Backhaul key as small cells enhance LTE performance, increase network complexity

Of course, network operators want to maximize the capacity of existing broadband pipes. To this end, NXGen Partners is utilizing higher-order modulation schemes to deliver greater broadband capacity over existing infrastructure, according to Solyman Ashrafi, managing partner for NXGen Partners.

“Our multiple-access technologies have evolved, from GSM to wideband CDMA to LTE,” Ashrafi said during the session. “But the modulation part of telecom is probably over five decades old—over 50 years old. We are still using the same QAM modulation, based on sinusoidal orthogonal functions.

“The whole world has evolved into better orthogonal functions that have better characteristics, but it has not been leveraged. What we believe is that, fundamentally, you have to go to the physical layer and disrupt the modulation. It’s time to do that, because multiple access has evolved, but the modulation part has not.”

By doing this, NXGen Partners plans to increase the data-throughput performance for all platforms, including legacy copper, Ashrafi said.

“What we are looking for is to use the existing infrastructure—whether it is backhauled over fiber or even copper,” he said. “We have a technology where, if you put two modems on both sides of the copper, you can almost convert the performance of copper to that of fiber.

“How can that happen? Because we are able to reuse the bandwidth multiple times. If that can be done in this industry, we’re totally disrupting the existing [landscape]. You have sunk investments in copper, so [with the NXGen Partners] technology, you can convert copper to gold.”