MINI-LINK - Microwave solutions enable LTE networks in the Philippine islands

Smart has become the first service provider to offer LTE coverage in one of the most isolated tourist areas in the Philippines. This video reveals how they managed it with microwave.

Case

“The biggest team building event between Ericsson and Smart. Indeed, the most significant factor to success of this development was teamwork, which was clearly evident that from all ranks of the company. We also saw our teams using a lot of ingenuity to overcome obstacles along the way.“. - Joachim Horn, Chief Technology and Information Advisor of PLDT and Smart Communications

The challenge

Connecting one of the most isolated and touristic areas in the Philippines with high-speed mobile internet is a real challenge, requiring connections between several islands, some of which are more than 120km apart.

The solution

Ericsson fulfilled the microwave hop requirements using the MINI-LINK LH solution. This was used in the backbone with Upper 6GHz as the frequency band in space diversity configuration.

The results

High-speed mobile internet is now a fact on Batanes Islands in Philippines. The 128km microwave hop first enabled 1.6Gbps through an 8+0 radio configuration utilizing 200Mbps per channel @128QAM. It has now been upgraded to an impressive 2.3Gbps using 1024QAM!

Starting with a satellite transmission network that enables voice and SMS, there is beginning to be a great demand in the Batanes Islands to provide a fast mobile internet service to further boost tourism and enable business for residents on this very distant outpost. And Smart has now become the first operator to launch LTE coverage in the Philippines’ most northerly province.

Ericsson deployed a high-capacity microwave backbone network that includes the longest high-capacity single microwave hop in the country at 128km and 2.3Gbps, bringing a vastly improved mobile data experience to tourists and residents alike.

MINI-LINK and 5g mobile transport solutions

Jumping with Gbps speed

Read more about mobile transport and MINI-LINK LH, our Trunk product in 4-13 GHz bands that is available in different building practices, meeting your needs of capacity and the footprint on site.

Read about MINI-LINK LH

5G Mobile Transport cases

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MINI-LINK 6000

Ericsson’s market-leading, powerful and cost-efficient microwave radio system bringing up to 10Gbps capacity with superior performance to 5G NR sites where time to market and cost are factors.

Router 6000

The industry’s highest performance 5G router(s), eliminates the backhaul bottleneck with 10/100Gbps capacity, in a form factor that avoids stranded ports. Designed as part of the Ericsson Radio System, Router 6000 enables superior RAN performance with 5G features not found in any other router on the market today.

Fronthaul 6000

The industry’s most complete, protocol-agnostic fronthaul solution for 4G and 5G, designed for, and verified with Ericsson Radio System, enables superior RAN performance in the most cost-efficient and flexible way.