SpeedCast seals backhaul deal in Pakistan
SpeedCast has won two-year contract to provide cellular backhaul service for more than 30 sites in Pakistan.
SpeedCast has partnered with Supernet to deliver the GSM backhaul network which is now utilized by two of the top GSM service providers to extend their reach in the mountainous northern areas and far flung remote areas in the south of Pakistan. Satellite solutions provider Comtech is also a partner.
The company said implementation was particularly challenging for 20 of the sites, because it involved stringent implementation time-lines and the requirement of minimum outage during the change over from the incumbent service providers to the Supernet and SpeedCast network.
Moreover, the operators have strict service level agreements for performance, to guarantee a high level of quality for their users.
Mobile backhaul market tops $8b
The global macro-cell mobile backhaul grew 7% last year to $8 billion and is forecast to hit $9 billion over the next few years.
According to Infonetics Research, microwave was the largest and fasting growing segment in 2012, and even as fiber increases is expected to account for 56% of mobile backhaul revenue by 2017.
The report predicts that the small-cell backhaul equipment market will reach a cumulative $5 billion over the next five years.
The key drivers are the ongoing HSPA/HSPA+ onslaught across the 3GPP world and growing LTE deployments by 3GPP2 players.
Telefónica extends backhaul contract with Ceragon
Telefónica has extended a network backhaul deal with wireless specialist Ceragon Networks.
With new orders for network upgrades in Mexico, Ceragon now provides high-capacity wireless backhaul solutions to Telefonica in four markets throughout Latin America.
The Telefónica Group has more than 300 million subscribers in 25 countries.
Ceragon will provide solutions for LTE backhaul supporting high voice and data capacities. The company said its solutions enable simplified network provisioning and monitoring while reducing total cost of ownership, thereby enabling it to meet today’s stringent service level agreements.
Small cells to outnumber femtocells in 2016: report
Carrier-grade small cells are poised to outnumber residential femtocells by 2016. A report from Mobile Expert said shipments of metro-cells in 2017 will reach five million.
Mobile Experts predicted a “slow growth” for residential femtocells, at only 12% per year. Faster growth will come from capacity upgrades, as mobile operators are pushing hard for high-capacity small cells. The report also said taken together, outdoor metro-cells and indoor capacity nodes will overtake residential femtocell shipments in the 2016 time frame.
“The Asia-Pacific market has led the way in small cells, with more than 100,000 public small cells already deployed in Korea and Japan,” said Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts.
“The Asian market is stretching the femtocell into areas where the small cells are handling capacity effectively for operators like KT, SKT, and NTT DoCoMo. Many other operators around the world will follow this example, as the LTE macro roll-out is completed and capacity tightens up in North America, China, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. The bottom line is that small cells are 65% less expensive than macro base stations, for adding mobile capacity.”