There is a growing shift towards wireless broadband services. On top of the expected growth in consumption, new technologies like 5G LTE also loom on the horizon.
Service providers must adopt a long-term approach to planning the backhaul of mobile networks, in order to accommodate the growth in traffic.
Worldwide, regulators are already dealing with increasing demands for access to radio spectrum. However, spectrum is a finite resource, so the quality and capacity capability of carrier’s networks are more important than ever before.
The basic challenge is to use spectrum most efficiently, which relies on more than just radio technology. It relies on the infrastructure to support the radio.
In wireless backhaul infrastructure, including Microwave Access (MWA) and Microwave Backbone (MWB), microwave (MW) antennas play an important role for the efficient use of spectrum and to overcome the challenges of interference.
The importance of MW antennas is often overlooked and thought of as a component where concessions can be made and costs can be shaved, which allow low-cost/low-quality product to enter into the networks. These low-quality antennas not only degrade the performance of the network but waste spectrum.
MW antennas, with low sidelobe levels, allow efficient use of spectrum, since these antennas permit more number of links with minimum number of channels in any region. Low sidelobes allow for better use of higher modulation schemes. Hence, the availability of higher capacity can be increased significantly by deploying low sidelobe MW antennas.