How Well Will Millimeter Wave Work for Local Access?

Reza Arefi, Intel

If you are someone who has to understand the business implications of technology in the access business then the question of how well millimeter waves are going to work, from a business model perspective, is an important question. 

With the U.S. Federal Communications Commission moving to free up millimeter wave spectrum in numerous bands, there are key business model implications that can only be fully understood when one understands how well such frequencies are going to work--in a full commercial application--in either mobile or fixed access scenarios. 

Looking back on what I can remember more than a decade ago, when LMDS spectrum was expected to provide a lower-cost, more-flexible high-bandwidth access option for business customers in U.S. business districts, I seem to recall that, in a point-to-point configuration, signal reach was about what one would expect from a copper "local loop."

Even earlier-generation radios for point-to-point links point-to-point links could achieve distances of 3 km to 5 km (roughly two to three miles), assuming line of sight is possible. And that was before our present development of sophisticated antenna arrays and better and cheaper signal processing, plus methods of bending signals.

Keep in mind that the engineering of traditional all-copper fixed network local loops in the United States has been to keep access cables at 18,000 feet or less (three miles). Though foliage, buildings and other obstructions, plus typical weather conditions, will impose greater constraints on any single transmitting site, 28 GHz signals reach about as far as the design length for fixed network access lines.

The point is that there is good reason to believe millimeter wave signals will work well enough to create a positive and useful business case for wireless local loop, based either on 5G or new fixed wireless platforms.

Reza Arefi of Intel and others will talk about the use of millimeter wave frequencies for local access at Spectrum Futures in Singapore, 19-21 October 2016.