Three established cable companies are working with Tarana Wireless, the Milpitas, CA-based RF equipment manufacturer, and its Gigabit 1 (G1) next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA) broadband technology. The idea is to extend broadband connectivity using fixed wireless access to customers that are beyond the reach of the cableco’s wireline hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) network.
The HFC network provides a backhaul connection from the G1 base station, what Tarana calls base nodes, back to the network core. The G1 base node beams signals over line of sight or near line of sight RF transmission paths to remote nodes mounted at the customer location. A G1 base node can deliver up to 256 simultaneous remote node connections, each at several 100 Mbps download speeds.
Atlanta, GA-based Cox Communications recently began a field trial to tap new market opportunities with G1 equipment operating in both licensed CBRS 3.5 GHz and unlicensed 6 GHz spectrum, Tarana confirmed to Inside Towers. Cox is the largest private cableco in the U.S. with nearly 7 million subscribers, according to Inside Towers Intelligence. The cableco paid nearly $213 million for 470 CBRS priority access licenses (PALs) in 173 counties during FCC Auction 105. Cox continues to offer mobile services under the Cox Mobile brand that operates as a Verizon (NYSE: VZ) MVNO.
In April, Tarana announced a partnership with Mediacom Communications, headquartered in Medicom Park, NY. The cableco provides high-speed data, video and phone services to over 1.4 million households and businesses across 22 states, and is a gigabit broadband provider to smaller markets primarily in the Midwest and Southeast.
Mediacom will be deploying the Tarana ngFWA solution in markets where the cableco won funding from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to expand fixed wireless broadband services to unserved markets, mainly in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. During tests, Mediacom found the G1 platform exceeded the 100 Mbps download/20 Mbps upload performance standard required by the RDOF program.
The cableco is operating the G1 platform on CBRS 3.5 GHz spectrum for which it paid over $29 million for 578 PALs in 178 counties in Auction 105. The cableco offers mobile services as a Verizon MVNO under the Mediacom Mobile brand.
Midco has also picked Tarana’s ngFWA system. Midco, formerly known as Mid Continent Communications, based in Sioux Falls, SD, serves over 400,000 cable TV and internet customers mainly in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota and in parts of Kansas and Wisconsin. Midco is deploying the G1 platform with CBRS PALs for 11 Connect America Fund buildouts where deployment costs and challenging terrain rendered both fiber and legacy FWA solutions impractical. Midco invested nearly $9 million for 269 PALs in 78 counties in Auction 105.
Tarana points out that each of these cable operators are leveraging its G1 ngFWA platform both as a replacement for legacy FWA equipment, and as a complement to their existing HFC networks to enhance coverage and capacity wherever adding more wired connections is too costly or time-consuming.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
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