Arts Lofts affordable housing, City Hall and other sites. Achieving these upgrades in partnership with Siklu and Cruzio, is a tremendous benefit to our entire community, for which we are very grateful.”
“Siklu is proud to work with Santa Cruz and Cruzio to show how we can light up communities with ultra-fast broadband speeds with a wireless technology that can be put in place quickly,” said Izik Kirshenbaum, Siklu founder and chairman. “We look forward to deploying this technology in other U.S. communities in the months to come, helping them complete their race to get a gigabit.”
Cruzio has about 9,000 business and residential customers connected to its network.
Another increasingly prevalent option for extending fiber networks is by leveraging existing copper-to-the-home networks and G.fast technology. For instance, Nokia and Chunghwa Telecom are using G.fast in Taiwan to provide fiber-like speeds in locations where fiber deployment is difficult of cost prohibitive by using the “last mile” of copper, which also eliminates the need to rewire buildings.
