Thursday, August 16, 2012

Sprint: Ethernet backhaul gives us 20 times more bandwidth



Sprint Nextel's upgrade of its backhaul network from T1s to Ethernet will create such better efficiency for the company that it will reduce the cost of delivering data, even as consumer demand for data skyrockets. In fact, making the switch to Ethernet backhaul will give Sprint 20 times the bandwidth capacity at a cell site location, said a Sprint executive.

Speaking at the Pacific Crest Global Technology Leadership conference earlier this week in Vail, Colo., Sprint Nextel's Vice President of Strategic ProgramsMarty Nevshemal said that one of the goals of the company's Network Vision network modernization plan is to lower the cost of delivering data. As an example, Nevshemal  said that the company might pay $1,500 per month for T1 backhaul at a tower site. That T1 might deliver 4.5 MB of backhaul capacity. When Sprint switches to Ethernet, Nevshemal said that for the same price of $1,500 per month, Sprint will get almost 20 times the backhaul bandwidth at that location. "Your unit cost for that part of the network--the backhaul--is 95 percent cheaper to put a bit of data through that backhaul. That is Network Vision," he said.   


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