Huawei Technologies

2005.10

HOW TO OPERATE
Networking microwave communication

The combination of high performance and low cost is promoting the networklized microwave system as the optimal solution for new microwave networks, and the coming years will witness its rapid, global rise as an unrivalled technological choice for operators.

By Liu Haosheng

Networking microwave communication

29 MAR 2008 . ISSUE 39

Huawei Technologies

Networklized microwave

A new approach
Analog microwave communication systems originated in the 1950s and their development over subsequent decades has witnessed evolution from analog to digital and from PDH to SDH. Higher modulation efficiency, greater bandwidth, longer transmission distances, and enhanced reliability denote continual progress that remains essentially market driven. In the nascent networklized microwave system, microwave links are considered as lines and tributaries of optical transmission equipment, which eradicates the weakness of point-to-point microwaves. The split-mount microwave model, for instance, is composed of indoor and outdoor units (IDUs and ODUs) and antennas. The IDU accesses a service signal, prompting baseband processing, multiplexing and IF modulation. The signal is then sent to the ODU for RF processing, before being finally transmitted by the antenna. All digital processing operations are performed in the IDU. Functionally equivalent to an optical transmission equipment set, the IDU provides service grooming and multi-service access, and can be utilized to construct a ring network. The platform can also access 2Mb/s PDH, 155Mb/s SDH, and Gigabit Ethernet service signals. Compared with traditional point-to-point microwave, the networklized microwave delivers the following technical advantages: A single IDU supports multiple microwave directions, thus eliminating the need for a manual cable connection at relay or convergence nodes. Hybrid networking can be attained through the integration of wireless microwave and wired transmission. Service convergence and grooming can be executed via embedded add-drop multiplex (ADM). To support multi-service transport, microwave IDUs inherit the advanced and mature strengths of MSTP platforms. In addition to TDM services, they can carry Ethernet and ATM services through encapsulation and mapping, and provide higher-rate optical interfaces to achieve hybrid networking with optical transmission equipment. The microwave IDUs are managed by the same optical transmission equipment NMS, thus fulfilling end-to-end service grooming and management and actualizing a truly uniform transport network.

n Europe, the leading operator, British Telecom (BT ), is currently working to establish a suitable wireless edge access solution for its 21st century network. The new, highly efficient, and cost-effective microwave transport network is set to offer significant cost savings for BT, in which Ethernet, SDH, and PDH will integrate to improve the network availability and flexibility. In Pakistan, the GSM network of the mobile operator, Ufone, currently serves tens of millions of users. The sustained and rapid increase in new service provision has prompted a wave of transmission construction, central to which is the rapid and large scale deployment of microwave stations across the nation. Booming consumer demand is yielding both opportunities and challenges for traditional microwave technology. Underpinned by point-topoint signal transmission between a transmission point and a receptor point, the pairing of which is referred to as a hop, the traditional system cannot be networked on its own. As a consequence, service transference, grooming or convergence necessitates equipment cascading, external equipment crossconnections or digital multiplexers. These measures incur the detriment of additional construction and maintenance costs. Equipment cascading requires a large number of manually connected cables, as well as digital distribution frames (DDFs) or optical distribution frames (ODFs). The realization of uniform microwave and external equipment management demands a hub to connect the network management (NM) interfaces of various pieces of microwave equipment at a convergence node. If external cross-connection equipment, digital multiplexers and microwave equipment derive from different manufacturers, additional data communication equipment must be installed to facilitate NM information interworking. The implementation of these measures serves to inhibit economic viability. If a traditional point-to-point microwave is networklized, however, such problems can be solved. Huawei has thus developed the new concept of networklized microwaves in which cross-connection is adopted within microwave equipment. Specifically, if an external cable connection is changed to the automatic cross connection of internal buses, and the microwave links are configured to act as optical transmission equipment lines and tributaries, microwave equipment becomes networklized.

To minimize TCO
The most prominent advantage of the networklized
MAR 2008 . ISSUE 39

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HOW TO OPERATE
Networking microwave communication

microwave is that it offers a remarkably effective means for operators to significantly reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). Hop price forms the basis for quotations and network cost evaluation in the industry. This is broken down into a per hop price which refers to an air link. A hop within the traditional point-to-point equipment framework covers two IDUs, two ODUs and two antennas, which correspond to an air link for transmitting and receiving. A comparison between point-to-point and networklized microwave systems reveals that the ODU and antenna costs are almost the same as they remain configured in pairs to realize a microwave hop. As for the IDU, its cost is slightly higher in the networklized microwave system since embedded with ADM. In traditional point-to-point microwave systems, however, one hop is needed in microwave equipment to provide one air link, whereas networklized microwave IDUs support multi-directional microwave links. The number of required IDUs is not dependent on the number of links, and an IDU at a transport node can support ODUs and antennas in multiple

directions. Thus, equipment CAPEX is lowered in terms of total IDU numbers. Fig. 1 illustrates the application scenario of a backhaul network in mobile base stations. The entire network consists of 24 microwave transport nodes and 23 microwave air links. Services on all nodes are sent to convergence (HUB) and BSC nodes after convergence, which necessitates just 24 IDUs compared with 46 in the traditional point-to-point solution. While the number of ODUs and antennas remain the same, CAPEX savings are successfully achieved. Further reductions are made when considering the CAPEX and management costs associated with the DDFs, ODFs, and external ADMs integral to traditional microwave service grooming. Thus, the networklized microwave solution possesses obvious CAPEX advantages for operators. The OPEX benefits of the networklized microwave system are also evident in a number of aspects: Low service provisioning costs: Since the networklized microwave adopts end-toend configuration by using the NMS, onsite manual service provisioning becomes unnecessary. Thus, labor is saved and

construction time is shortened. Low maintenance costs: The networklized microwave system adopts internal cable jumping which facilitates maintenance and capacity expansion. Low management costs: The networklized microwave system is managed by the same NMS that is employed in Huaweis optical transmission equipment. This realizes an end-to-end management mechanism in terms of performance and faults across the entire network. Reduction in losses caused by faults: The NMS can accurately locate faults, which can shorten the troubleshooting time and reduce the losses. Comprehensive calculations demonstrate that the OPEX associated with networklized microwave equipment is 16.2% lower than that of point-to-point microwave equipment. The combination of high performance and low cost is promoting the networklized microwave system as the optimal solution for new microwave networks, and the coming years will witness its rapid, global rise as an unrivalled technological choice for operators. Editor: Xu Peng xupeng@huawei.com

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Fig. 1 Microwave networking

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