Hybrid microwave radios assessment

The emergence of 3G and LTE has again made mobile backhaul a key area of investigation for service providers. Many operators carry a huge bag of legacy circuit-switched backhaul that is not capable of carrying today´s data hungry applications. This article examines hybrid microwave radios as one of the technologies to address this challenge and summarizes some of the associated testing aspects. Unlike its predecessor, it supports both circuit- and packetswitched services. In this article we have discussed the technology and analyzed the products to understand its implications for operators like Telenor. We conducted more than 100 field tests starting from basic bit error rate testing all the way to product interoperability, adaptive modulation, carrier Ethernet, ring protection, and synchronization. The focus of this article is on such key tests, and basic microwave radio testing is briefly described only for illustrative purposes. Although the ride was not very bumpy, we did face challenges in terms of product maturity and interoperability. Moreover, we provide possible solutions to address these challenges.