Mavenir has announced the availability of its fixed wireless access solution (FWA) combining Mavenir’s open virtualised radio access network (RAN), converged packet core and OpenBeam portfolio of radio units. This offering provides a competitive solution in a low-footprint deployment that leverages public and private cloud infrastructure. Mavenir’s FWA solution delivers high throughput, differentiated quality of service (QoS) control, geo-restriction, home-zoning, differentiated charging, advanced power savings, and many more features.
FWA offers consumers and businesses in urban and suburban areas with more competitive choices to select the best service that covers their needs at affordable prices.
Commenting on the launch, Joe Madden, chief analyst, Mobile Experts Inc, said, “FWA using long-term evolution (LTE) or 5G radio formats provides much more stable performance than the 802.11-based links that are popular today. In my testing, a citizens broadband radio service (CBRS)-based LTE link has only 0.1 per cent packet loss compared with 8.5 per cent for an 802.11-based FWA link. Four years ago, higher packet loss may have been acceptable, but today’s work-from-home environment requires a very stable, reliable link for video conferencing. For that reason, our forecasting anticipates a strong trend toward 3GPP technology in FWA, and open RAN solutions will be popular due to their low cost.”
Mavenir’s FWA solution supports 4G, 5G non-standalone (NSA) and 5G standalone (SA) deployments, supporting massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radio technology and 5G millimetre wave frequency bands to enable gigabit downlink speeds to multiple users in the same coverage area. This positions 5G FWA as a competitive alternative. Mavenir’s FWA solution is delivered on converged infrastructure to provide a lean solution with maximum downlink throughput. It can be deployed on any cloud (public, hybrid and public), accelerating time to market and reducing capex and opex.
Meanwhile, BG Kumar, president, Access Networks and Platforms, Mavenir, said, “5G and open RAN transform the FWA space to make it easier and more feasible to connect the unconnected and foster much needed competition. The combination of Mavenir’s award-winning converged packet core and open virtualised RAN solutions, with the OpenBeam broad portfolio of radios enables mobile operators to position themselves as an affordable and reliable alternative to cable and fiber deployments in rural, suburban and even urban settings.”
For rural areas, FWA provides higher downlink speeds than DSL and lower packet latency than most satellite internet service providers. This brings access to new use cases that were not possible in rural areas before, such as telemedicine, online education, and work from home flexibility. Mavenir’s FWA solution has been deployed by several customers, including 360 Communications, RINA Wireless, Triangle Communications, in the United States as
well as Quickline in the United Kingdom.
