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Mobile & Wireless
Nextlink raises the wireless Ethernet access bar to 800 Mbps
Targets the fiber-deprived building opportunity in 75 U.S. markets
by Doug Allen
Nextlink Wireless, the wireless spin-off of XO, has begun to deploy
Gigabit Ethernet access in 75 U.S. markets nationwide. The service is
designed to provide greater bandwidth to fiber-deprived buildings or
as an access alternative method to wire links for redundancy.
But for now, think of it as Gigabit Ethernet Lite; so far, the service
only scales to 800 Mbps. Still, that’s more than four times the
capacity from its previous rates, which include 10 Mbps, 30 Mbps and
100 Mbps Ethernet as well as 45 Mbps (DS-3) and 155 Mbps (OC-3).
Availability is another factor: Nextlink launched its first 800 Mbps
Ethernet link in only one market (Las Vegas, last month), with no firm
timetable for deployment in the other 74 target markets. (These
include Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., San
Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Denver, Las Vegas,
Detroit, San Diego, Kansas City and Philadelphia.)
The rate increase makes Nextlink’s wireless broadband access service
much more competitive to optical services in capacity. Building on
Nextlink’s LMDS spectrum investment, and stepping up from 100 Mbps
Ethernet access available in 36 markets, the service range is up to
2.5 miles.
Service availability is 99.95 percent guaranteed, although it should be
noted that high-frequency wireless demands line of sight connectivity,
a difficult prerequisite in metro settings. Such wireless services are
also impacted by inclement weather and geography variables, making
them inherently less reliable than their wireline counterpart.
“Although Nextlink can engineer its services to achieve five nines
availability for specific customers, generally its wireless SLAs would
not meet the high-availability requirements of large enterprise hub
locations, making the service more suitable for smaller businesses or
branch locations, or back-up to fiber-optic links,” said senior
analyst David Hold at Current Analysis.
Nextlink has also upgraded its IPmax radio platform from Ceragon with
new modules and software that can provision bandwidth in more
granular, customer-defined increments. For instance, Nextlink could
allow customers to purchase bandwidth at, say, 300 Mbps, and then move
up to the next desired capacity rate under 800 Mbps. No details yet as
to how quickly or easily bandwidth can be reconfigured.
Customers can also take advantage of Nextlink’s relationship with
parent company XO, which has a deeper service portfolio, to wireless
access offerings such as dedicated Internet access, metro Ethernet,
Private Line and VoIP in 36 markets nationwide.
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