• It's a breakthrough 60GHz wireless access and backhaul solution
• Adtran says the technology, named MetNet 60GHz, will be of use to service providers wanting to speed Gigabit coverage in both dense urban and sparse rural locations
• It also has the huge advantage of being unlicensed and therefore low cost to operate and easy on power consumption

Adtran has today announced what it describes as a  breakthrough 60GHz mmWave mesh wireless access and backhaul solution. The general idea is that the radios, packaged as an operator offering, can be a valuable complement to a fibre-to-the home build, enabling a network builder/operator to reach the homes that fibre, for whatever reason, can’t.

But the uses for the technology go much further than just broadband to the home.

 Adtran says the technology, named MetNet 60GHz, will be of use to service providers wanting to speed Gigabit coverage in both dense urban and sparse rural locations. The unique selling point appears to be its flexibility and configurability which enables it to support a wide range of revenue-generating services, claims Adtran. It can tackle residential access, neutral host/open access applications for public Wi-Fi, along with  5G small cell densification in urban settings. 

It also has the huge advantage of being unlicensed and therefore low cost to operate and easy on power consumption, so the network ‘time to revenue’ is good as is its sustainability credentials.  Adtran also claims the MetNet 60GHz delivers twice the capacity and up to four times the reach of the mmWave competition. 

The solution is claimed to offer:

• The industry’s only dynamic bandwidth allocation capability - so it optimises the spectrum it uses and doubles the capacity available for users.

• It supports all six channels in the 60GHz spectrum block (57GHz-71GHz), cutting atmospheric attenuation by 90% and offering 50% greater channel selection and coverage.

• Unique channel selection per sector and support for channels 5 and 6, delivering up to four times the reach of other new to market 60GHz mmWave products.

• Four times more client connections per mesh node (up to 120 CPE or remote nodes) enabling faster network scale with fewer costly fiber drops.

• The mesh network consumes 80% lower power per Gigabit connection, requiring fewer mesh nodes compared to competing 60GHz products.

• Cloud-management for remote mesh topology setup, management, service configuration and upgrades.

“It’s the only solution that economically extends Gigabit service wirelessly to deliver both residential and business services where terrain, population density and regulations limit the deployment of fiber,” says Robert Conger, Senior Vice President, Technology and Strategy at Adtran. “Now more than ever, service providers are looking for innovative and reliable solutions that simplify the deployment and maintenance of Gigabit service architectures that create new revenue streams while lowering the total cost of service.”