FiberTower taps BTI Photonic Systems' microWDM for wireless backhaul
AUGUST 28, 2007 -- BTI Photonic Systems Inc. (search for BTI Photonic Systems), supplier of microWDM networking equipment for the delivery of gigabit services, today announced that FiberTower Corp. has selected its optical networking platform, Netstender, to expand its wireless backhaul network capacity for next-generation wireless services. FiberTower, an alternative provider of wireless backhaul for wireless carriers, says it selected BTI's platform to deliver high-capacity backhaul over the FiberTower hybrid microwave/fiber network.
"As our carrier customers continue to deploy higher data rate applications, we aim to be ahead of the curve by providing leading high capacity offerings over our own microwave and fiber networks," explains Michael Finlayson, senior vice president of technology at FiberTower. "Working together with BTI enables us to significantly extend our fiber capacity and offer new higher data rate backhaul services to our end customers � the wireless carriers � with an easy to manage, carrier grade platform that can scale as our business grows."
Beginning in Dallas, FiberTower is leveraging BTI's compact 2U platform, the Netstender 2060, with its integrated DWDM, wavelength conversion, and amplification capabilities to deliver capacity rapidly on wavelengths. Scalable up to 320 Gbits/sec on a single fiber and integrated with FiberTower's management systems, the Netstender provides the ability to quickly scale out its network capacity as new demand arises, say BTI representatives. The added bandwidth will enhance FiberTower's services to wireless carriers as new high-bandwidth applications are offered to consumer and business customers.
"FiberTower brings an unbeatable value proposition to the wireless backhaul market with its nationwide microwave spectrum coverage, wireless tower access, and metro fiber," notes Glenn Thurston, vice president of marketing, BTI Photonic Systems. "With legacy backhaul circuits, backhaul costs are out of control, eating up 20%-25% of wireless carrier operating budgets. FiberTower solves this problem by delivering massive backhaul capacity at a reasonable cost to support all the new bandwidth-hungry applications," he says.
According to BTI, its microWDM optical networking technology enables service providers to build an easy-to-manage, scalable, protocol-independent converged network with much lower transport costs than traditional systems, while maximizing the use of fiber assets. It has the ability to deliver from 1 to 320 Gbits/sec across a single fiber for regional and metro networks with low operating costs and rapid time to service, says the company.
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