Backhaul Industry Benefits from High Speed Wireless Data Services

The new world of muscled up mobile networks and applications is creating an ever-increasing need for backhaul and new strategies for doing so, a new Visant Strategies study finds. In addition to finding means to physically carry this increasing load carriers are also eager to mitigate additional increases in the roughly US$3.5 billion they spent in 2006 for backhaul services, according to the report.

"Data services, including multi-media downloads, and network upgrades to WCDMA/HSDPA and EV-DO have led to a surge in backhaul use by mobile carriers," said report author Andy Fuertes. "As carriers deploy these evolutionary air-interfaces they must also provide more robust ties between deployed infrastructure and the greater Internet and telecom networks since the newer apps will require bigger pipes to the outside telecom world."

Increasing backhaul expenditures represents one hurdle carriers must overcome; physical limitations of copper and its inability to address towers with multiple high-speed base stations is a longer-term issue in almost half of all base stations deployed, the study finds.

"Roughly 20% of mobile base stations in the United States are backhauled via wireless technologies today," said Larry Swasey of Visant Strategies, "while globally 65% of mobile base stations are linked via wireless backhaul. We see the number of base stations in the US using wireless for backhaul almost doubling by 2011 to help provide this higher backhaul capacity."

Other backhaul practice changes include reducing those base stations with backhaul services of 6Mbps or less and allowing others to manage the infrastructure, backhaul and tower site."

Posted to the site on 18th April 2007