As 5G rollouts accelerate across the region, one question keeps coming up: what is the most effective way to build site specific backhaul transmission to provide adequate connectivity for the underlying consumer or enterprise demand? One answer may surprise you and has been in our portfolio for 50 years.
With the launch of 5G networks driving the demand for backhaul capacity of a few gigabits per cell site, we see two options to provide this - Fiber and Microwave.
My focus today is on Microwave technology, a technology that has continued to evolve throughout the years and today can be thought of as "Wireless Fiber" capable of supporting 20 Gbps and beyond.
"Microwave is no longer the backup plan, it is a strategic choice that enables operators to move fast, stay flexible, and protect their investments."
It is important to note that fiber comes with some challenges. If the fiber is not already available at a cell site, then the cost of deployment can be significantly higher than that of a Microwave link.
Laying new fiber in the ground will take longer to plan and deploy compared to installation of a Microwave radio adjacent to the 5G radios. Terrain can bring complexity; it is a different order of magnitude to lay Fiber in remote mountainous regions compared to a city that will have existing tunnels or piping underground where Fiber can be installed. And often there is complexity over permitting and right of way in laying Fiber in different locations. These issues bring a risk of stranded assets in the Radio Access Network when building new sites to densify or expand the grid for the higher frequency carriers used by 5G.
A practical approach is to consider commencing with relatively quick Microwave deployment to bring the 5G cell live, even when future Fiber deployment is planned as the long-term backhaul solution for a cell site. This approach accelerates the ability to capture revenue while waiting for the final Fiber connectivity to be in place. In cases where the site is considered sensitive, then over-the-hop encryption can be supported to address security concerns of Consumers or Enterprises.
Once Fiber is available, the Microwave equipment can either be kept in place as a redundant backup option for high value 5G sites, or the site can be easily redeployed elsewhere.
How Microwave scales to meet 5G demand
We tend to think of a traditional Microwave link as being able to support up to 600 Mbps of backhaul capacity – more than enough for 2G and 3G networks but limited with the introduction of 4G. However, there are a number of different ways to increase the capacity over traditional Microwave links. One of the simplest approaches has been to use both vertical and horizontal polarizations of the allocated spectrum license to double the capacity.
Scaling beyond this can be more challenging due to the cost of additional spectrum as today there can also be competing demands for what has traditionally been the lower Microwave frequencies coming from as an example, 5G and 6G mmWave, WiFi and satellite ground stations.
This challenge has been solved by moving to a higher frequency which was not used previously for Microwave. For links up to a few kilometers an E-Band radio is fully capable of supporting 10 Gbps of backhaul capacity, more than enough for the combined 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G services on the highest capacity cell sites.
50 years of MINI-LINK - We are just getting started
2026 marks the 50th year of the Ericsson MINI-LINK portfolio, during which Ericsson has supported the evolution of Microwave networks to today’s high-capacity systems supporting 5G rollouts.
E-Band is a significant enabler for this, and as operators look to replace traditional Microwave links with an E-Band solution Ericsson is now shipping our MINI-LINK 6356, which supports market-leading output power of 26 dBm.
For the highest capacity sites, we can combine two E-Band radios together in the same way as traditional Microwave, meaning that an incredible 20 Gbps of capacity is possible and a reality today.
The race to 5G is on and the networks that win will be built on infrastructure that is fast to deploy, cost-effective, and built to scale. The Ericsson Microwave portfolio delivers on all three.
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