Point to point microwave
Wireless connectivity provides a safe, secure, extremely reliable, flexible and cost effective solution compared to the limitations of traditional WAN connectivity. Wireless connectivity of up to 10 miles (subject to a site survey) can be achieved and in most cases will prove a more economic solution than traditional leased lines both in terms of set up costs and with the ongoing rental costs associated with them.
By far the most common question asked about wireless connectivity is “how far can a link go?‟ However, the range depends on the data rates required and the expected availability as well as governing factors of the environment such as the height of the equipment used and how clear the line of sight is. Thankfully, modern planning tools can correlate the technical performance of the solution with the topographical terrain of the locations in order to reliably predict the bandwidth of the link as well as calculate the availability, usually desired to be 99.999%.
Modern technology also allows microwave systems to benefit rather than suffer from reflections off surrounding buildings. This means that microwave links can still be established even in “non line of sight” conditions delivering reliable connections at distances of up to 1km or more. Of course, the clearer the line of sight, the further the range thus interconnecting taller buildings with clear line of sight can reliably deliver 10Mbps or more, at distances of over 10km.
The technology can therefore deliver very fast speeds with high levels of reliability even in very low-lying urban deployments.
Convergence - New advanced solutions and applications are being developed and deployed in the telecoms and security markets on a daily basis and all crave the same thing: high bandwidth, low latency networks and true Quality of Service.
Microwave links, which have been delivering these fast high quality links within a data environment for some time, can now provide a solution to a much wider range of applications. Examples include the traditional voice and data needs of an SME organisation, back-up systems to fibre networks as well as providing backhaul for large metropolitan security or telecom networks. Where a microwave link is feasible, it will offer a true alternative to leased lines.
Return on investment - The strength of the return on investment for microwave systems lies in the speed and simplicity of their deployment compared to the alternatives. Historically, microwave links were only deployed on very tall masts or towers that were usually owned by a third party and attracted fairly expensive annual site fees. However, as modern systems can now be easily mounted on a roof top, equipment can be simply deployed on the user’s own building, similar to a residential satellite dish. This enables a system to be installed very quickly with little or no recurring costs (depending on the equipment/labour support contract required).
A microwave link can deliver significantly more capacity than that of a normal 2Mbps leased line with up to 1 Gbps with clear line of sight. However, the fully installed cost can be a fraction of the cost of a leased line installation. Furthermore as a capital expenditure the system is owned by that organisation, is not subject to third party service rates and does not attract the expensive recurring costs of a leased line.
South West Communications Group has used its expertise to design and install perfect point to point solutions for companies across the UK, including Sandy Park.
