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Vodafone UK Backhaul Pain

The Wee Bear

ULTIMATE Member
Hi folks, just thought I'd share a wee article that might be of interest to some forum users around here.

Hope it's of interest to someone.

Light Reading Article

If it's of no interest, well that's ok too. ☺️
 
@The Wee Bear that's a nice article and it does raise valid concerns.
I wish they explored more why microwave is not considered a serious choice here, although with what we know as amateurs we can kind of hint as to the root of the problem (distance, interference).

On a side note, I did notice in one of PeterC's videos how on a new Three/EE mast Three was uplinking into a 1Gbps connection(with VMO2), whereas EE was using a 10Gbps OR uplink and thought to myself .. hm, 1Gbps won't fly for long with 5G usage increasing.

SA 5G imho has the potential to become the next "de facto" broadband option if everybody plays their cards right and take us truly into an wire-less future from a consumer pov, but this alas does not seem to be what is happening in reality, with operators hesitating and local authorities resisting building new infra - we just need a whole lot more masts!

Let's see how it pans out.

Also, as another side note, I have to tip my hat to Three for their relentless 5G expansion, especially considering it's the smallest (and poorest?) of the UK operators.
 
@The Wee Bear that's a nice article and it does raise valid concerns.
I wish they explored more why microwave is not considered a serious choice here, although with what we know as amateurs we can kind of hint as to the root of the problem (distance, interference).

On a side note, I did notice in one of PeterC's videos how on a new Three/EE mast Three was uplinking into a 1Gbps connection(with VMO2), whereas EE was using a 10Gbps OR uplink and thought to myself .. hm, 1Gbps won't fly for long with 5G usage increasing.

SA 5G imho has the potential to become the next "de facto" broadband option if everybody plays their cards right and take us truly into an wire-less future from a consumer pov, but this alas does not seem to be what is happening in reality, with operators hesitating and local authorities resisting building new infra - we just need a whole lot more masts!

Let's see how it pans out.

Also, as another side note, I have to tip my hat to Three for their relentless 5G expansion, especially considering it's the smallest (and poorest?) of the UK operators.
Yes three seem to be doing really well now, everywhere but here it seems, I wish they would even fix my masts backhaul till the erection team decides to come back and start again with my pole of wonder, it's very frustrating.

One day though. :rolleyes:😊

Glad you found the article interesting. (y)
 
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I wish they explored more why microwave is not considered a serious choice here, although with what we know as amateurs we can kind of hint as to the root of the problem (distance, interference).
Fibre, especially dark fibre gives them ultra low latency and is a simple upgrade from 1,10, 40, 100 Gbps and beyond with the correct optics. Microwave has higher inherent switching delays and is much more expensive to deploy and run at very high data rates. Being licensed spectrum in itself makes it expensive.

5G SA = lots of fibre.
 
Remaining options for Vodafone could include building its own fiber backhaul network or buying a fiber operator, such as CityFibre.

Wonder if that's the route they'll go down, buying CityFibre.
 
Remaining options for Vodafone could include building its own fiber backhaul network or buying a fiber operator, such as CityFibre.

Wonder if that's the route they'll go down, buying CityFibre.

Well, they own Demon, Thus, Cable & Wireless, it would make sense.
 
Fibre, especially dark fibre gives them ultra low latency and is a simple upgrade from 1,10, 40, 100 Gbps and beyond with the correct optics. Microwave has higher inherent switching delays and is much more expensive to deploy and run at very high data rates. Being licensed spectrum in itself makes it expensive.

5G SA = lots of fibre.

Interesting. High frequency trading houses where microseconds matter use microwave links in preference to fibre due to lower latency. Microwave travels at essentially c and paths are more direct. Bandwidth is definitely an argument for fibre but latency is not.

You might be interested to know that [insert mobile company here as if I name them I get a slap] buy XGSPON from CityFibre and use that for backhaul. I doubt they're the only one given CityFibre offer a dedicated XGSPON for cell backhaul product.
 
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Interesting. High frequency trading houses where microseconds matter use microwave links in preference to fibre due to lower latency. Microwave travels at essentially c and paths are more direct. Bandwidth is definitely an argument for fibre but latency is not.

You might be interested to know that [insert mobile company here as if I name them I get a slap] buy XGSPON from CityFibre and use that for backhaul. I doubt they're the only one given CityFibre offer a dedicated XGSPON for cell backhaul product.
 
“The remaining options for Vodafone could include building its own fiber backhaul network”

The above snippet from the article doesn’t much sense when Vodafone already has a fairly large backhaul network, which it acquired from Cable & Wireless a few years back.
 
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Why do they say that SA 5G will put more pressure on the backhaul? It doesn't use more data than NSA, in fact it uses less because you're not aggregating 4G on top of it. At worst it's the same.

But over time with more 5G bands introduced, NSA or SA, it will result in more pressure ofc.
 
Why do they say that SA 5G will put more pressure on the backhaul? It doesn't use more data than NSA, in fact it uses less because you're not aggregating 4G on top of it. At worst it's the same.

But over time with more 5G bands introduced, NSA or SA, it will result in more pressure ofc.
Not really; 5G isn't any more spectrally efficient than 4G - 5G doesn't/can't transmit more data for a given band-width/QAM/MIMO than 4G.

The only way more pressure would be added would be if a provider wins (in a future auction), and/or deploys more bands/spectrum at a given site than it already has got deployed there (e.g. EE with a current B3 single carrier site deploying new hardware that adds n3) - but that's the same as deploying more 4G, too.
 
Right, but 5G has massive MIMO and giant channels and new bands, so that will add pressure, but I understand when they put 5G on a mast they also update the backhaul to 10 gbps or more, so that shouldn't be a bottleneck anytime soon. Even microwave I think can do 10 gbps, but I don't know much about that nor what % of their masts use microwave still.
 
It depends if you're talking about adding new bands/spectrum never before used for 4G on a site, or refarming of existing 4G on a site over to 5G.

Deploying (any) new bands to a site will add pressure as you're adding more radio capacity - especially the large blocks of n78 which adds lots of spectrum in one - but by refarming existing 4G over to 5G on a site, won't.
 
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By the way, 5G's OFDMA is more efficient than 4G's. I think it's more RBs for the same subcarrier spacing and maybe shorter guard intervals, I don't remember. But you get around 15% more theoretical throughput everything else being equal. But yes roughly the same.

mmWave would also put pressure on backhaul if that is ever introduced in the UK, tho maybe they'll have dedicated masts.
 
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