The PTP 800 – Motorola Jumps into Licensed Microwave

January 5th, 2010

The PTP 800 – Motorola Jumps into Licensed Microwave

With the proliferation of outdoor wireless broadband the unlicensed bands 900 Mhz, 2.4 Ghz, 5.8 Ghz are getting so crowded that in some places they are completely unusable. So in 2006 the FCC opened up the once restricted 5.4Ghz band giving 250 MHz of open air to the public. The problem with the new air space is that it came with a lot of restrictions, namely low EIRP and radar avoidance rules that can bring down your wireless automatically for 30 min. This meant that the legal use of the 5.4 GHz band was limited to short distances in areas far away from military installations.

Now people have been using licensed microwave bands (6Ghz, 11 Ghz, 14 Ghz, 18 Ghz & 23 Ghz) for what seesms forever however the radios that use those frequencies have historically been big, heavy and expensive. With the release of the Motorola PTP 800 licensed microwave radio the cost of entry has been reduced significantly. The Motorola PTP 800 currently operated in the 11 GHz, 18 Ghz and 23 Ghz bands and allows users to grow their throughput as needed. For instance the base radio comes with a 10Mbps throughput CAP which can grow in steps to 368 Mbps of full duplex throughput and if you need more Motorola has come up with a super slick coupler that allows the combination of 2 PTP 800 radios to be used in either redundant or additive scenarios. That is 736 Mbps of full duplex data throughput or in marketing terms 1.472 Gbps (half duplex).

The Motorola PTP 800 is created of several parts.

1) The CMU (Compact Modem Unit) or IDU (Indoor Unit): The PTP 800 CMU is the brains of the operation and and comes in a 1/2 RU form factor so that you can easily fit 2 units (for redundancy or for more throughput) on a single RU with the optional rack-mount kit. Two CMUs are required to create a link (one on each end).

2) The ODU (Outdoor Unit): This is the unit that coverts the signal coming from the CMU into RF of a particular frequency. Currently the PTP 800 support 11 GHz, 18 Ghz and 23 GHz. Like the CMU it takes 2 ODUs to create a link and becuase the PTP 800 is an FDD radio each ODU operates on a slightly different frequency. So you will need to purchase a Hi and Lo version of each ODU. For example if you want a 11 GHz link you will need 1 x 11 GHz Low B5 ODU and 1 x 11 GHz Hi B5 ODU.

3) PTP 800 Antennas: You can either attach the ODU directly to the back of an antenna that has a special flange built for the Motorola PTP 800 ODU or you can use an antenna that has a standard wave guide connector (PBR220 & PDR100). If using a standard antenna flange then this is called remote mounting the ODU and will require a remote mounting kit and some accessories to make sure all is connected properly.