Dominican Republic's Codetel deploys Ceragon FibeAir 3200T

Monday, 20 October 2008 01:00

Caribbean telecoms operators have enjoyed many successes in recent years, with the Dominican Republic boasting five million mobiles within a population of ten million. To support network expansion and coverage, local fixed/wireless operator Codetel has deployed Ceragon's FibeAir 3200T all-indoor wireless trunk solution.

The Dominican Republic is an advanced telecoms market, boasting more than five million mobile subscribers within a population of about ten million. An island-wide microwave radio relay network and fibre-optic lines cover many of the main cities and deliver services such as DSL, fixed and mobile telephony.

Codetel is the largest of five telecommunication service providers operating in the Dominican Republic and a subsidiary of America Movil. In early 2008 it began deploying Ceragon's FibeAir 3200T all-indoor wireless trunk solution to support its telecom network expansion and coverage. Codetel provides local, long-distance and wireless voice services together with advanced data services to approximately one million customers.

The challenge

To meet the growing demand for broadband and mobile services, Codetel began planning an expansion of its high-speed backbone. The operator defined strict criteria according to which it would select its backhaul equipment provider. These included:

• support for ultra high capacities in order to carry a variety of value-added voice and data services;

• providing a high performance and cost efficient solution with fast time to market;

• enabling full coverage of Codetel's serviced areas;

• providing full protection and redundancy for uninterrupted transmission of voice and data services;

• ability to operate under extreme weather conditions (the country is a tropical, maritime nation experiencing periodic hurricanes during the wet season between June and November); and

• Codetel's requirement that any vendor selected would also be able to provide full installation services.

The solution

After evaluating the available backhaul technologies, Codetel opted for microwave as a high-quality and cost-efficient alternative to fibre. The operator went on to select Ceragon's FibeAir 3200T - a point-to-point microwave backbone transmission solution. Installation and project management for this advanced all-indoor solution were handled by Ceragon's local partner Telenetworks.

Ceragon's FibeAir 3200T provides Codetel with connectivity via multiple STM-1s to enable the provisioning of voice and data services over its rapidly growing network. Codetel deployed the FibeAir 3200T in a number of N+1 configurations including 3+1, 4+1, 5+1 and 8+1. Currently the operator is considering to increase the number of carriers even further.

On top of N+1 switching protection, FibeAir 3200T also features embedded space diversity and ultra high power, enabling Codetel to improve hop length, system performance and availability. FibeAir 3200T's ultra high power transmitter also reduces system cost due to the usage of smaller antennas. The solution can be used to bridge over mountains, jungles and water where wired solutions cannot - or are too expensive to be deployed. Other unique features of the FibeAir 3200T include:

• capacity of up to 10 x 155 Mb/s;

• space diversity for improved link length;

• long-haul connectivity using 6-11 GHz frequency range; and

• ultra high transmit power of up to Up to 32 dBm.

* The Dominican Telephony Company provides wireline, wireless, long distance, internet and data under brand names Codetel and Claro. Based in Santo Domingo and in service since 1930, Codetel is an America Movil Group subsidiary.

** TeleNetworks Broadband Solutions Inc is a San Juan, Puerto Rico-based reseller and systems integrator with over 20 years of experience in providing telecoms networking solutions to carriers, utilities, service providers, MSOs and enterprises in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the rest of the Caribbean.

*** Ceragon's FibeAir family of products supports wired and wireless access technologies. Its solutions are deployed by more than 150 service providers of all sizes, as well as in hundreds of private networks, in nearly 100 countries.

More info:

• www.codetel.com

• www.telenetworkspr.com

• www.ceragon.com

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