Qwest aims to ease wireless backhaul migration pain

Qwest Wholesale, which has been marketing its wireless backhaul services for some time, has introduced what it calls an Adaptive Broadband wholesale product that enables mobile operators to migrate from traditional legacy T1 lines to emerging backhaul technologies such as fiber-based Ethernet to accommodate higher bandwidth services that will come with 4G networks.

Qwest, which has more than 2,000 sites that will come online by the end of the year, says the Adaptive Broadband product will give mobile operators a blueprint to plan out their total wireless backhaul capacity requirements. Qwest is also addressing the migration and cost issues by offering new pricing and Ethernet connections with varying discounts.

"What we were able to do was go through this experience of increasing bandwidth, particularly fiber to cell sites and say we could probably do this better," said Roland Thornton, executive vice president, Qwest Wholesale in an interview with sister publication FierceTelecom. "We could also provide service to them better if we could provide a better product offering."

Thornton added that the new product "takes a copper-based infrastructure and considers the physics of moving off of that and gives customers credit by looking at the physical capability of migrating off copper to fiber."

Qwest has a deal with Verizon Wireless to provide backhaul to its Western markets, providing its Mobile Ethernet Backhaul, or its fiber to the cell site solution to help the wireless operator accommodate the ongoing demand for emerging mobile applications and devices including smartphones, laptops, and netbooks.

For more:
- see this FierceTelecom article

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