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WiMax is normally considered as the viable wireless solution for spreading broadband not only in the hinterland, but also in metros for greenfield deployments. However, according to some industry experts, Wi-Fi technology with innovation can offer a viable, cheaper option with more robustness and reliability compared to WiMax for backhaul connectivity. Industry experts vary on the feasibility of Wi-Fi used as a backhaul connectivity solution, advantages and disadvantages of using Wi-Fi for broadband penetration, its market potential, etc. According to 'Wireless LAN Report Five Year Forecast 2009-2013', by Dell ' Oro, the Wi-Fi backhaul market is projected to grow 17% in revenue and 21% in unit shipments between 2009 and 2013.

Clashing Views
While some wireless solution vendors believe that Wi-Fi can be used as a reliable backhaul technology instead of WiMax, some others differ on that. The naysayers-who don't believe that Wi-Fi can be used as a reliable backhaul connectivity solution-raise questions on the efficacy of Wi-Fi being used as a carrier grade solution for outdoor services. As Prem Nithin, senior technical consultant, Cisco, India & SAARC says, "Wi-Fi cannot be used for backhaul. This is due to the fact that throughput on Wi-Fi is far lower than WiMax. Additionally, Wi-Fi is useful in indoor environments or areas where the coverage is limited, and definitely cannot be used as a carrier grade solution." He further says that we are witnessing a greater adoption of Wi-Fi in large enterprises, campus wide deployments in educational institutions, and even in small and mid-sized businesses.

However, with announcements like the government's move to de-license the 2.4 GHz and 5.1 GHz bands on which the Wi-Fi platform works, as well as with rationalization of tariffs, lowering cost of hand-held devices and proliferation of smart hand-held devices, the adoption is certainly set to grow.

Ashish Sharma, vice president, marketing, Alvarion agrees, "Wi-Fi is not a good solution for backhaul connectivity due to its limited range, as it can only cover 200-300 meters. On the other hand, WiMax can go several kilometers providing a much more robust link. Wi-Fi operates on unlicensed frequencies making it difficult to provide carrier class service. WiMax provides enhanced quality of service and security with foolproof carrier class service."

However, according to Wi-Fi technology experts, technology innovations have made it possible to use Wi-Fi for signal transmission to a long distance through outdoor mesh APs, customer premises equipment (CPEs), and a new line of smart Wi-Fi backhaul systems and system-wide remote management. On whether Wi-Fi can be used for a reliable and robust backhual connectivity, Sudarshan Boosupalli, country head, Ruckus Wireless says, "Absolutely yes, Wi-Fi can be used used as a reliable backhaul technology. At the request of Tikona, a service provider in India, working together, Ruckus has already developed a point-to-point backhaul solution that now enables the industry's first fully managed end-to-end smart Wi-Fi wireless broadband access solution from the fiber ring to the rooftop and to the end user."

After successfully rolling out reliable products to enable wireless distribution of bandwidth intensive IPTV signals, the next frontier for Ruckus was to provide Wi-Fi services outdoors, which present entirely different range of challenges including the constantly changing environment, elevation changes, myriad moving and solid obstructions. Rather than following the market and bringing its technology to the outdoors, Ruckus led the market delivering the world's first dual-band 802.11n solution.

Ken Biba, co-founder and CTO, Novarum, a strategic consulting and analysis firm for the wireless broadband industry says that delivering WiMax performance and reliability at Wi-Fi prices with technology that's ready today is something this market has been waiting for. Introducing an end-to-end Wi-Fi solution that can deliver such capabilities will change the broadband wireless landscape.

Shivkumar Jagannath, chief technology officer, Zylog Systems India also strongly feels that Wi-Fi can be used as a very reliable backhaul technology instead of WiMax, and is being already used. "There are companies such as Motorola, Tranzeo, Proxim, SmartBridges, Radwin, WiLAN, Coral Maksat that build products only for the Wi-Fi based backhaul market. Carrier grade Wi-Fi products are now available for full duplex communication against half duplex/asymmetrical communication of WiMax," he says

Shalendra Singh, sales director, Aruba Networks India echoes, "Aruba's AP-85 Outdoor Access Points include a higher output power and a ruggedized design for this purpose. The cost, performance and complexity of using Wi-Fi for backhaul depends on the number of hops, since Wi-Fi will typically be deployed using a mesh so that the signal hops wirelessly from one AP to another. Throughput drops and costs increase as the number of hops increases." Jagannath says that Wi-Fi is still the preferred technology of choice for backhaul in most countries. Even in India, most of the state wide area networks (SWAN) use Wi-Fi for backhaul.

Boon for SPs
By using innovative Wi-Fi solutions, operators can cover a square kilometer at one-fifth the cost of a WiMax alternative. Ruckus Wireless claims that its smart Wi-Fi is capable of covering this distance, and it also provides a 30x reduction in the cost to deliver one megabit-per-second of capacity.

Regarding the robustness, reliability and ease of deployment, typical Wi-Fi deployments were originally meant to be a simple connectivity solution for 'bursty' traffic such as email and file transfers. 'Robust' was not a word commonly associated with the technology. Interference, dropped packets and obstructions made Wi-Fi unreliable for bandwidth-intensive applications such as voice and video.

Ruckus Wireless has changed that with its smart Wi-Fi technology-actually a collection of technologies-all designed to extend the range and reliability of wireless signals. These technologies eliminate much of the cost and complexity of conventional wireless LAN (WLAN) deployments. Recent technical advances include beam steering, beam forming, adaptive signal path selection, quality of service, traffic classification, and channel selection optimization.

For example, Ruckus Smart mesh networking technology makes its Wi-Fi solutions adaptable to any environment. Network designers can deploy their APs easily with or without Ethernet cabling as they automatically form resilient 5 GHz mesh connections between APs providing a high-speed backbone for 802.11n and/or legacy 802.11a/b/g/n networks. Network engineers can easily scale up the network to cope with the future demands on the signal, simply by placing additional APs where they are needed, and letting the system reconfigure itself and adapt to its surroundings. The self-healing capability of Ruckus APs also allows the network to respond to changes as they occur, making it extremely simple for even non-wireless experts to manage and freeing engineering resources for other activities.

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