Mobile network operators face an ever increasing demand for backhaul capacity as LTE becomes more and more ubiquitous. Therefore, Escape Communications Inc. and Filtronic Broadband Ltd. have announced the availability of a fully integrated E-Band point-to-point radio product kit.
E-Band spectrum (71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz) offers mobile operators the ability to provide multi-gigabit backhaul to cell sites. The new product kit is claimed to significantly reduce the development cost and time to market for operators and original equipment manufacturers that want to deploy an E-Band point-to-point radio solution.
The product kit enables an FDD link with 500 MHz channel bandwidth and provides either 1 Gbps or 2.5 Gbps. It includes Filtronic’s highly integrated, fully tested Orpheus RF module with on-board diplexer, Escape Communication’s baseband board with an all-digital modem, integrated switch, and full software stack. The kit can be powered with a built-in Power over Ethernet (PoE) power supply.
The kit comes with a full set of drawings for the outdoor housing to enable rapid fabrication, testing, and deployment. It is aid to provide market leading performance of up to 24 dBm output power and greater than 35 dB SNR, while operating links with 256 QAM modulation. The kit enables a low-cost approach both at the recurring and development cost levels.
Michael Stewart, CEO and founder of Escape Communications, said; “We are providing mobile equipment makers with a solution toolkit featuring complete field-proven software, market leading features, performance, and carrying capacities at the lowest total cost of ownership. Our complete product kit approach enables customers to adopt a solution and get to market in a matter of weeks without expensive development or test equipment -- plus it’s software-defined and field-upgradable, so our customers can continue to innovate and meet evolving needs."
Rob Smith, CEO of Filtronic, added; "We are delighted to be working with Escape to offer a cost effective solution that enables customers to gain rapid entry into the E-Band point-to-point market utilizing our class leading Orpheus transceivers coupled with Escape’s proven modem. Escape and Filtronic have collaborated closely to ensure that our respective design blocks are optimized to work together to achieve optimal functionality at an enticing price point. By offering a fully developed ODU customers can rapidly enter the E-Band market without the high ticket associated with product development and test."