Backhaul rising

As carriers urge customers to adopt an ever-expanding list of data services, the bandwidth-intensive applications are driving a higher demand for backhaul capacity. Insufficient backhaul leads to service degradation such as blocked, dropped or painfully slow services-not situations that carriers want when they’re trying to convince customers to add on and keep data services in order to boost average revenue per user.
Richard Webb, directing analyst for Wireless Infonetics Research Inc., told an audience at the New Options for Mobile Backhaul session that the market for backhaul is projected to reach $6 billion 2010, driven by worldwide increases in wireless customers as well as additional data use.
He also noted sharp differences between backhaul technologies in Europe-where microwave tends to provide much of the backhaul-and the U.S., which is highly dependent on T-1 lines. Alternative technologies such as Ethernet will help support the growth of backhaul, Webb said. WiMAX has also been examined as a potential technology for backhaul, Webb noted, but has yet to gain much traction.