WiMax Operator's Manual

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CHAPTER 4 ■ ■ ■ Setting Up Physical Infrastructure This chapter discusses the initial stages of the process of putting the network in place with an emphasis on mapping networks, selecting equipment, and siting terminals and aggregation facilities. I will leave the details of configuring individual terminals and running specific applications and services to later chapters. Looking at the Nuts and Bolts: The Issue of Carrier-Grade Infrastructure Equipment The information in this section is perhaps more pertinent to operators of 802.16a equipment than to those using 802.16 millimeter microwave gear, but in a sense it is relevant to all broadband operators inasmuch as it touches upon an issue that is central to the positioning of competitive access providers utilizing new networking technologies vis-à-vis the telco incumbents. Telecommunications industry professionals like to distinguish between equipment that is known as carrier grade or carrier class and that which is enterprise grade. The distinction is as much about the attitude of the network operator as it is about design details of the equipment itself. Equipment intended to be carrier grade is designed to meet the requirements of what are known as common carriers, a term applied to providers of traditional telecommunications services. Common carriers tend to want heavily standards-based, highly redundant, over- engineered equipment that is based on highly reliable computing platforms and utilizes closed architectures and operating systems and traditional programming languages. Such equipment must be tested and approved by industry certification bodies and must be backward compatible with legacy infrastructure. Because of the stringent performance requirements and limited size of the marketplace, carrier-grade equipment has been expensive to produce, and although its manufacturing has not been a monopoly business, it has been confined, for the most part, to a few large companies offering fairly similar products and, incidentally, not inclined to compete aggressively on price. The requirements imposed on the manufacturers reflect the basic business philosophies of traditional telcos, which stress excellent service within a monopoly marketplace. Flexibility, modularity, low pricing, and easy programmability—or even ease of operation—have not been 63
64 CHAPTER 4 ■ SETTING UP PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE stressed because such attributes were not necessary to succeed in a public utility business, such as telephony throughout most of its history. Enterprise grade, as telecommunications professionals see the issue, is a relaxed standard applying to equipment serving large private networks within corporations and government agencies. Such equipment is built to a price and sacrifices some reliability to meet a given price point. Because it is sold not to a few quasi-monopolies but to a myriad of different types of organizations, it is subject to considerable variation in design and has attracted numerous manufacturers both large and small. Enterprise-grade equipment has been characterized by falling prices, a rapid succession of generations and standards amendments, ever-expanding feature sets and capabilities, and the use of open standards, interfaces, operating systems, and programming languages. Such equipment is increasingly self-configuring and self-provisioning. To date, the majority of broadband wireless metropolitan public networks set up have used enterprise-grade rather than carrier-grade equipment; that is, they have tended to rely on wireless local area network (WLAN) equipment. Prior to the confirmation of the 802.16 standards, relatively little equipment that could remotely qualify for the carrier-grade designation existed, and what little existed was costly in comparison to enterprise-grade equipment, most of which was based on the older 802.11 standard for wireless Ethernet. I have already touched upon the limitations of the 802.11 standard in respect to public services in the discussion of wireless broadband standards in Chapter 1. Inherent in the standard itself are capacity, range, and quality of service limitations that discourage using such equipment in public service networks. That such equipment is relatively less robust, redundant, and reliable than equipment designed for the carrier market also gives one pause regarding pervasive public access deployments. Finally, the fact that almost all public networks of any size attempting to operate with private LAN equipment have failed suggests that the strategy of employing it is fundamentally wrong. Perhaps the latest generation of modified 802.11 equipment might fare somewhat better in the marketplace, but this has yet to be demonstrated. This should, it seems, put the matter to rest. But, as it happens, the issue is not so simple. Clearly the intent of this book is to promote the new 802.16 standards and to warn against attempts to substitute wireless LAN equipment in an application for which it was never designed. At the same time, I should state that WLAN equipment can have a place in a network that is 802.16 based. Already, 802.11 equipment is finding a prominent place in a certain rather specialized type of public network familiarly known as a hotspot. Hotspots may be considered to be the Internet equivalent of a pay phone—a short-range access point situated in a public space that would enable an individual with an 802.11-capable phone or computing device to access the Internet after an online credit transaction. Some tens of thousands of these hotspots are already scattered across the globe, and their number is increasing daily. Within the overall category of broadband public networks, they represent the greatest success story thus far. The installation of hotspots represents a legitimate strategy for the broadband wireless metro operator, though it should be considered as merely one service offering. Network operators may also choose to provide backhaul services to other hotspot operators, and in this market they may be able to compete effectively with the digital subscriber line (DSL) and T1 services favored by most hotspot operators today.
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WiMax Operator’s Manual Building
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This book is dedicated to my wife.
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Contents About the Author . . . . .
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■CONTENTS ix Performing Site Surv
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■CONTENTS xi Cyberwarfare . . . .
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About the Technical Reviewer ■ROB
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Introduction Broadband wireless has
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CHAPTER 1 ■ ■ ■ Wireless Broa
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CHAPTER 1 ■ WIRELESS BROADBAND AN
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114 CHAPTER 5 ■ STRATEGIES FOR SU
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CHAPTER 6 ■ ■ ■ Beyond Access
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 133 Rou
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 135 (Qo
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 137 The
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 139 ins
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Figure 6-4. Wireless public network
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 143 sto
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Specialized Content Distribution Pl
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Beyond the Central Office CHAPTER 6
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 149 out
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 151 som
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CHAPTER 7 ■ ■ ■ Service Deplo
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CHAPTER 7 ■ SERVICE DEPLOYMENTS O
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178 CHAPTER 8 ■ NETWORK MANAGEMEN
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CHAPTER 9 ■ ■ ■ Network Secur
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CHAPTER 9 ■ NETWORK SECURITY 189
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Index ■Numbers 2.4GHz to 928MHz b
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asic access and best-effort deliver
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■D dark fiber, features of, 75-76
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harmonics, impact on AC power, 188
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challenges to, 85-86 and NLOS, 121
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PONs (passive optical networks), fe
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signal diversity, providing with ad
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■V VDSL and entertainment service
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