Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Fixed Wireless Broadband - How it Works

Fixed Wireless networking is nothing new. The concept has been in use since the early days of microwave communication. Today, however, we're talking specifically about the type of wireless that nearly every American uses daily (though they may not know it by name): GSM. Over the last decade, the wireless infrastructure that powers everyday cell phone usage has been used more and more for data networks. So how does this network architecture work and what are its advantages?

In principal, it's simple. If you have ever seen an internet-capable mobile phone or PDA, you have witnessed network data being transmitted wirelessly through the use of GSM towers and antennas. But in areas of high-demand business networks, the amounts of data can be significantly higher than that text message you just received, or the 400 x 250 pixel mobile web page you just viewed.

The recently popularized 3G networks optimize Spectral Efficiency in order to offer a higher capacity connection for both voice and data. Fixed Wireless Broadband applications, then, use specialized antennas, like Accel Networks' Accelerator™ Antenna, to aggregate signal from multiple providers. By aggregating and already optimized signal, the Accelerator™ Antenna is able to use a 3G-enabled fixed wireless network to deliver broadband that's comparable to DSL and Cable.

But, there's more. One of the dreaded fears of network administrators for decades has been network outage. When an entire operation relies on a wired connection via a single provider, a number of risks exist ranging from a physical break in the wired connection to network outage caused by the provider's hardware failure. Many businesses today are turning to fixed wireless broadband as either a primary or, at minimum, a back-up network solution for the simple fact that the aggregation of the Accelerator Antenna means not only speed but also redundancy and fail-over. With today's 3G wireless infrastructure well established and still growing, fixed wireless broadband can be an all-around more reliable solution than wired connections.

Labels: Broadband, Fixed Wireless Broadband