Broadband Communities

OCT 2012

BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.

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TECHNOLOGY Fiber and the Flexible Wireless Network The explosion of mobile computing puts new demands on cell sites that once handled only voice traffic. Telecom providers are quickly building fiber to those sites to backhaul the mobile data – but that's not the only use for fiber in cellular networks. By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Communities T he latest fiber building boom wasn't even anticipated until a few years ago, when the iPhone's runaway success placed sudden, unprec- edented demands on the AT&T; Wire- less network. Data-hungry Android smartphones quickly followed, and tab- lets appeared soon afterward. Consum- ers even began using their smartphones as tethers for their laptops when no Wi- Fi was available. Wireless providers added more cop- per T1 lines to their cell sites to channel the flood of data to the Internet – it's not unusual to hear of cell sites that have a dozen T1 connections – but quickly re- alized that Ethernet over fiber was a less expensive and more future-proof back- haul solution. By 2009, operators were conducting trials of fiber-to-the-cell-site connections, and today, about a quarter of all U.S. cell sites are fiber-connected, according to a recent estimate by Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber. Te buildout of 4G wireless net- works, which support much higher data rates than 3G networks, will require many more fiber connections. As long ago as 2009, Verizon Wireless esti- mated it would eventually need to fiber- connect 90 percent of its sites. Of course, the target is moving because the growth of mobile data also requires add- ing many more – and more kinds of – cell sites. Given the rapid growth and evolution of fiber-wireless connections, Erik Gron- vall, product manager for TE Connectiv- In the heterogenous networks of the future, fiber will connect distributed antennas, small cells and large cells with base stations. ity, said in a 2012 Broadband Communi- ties Summit presentation that a network architecture for mobile backhaul must meet a number of criteria: It must be easy to adjust and upgrade, scalable, compati- ble with future technology, operationally efficient, reliable and secure. Fiber optic equipment vendors are identifying or adapting products that meet these criteria and are suitable for cell site deployment. For example, TE Connectivity, which supplies a wide variety of fiber connectivity solutions, is promoting its flexible fiber box (FFB) for demarcation and aggregation at cell sites. Tis solution can be wall or pole mounted, can terminate 12 or 24 fibers and can be connected using any of sev- eral different methods. It can also in- corporate a RapidReel fiber cable spool, which stores up to 250 feet of 12-fiber indoor-outdoor cable. TE's Rapid Fiber panel, originally developed for central offices and data About the Author Masha Zager is the editor of BROADBAND COMMUNITIES. You can reach her at masha @bbcmag.com. 78 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | OCTOBER 2012 centers, is also recommended for cell sites. It, too, incorporates the RapidReel spool. Jaxon Lang, vice president of the TE Telecom Networks business unit, says that because installers can cut cable to length from the RapidReel spool, they can often eliminate site surveys and speed time to provisioning by weeks. Being able to connect 12 fibers at a time to patch cords also shortens installation time. FIBER TO THE BASE STATION Rob Shaddock, chief technology officer for TE Connectivity, explains some of the considerations that go into planning for the fiber-rich 4G networks of the near future. Tese new networks will be "HetNets," or heterogeneous networks, made up of many kinds of cells from tra- ditional macro cells to tiny femtocells. Base stations, which contain the transceivers and controls for cellular networks, are the systems responsible

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