MSOs, Cellcos Work to Improve Wireless Backhaul

Recent initiatives by both wireless carriers and cable companies around mobile backhaul clearly reflect a concern about five-nines reliability on data and voice networks. Both sectors are striving to adopt open frameworks that facilitate integration, performance and flexibility.

According to industry estimates, backhaul costs currently account for as much as 35 percent of mobile operators’ network operating expenses, and 50 percent of capex spend. Those numbers reflect a strain on existing mobile backhaul transport networks, increasingly burdened as IP-centric mobile TV, high-def streaming video, and mobile music services build momentum.

The predictions that wholesale transport revenue will grow to about $15 billion by 2011 have piqued the interest of both MSOs and mobile carriers, which are more than aware that there are 200,000 wireless network cell sites in need of backhaul connections.
Just which sector will succeed in capturing the lion’s share of the market remains to be seen, but there is tremendous energy around mobile backhaul right now among all service providers and standards bodies, with large numbers of RFPs, trials and testing going on among major wireless, wireline and cable operators. Companies like AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp., Orange, Time Warner Cable (TWC), Verizon Communications Inc. and others are attempting to define mobile backhaul, and the procession toward packet backhaul.

Carrier Ethernet seems to be the delivery technology of choice, as it presents service providers with lower capital costs and lower opex. Michael Howard, senior analyst at Infonetics Research, has claimed there is a $2.5 billion opportunity for Ethernet use in mobile backhaul transport. He portends Ethernet will account for 41 percent of total mobile backhaul equipment revenue by 2010. Infonetics’ findings conclude that the cost per leased line (PDH and ATM over PDH) is more than two-and-a-half that of wireline backhaul (Ethernet, DSL, cable, PON).

If Ethernet becomes more prevalent in the delivery of mobile backhaul services to cellular operators, more sophisticated services around guaranteed SLAs and capacity management might be possible.

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