Motorola launches latest point-to-point Ethernet bridges
Motorola recently announced the PTP300 series of wireless point-to-point Ethernet bridges in response to customer requests for a more flexible backhaul solution that would be faster and easier to install and provide a quicker return on investment.
Three months ago, Motorola launched the PTP500 series, which provides 100 Mb/s data throughput and was designed to provide backhaul in environments where it is difficult to establish a link, such as locations where the signal has to be transmitted over water, in non-line-of site or long-line-of-site conditions, or in hostile terrain that would obstruct the radio signal.
To accomplish this, the platform uses OFDM—which sends transmissions over multiple frequencies—to mitigate the effects of multipath fading and MIMO—which radiates multiple beams from the antenna—to establish multipath diversity, said Robert Baker, general manager of Motorola Global Wireless Broadband.
“When one of those paths is in a big fade … one of the other channels will be OK. So, by having four-way path diversity, you are able to tolerate much higher levels of interference,” he said.
The company leveraged the same technology to create the PTP300 series, which provides throughputs of 25 Mb/s at a cost of just $5995 per bridge.
“When you compare that with the cost of metro Ethernet in the U.S., which is $800 a month or so for 10 megabits of capacity, you can deploy these links and get a return on investment in six to 12 months,” Baker said.
He added that installation time is just 1-2 hours, because the amount of items that need to be placed on the tower have been reduced to a “bare minimum” and an alignment-tone capability has been built into the devices.
“In other products, you oftentimes have to deploy the radio on the tower with a quite complicated alignment,” Baker said. “On our product … you can put the radio on the tower, point it in the direction of the other link and quickly pick up the alignment.”
Having lightning protection built into the radio also speeds deployment, Baker said. “Lots of radios require that as a separate deployment on the tower, so that’s extra time to install that piece. With our product, you just plug the cable straight into the radio, and all of the grounding is taken care of at the radio.”
The ability to quickly install the bridges and establish a working link makes the solution ideal for temporary communications networks, according to Baker, who said the U.S. Secret Service used PTP-series radios during the last presidential inauguration to backhaul video-surveillance footage from 20 cameras to a central location.
“Because the radios are able to do non-line-of-site and are very tolerant to noise in the network, they’re really great for video-surveillance applications.”
