Fastback ups wireless backhaul speed to 800 Mbps for LTE eNodeB links

Fastback Networks said its backhaul radio is now capable of throughput exceeding 800 Mbps up to a distance of 2 kilometers, whether in line-of-sight (LOS), near-line-of-sight (nLOS) or non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions.

The company claims its Intelligent Backhaul Radio (IBR) "is the only wireless backhaul solution that meets all the stringent eNodeB LTE base station requirements, while enabling acceleration of LTE deployments in locations where fiber is too expensive or too slow to deploy." It added the upgraded IBR still offers latency of 0.5 milliseconds.

Fastback initially focused its efforts on backhaul for small cells. The vendor officially rolled out its first small cell backhaul offering, which at the time promised 500 Mbps of speed, in February 2013.

Applications cited by Fastback for its 800 Mbps-capable IBR include macrocell LTE upgrades from 3G, macrocell LTE fill-ins plus indoor or outdoor LTE and LTE-A small cell backhaul. "As carriers evolve their networks with more sectorization, voice over LTE (VoLTE) and LTE-Advanced, backhaul speed must continue to increase," observed Kevin Duffy, Fastback's CEO and cofounder.

The upgraded Fastback IBR will be generally available in the fourth quarter, Fastback said.

Privately held Fastback is funded by Foundation Capital, Granite Ventures, Matrix Partners and Juniper Networks Junos Innovation Fund.

For more:
- see this Fastback release

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