Announcing the contract, Sub10 Systems CEO Stuart Broome said: “This is a great step forward for our company and for UK technology development. It represents a significant endorsement of our product and technology by one of the world’s most respected technology innovators. What’s more, it will make a major difference in our global presence and visibility with network operators.”
Francois Allain, VP Wireless Transmission Product Unit at Alcatel-Lucent said: “Metro cell backhaul solutions must provide flexibility, most notably wireless access capabilities for a wide variety of locations, some quite compact. They also need to be able to deliver high bandwidth and strong quality of service in a cost-effective manner. Sub10’s high-speed millimetre wave radio links are a great addition to our packet microwave backhaul solutions.”
Sub10 develops and manufactures its Liberator wireless links in the UK and the company says they are designed to quickly deliver “fibre-thru-the-air” capacity in congested city centres and other areas where fibre would be either too costly or disruptive to install. In city centres and crowded public areas, the Liberator links will have a key role to play connecting the access points in the LTE small cell layer to the operator’s core backbone network.
“The Liberator is a small unit that is unobtrusive and blends in with the urban environment,” Broome added. “What’s more, they are so accurate that they can be deployed virtually side-by-side with no interference.”
The Sub10 Liberator links have a range of up to one kilometre and can be deployed daisy-chain-style to cover longer distances – though Broome added that in city centres most of the link deployments are less than 500 metres.
“We are asked just as much about the minimum distance for one of our links as we are the maximum,” said Broome. “In fact, passing a signal across, say 30 metres, in a crowded indoor location such as a shopping mall or railway station; or outdoors across a river or a busy road, is achieved much more easily and quickly using one of our links than could ever be achieved by cable.”