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WHAT DO A BRAZILIAN CELLULAR NETWORK, THE ROLLING STONES AND AN AUTO DEALERSHIP ALL HAVE IN COMMON?
Carriers, services providers and end users in Brazil are discovering the benefits of using license-free radio frequencies through a relatively inexpensive wireless broadband solution. According to John Columban Hoe, General Manager of RAD do Brasil, the leading provider of access devices in the country, one of the main benefits, especially for carriers, is that a wireless broadband link can quickly be deployed, particularly in emergency situations. The solution is also widely being deployed in Brazil to connect geographically dispersed sites, such as metro networks. 'One of the problems posed by traditional wireless connections is that the process of acquiring of a frequency license can often be both time-consuming and expensive,' Hoe notes. 'With the new digital radios in the license-free 5.8 GHz band, however, it is possible to set up a high quality voice and data connection virtually instantaneously over distances of up to 30 kilometers.' Airmux-200 Connects Base Station on a Truck for a Rolling Stones Concert'While mobile carriers use such digital radios to implement remote Base Transceiver Stations, they also are a good alternative for fixed carriers looking to provision Last Mile connectivity in remote areas,' explains José de Castilho, Sales Manager of FTD Comunicações, a RAD partner and systems integrator in Brazil. An example of such an application was employed in Brazil by TIM, a mobile operator, which deployed RAD's Airmux-200 broadband wireless multiplexer on the back of a truck as a mobile BTS for emergency situations. Recently, the carrier had only a few days to get ready for a huge increase in voice traffic when a free Rolling Stones concert was scheduled at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. 'Suddenly we were informed that approximately three million people, most of them with mobile phones, would converge on a site in which our BTS did not have enough capacity. To meet this sudden demand, we simply carried a wave scan, to identify a non-jammed frequency, and within a few hours, we sent our truck equipped with a digital radio to the area,' states Carla Vieira, Transport Network Engineer for TIM. Wireless in the MountainsAnother application that is increasingly using license-free bandwidth is broadband Internet connectivity in critical areas. Taho, an ISP provider of high-speed services, offers Internet connectivity exclusively over radio connections. Installed in a mountainous region near the city of Petrópolis in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Taho is using RAD's Airmux wireless multiplexers to deliver corporate VoIP services and residential access in an environment in which conventional providers have difficulty competing. Large-Scale Implementation by Utilities and Major EnterprisesHoe, RAD's General Manager in Brazil, estimates that by the end of 2006 the company's installed base of Airmux-200 broadband multiplexers in the country will double. In his estimation, once it has captured the service provider market, the product’s main focus will then gravitate to large corporate networks. Utilities and other major enterprises already use or have certified the Airmux system for large-scale implementation. Alpini Veículos, a large automobile dealership in Campinas, a city in the state of São Paulo, is a case in point. On detecting a failure in the old 256 kbps link it had been using to interconnect fifty computers at its corporate headquarters, Alpini was convinced by K3M, a systems integrator, and AIS, a RAD distributor, to deploy the Airmux-200 instead. The device assures a whopping 6.5 Mbps of bandwidth and also a direct connection between the data center and the remote branch. According to Hoe, another key benefit of the Airmux-200 is its low cost, compared to a conventional wireless connection. 'Deployment of the Airmux-200 over the 5.8 GHz license-free wireless band with a combination of E1 and Ethernet ports costs half.
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