Millimetre-wave wireless backhaul in 5G networks

Mike GeenHead of EngineeringFiltronic Broadband

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About Filtronic

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• Filtronic was established 1977 currently ~120 employees across

multiple sites in UK, US, Sweden and China

• World leader in the design and manufacture of a broad range of

customised RF, microwave and millimetre-wave components and

subsystems.

• Filtronic plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange - two Business Units:

• Filtronic Wireless designs and manufactures RF filters, combiners, TMAs, microwave subsystems and antennas for the mobile telecommunications industry, focusing on equipment for OEMs and network operators. HQ in Leeds with design centres in US and Sweden. Manufacturing is carried out in Suzhou, China

• Filtronic Broadband designs and manufactures 60 to 90GHz millimetre-wave products for mobile broadband backhaul, defence applications as well as providing build to print manufacturing at its state of the art, highly automated facility in Sedgefield Co Durham

© Filtronic 2017

• Established, leading-edge technology designer and manufacturer of microwave & millimetre-wave (mmWave) products

• Capabilities centred around three distinct groups:

• mmWave Transceiver Modules and out-door units (ODUs)

• Microwave Components

• Contract Manufacturing Services for Telecoms and Aerospace markets

• Filtronic Broadband’s mmWave solutions offer high specification, competitively priced products that reduce customer in house R&D investment and time to market

• Acknowledged as market leading mm-Wave module integrator - selected by major US multinationals to develop custom solutions for next generation communication systems and European Tier 1 OEMs to supply E band transceiver modules for their backhaul network equipment product lines

• World class product quality and reliability demonstrated with over 300,000 Microwave modules, over 25,000 millimetre-wave modules and over 500,000 SMT multichip modules currently in service in mobile backhaul networks around the world

• New generation module “Orpheus” designed into lead customers' latest E

band backhaul systems - over 5,000 units of this variant now shipped and

>300 module samples supplied to new 7 customers

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Filtronic Broadband

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Basic microwave backhaul

Backhaul: intermediate links between the core network (aka backbone) and the smaller subnetworks at the edgeFronthaul: intermediate links between radio controllers and remote radio heads

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Backhaul spectrum

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• Fibre – fundamental to any high performance communications network

• In city-wide deployments, a fibre only approach is unlikely to address all of the time. cost and geographic challenges.

• Business case to lay more fibre becomes less attractive towards network edges

• Rapid deployment of high capacity mm-Wave radios can deliver much earlier revenue from new subscribers. The network can then be backfilled with fibre in a more cost effective planned programme at a later date if required.

Building and extending fibre networks

Optical Fibre installation tool Wireless link and installation tool

Typically costs between £30,000 and £100,000 per km to lay new fibre.Often impossible to lay new fibre where it is needed.

Self coordinated licence fee: £50/link/year

Ofcom Coordinated licence fees:

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Challenges for 5G

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• WiFi on Trains. Best systems today offer 500Mbps using trackside fibre and 5GHz or 60 GHz radio repeaters • Higher capacity will be required for 5G – an appropriately designed E Band solution has potential to deliver higher data rates

with fewer repeaters

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5G mobile access will create challenges for mobile backhaul

• Spectrum above 6 GHz now under consideration for 5G to provide wider bandwidth channels to support higher volume data communication to wireless devices.

• Potential threat to existing fixed service bands - the allocation of bands above 6GHz for 5G (deployments after 2020), can endanger the capability of operators to properly operate backhaul networks for 3 and 4G

“All discussions about allocation of spectrum for 5G must consider the needs of the operators for backhaul, current (3 and 4G) and future (5G)”*

“The allocation of spectrum for 5G cannot be separated by the allocation of sufficient and suitable spectrum to deploy the backhaul network” *

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* Renato Lombardi – ETSI mWT ISG Chairman.

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Mobile backhaul today

9© ETSI 2016. All rights reserved

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The case for mm Wave

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• Traditional bands have a number of narrow channels spread between 6 and 42GHz. The total bandwidth available below 42GHz is just 15GHz. This now heavily used and expensive licences are required to operate in these bands.

• Low frequency band are not well suited to dense networks needing short links and high spectrum reuse

• In contrast, the millimetre wave bands provide an additional 21GHz of bandwidth in large blocks allowing very high data rates to be achieved.

• E Band and V band have best economics for throughput and licence cost

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Spectrum above 90GHz

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• Ten different portions of spectrum are available (when some contiguous portions are considered), from 92 to 200GHz, allocated primarily to Fixed Service, covering almost 54% of the whole band under consideration (92-200GHz).

• More than 30GHz of spectrum available in total in bands ranging from 1 GHz to 12.5 GHz:

© ETSI 2016. All rights reserved

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Spectrum above 90GHz

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E band Radio Kits: 3Gbps and 10Gbps

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• The E-band kit enables fast trial and product adoption by OEM

• Eliminates development costs / no expensive test equipment required

• Hardware and software integrated and tested

• Kit comprises:

• Fully tested “Orpheus” module with integrated diplexer for FDD

• Qualified Q3-15, production commenced Q4-15

• Supports channel bandwidths 62.5MHz up to 2000MHz

• Fully tested baseband board with:

• 2.5 Gbps or 10Gbps modem

• Configured for 500 or 2000MHz channels to 256 QAM

• Integrated switch for in-band management

• Integrated power supply

• Full integrated software stack for controlling the link

• GUI and SNMP control

• Mechanical drawings for “starter” enclosure

• Antennas from multiple vendors

Orpheus module

Baseband board

Enclosures with antenna mounting interface

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• Wide bandwidth mm Wave radios provide the solution to the increasing backhaul capacity demands of next generation communications system

• Fiber like capacity; 10Gbps in a single channel, 40Gbps possible in multichannel configurations and with sufficient Tx power, E-band links can operate at high capacity over 10km.

• New spectrum allocations above 95GHz will provide a path to even higher capacities in the future

• Gigabit E band links extend the reach of fibre networks

• Swift, low cost deployment with little disruption

• Low cost, light licensing approach in the UK

• Filtronic’s proven E-band technology platform has been developed to enable a rapid, low risk transition from high performance short range terrestrial links to the highest capacity long range links

THANK YOU

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Summary and conclusion