Cable Company's Point-to-Multipoint Network

Customer Requirements

One of Washington's most established cable television operators needed a way to extend their wired network.  While the company serves over 30,000 customers with a mix of traditional fiber and coaxial cable networks, there are many areas in the company's market area that were beyond the reach of their traditional wired networks.  To solve this problem, the cable company met with a wireless task force to find a way to address these underserved areas, such as the remote industrial parks.  

The challenge for the cable company was to find a way to distribute the considerable amount of bandwidth available via fiber in its existing data centers to the industrial parks that were approximately 8.6 km to the South.  After the cable company's IT manager met with the wireless task force it was determined that the most effective way to reach this geographical area would be to construct a broadband wireless network. 

Resulting Point-to-Multipoint Wireless Bridge Network

A spectrum analysis of the area was completed and the resulting network design called for a point-to-multipoint bridged wireless network.  The network would utilize to two frequency bands that did not require a governmental license to operate.   The links between the cell site and the customer's premises would use the 2.4GHz frequency band, also known as the Industrial Scientific & Industrial (ISM) band.  The backbone link would use the 5.8GHz frequency band, also known as the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (UNII) band.

To bring a large amount of bandwidth from the data center to the tower, a 45-Megabit-per-second (Mbps) wireless backbone link was built using two Proxim Tsunami 5.8GHz wireless bridges and two 6-foot shrouded directional antennas. At the tower, the bandwidth was divided among several 60-degree sector antennas, which required careful channel planning and cross polarization.  Each sector antenna established customer links with 11 Mbps Wi-LAN 2.4GHz wireless radios (bridges).  

The original design called for 3 sectors that would serve between 30 and 60 clients each.  Each customer would be served with a data link that ranged between 1-3 Mbps of burstable bandwidth.  As news got out, the demand for the wireless service in the area increased quickly and soon more sector antennas and several new cell sites were added to handle additional customer demands.    

Initially, the project's purpose was to extend bandwidth to areas where wired networks could not reach.  However, the system was so successful that the company decided to create a new subsidiary that became the area's first Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP).

The reliability and speed of deploying a broadband wireless network has allowed the WISP to effectively compete in areas also served by the Telco's and the cable Operator's wired networks. Today, the WISP's operations continue to expand and now their customer base consists of several hundred business-class customers, all with a minimum of 1.5 Mbps of connectivity to the Internet. In fact, one of the WISP's largest customers is now the local municipality's government offices. 

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