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August 09, 2016

Getting a Fix on 5G Wireless with Cambridge Broadband Networks

For those who know me, they recognize that I am reluctant to talk about beam forming and millimeter wave technologies. It’s not that I don’t think they don’t work, I just think the deployments are going to be slow.

It’s hard to see a strategy that impacts revenue.

However, bringing broadband services to fixed wireless is definitely a game changer that makes sense to me. Cambridge Broadband Networks known as CBNL has been steadily winning customers with their 28 Ghz solution.

First Communications is deploying this solution CBNL calls “VectaStar” to “Businesses in Cleveland, Akron and Canton are amongst the first to gain access to services offered by the network, which include bandwidth packages of up to 200Mbps, alongside voice and cloud solution.”

The impact of the fixed wireless on the delivering local services makes for greater independence from the existing plant and a great opportunity for complete redundancy in system deployments.

Margi Shaw, the CEO of First Communications has it right in the press release when she says “Crucially, we can now provide more customers with affordable access to higher bandwidth services, which can be up and running in a matter of days. Until VectaStar, there simply hasn’t been a viable wireless solution to realize this strategy. With the networks growing quickly, we look forward to bringing the benefits to more customers across Ohio in the coming months.”

My conversation with Mark Ashford made it clear that 28 Ghz solutions are going to be used as alternative to wireline systems by carriers seeking broadband services today. Mark pointed out that lots of carriers are exploring point to multi-point [PMP] solutions. Mark goes on in the press release to say, “In addition to the reduction in equipment and simplified field force activity of PMP, VectaStar’s innovative reuse of spectrum enables a significant boost to ROI. This combination of high frequency and more efficient technology is vital to improve services for end-users and realize the path to Gbps network speeds.”

Migrating to fixed wireless is going to be competing with legacy wireline for legacy POTS carriers. However, using fixed wireless reduces the concern of helping a competitor building out there network.


Edited by Ken Briodagh


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