Welcome to Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX Backhaul!
There's an old story, which I'll paraphrase here, that I think is applicable.
Amateurs in war theory talk deeply of battles; professionals in war theory talk deeply of logistics.
The analogy in Wireless Communications is that those without a deep knowledge talk only about Wireless Access (the sexy part); those with deep knowledge talk equally of Access and Backhaul; you simply don't have the former without the latter.
Backhaul is hugely important, of course, and it's always been of interest to me, and I've always written about it in the context of an integral part of the Broadband Wireless Internet Access industry. I started BWIA Backhaul on the advice of an industry colleague. I was explaining the Stroh Publications LLC portfolio of Broadband Wireless Internet Access sites, they said "Well... you should be covering Backhaul too!" The colleague went on to say that there was little... and poor... coverage of the "unglamorous" role of Backhaul as part of... not just Broadband Wireless Internet Access... but all of Wireless Access.
And with that suggestion, and the ability to "self-franchise", I shall do so. What's fascinating to me is that Backhaul is undergoing enormous change. Not only is Wireless Backhaul proving (rapidly, aggressively) to be superior to wired Backhaul, but the technology is morphing rapidly. Point-to-multipoint backhaul is becoming common, as is Mesh Networking. New spectrum is being used for backhaul such as 3.65 GHz.
In short, it's an exciting time. I look forward to your comments on individual articles.
One disclaimer - in making the title of this site Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX Backhaul, I'm not describing that Wireless Backhaul always is, or should be, WiMAX. It usually isn't, and often shouldn't be or doesn't matter (as a point-to-point link, as long as the radios are matched, it can be nearly anything, including totally proprietary.)
Thanks,
Steve
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).
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