Another area of innovation for Airspan is fixed wireless access (FWA). Jaime Fink, the company’s VP of Technology, Fixed Wireless and CTO & co-founder of Mimosa Networks — acquired by Airspan in 2018 — was also at MWC Barcelona showcasing the company’s next generation of point-to-multipoint products for broadband and backhaul applications in unlicensed spectrum.
“When people think of 5 GHz or unlicensed, they think ‘unreliable,’” shared Fink. But, the 6 Series introduces several new capabilities, including OFDMA, which provides improved noise mitigation, next-generation massive MIMO techniques and beamforming, as well as the new 6 GHz unlicensed spectrum. All of this, said Fink, will enable wireless technology to enter markets that previously presented a challenge for fixed wireless access deployments, such as those in rural and dense locations.
According to Fink, with these new capabilities, fixed wireless applications can be deployed “at a fraction of the cost with much higher speeds.”
The FWA market is expanding amidst increasing government funding and a growing interest in fiber alternatives, all aiming to hit that gigabit speed, and Fink believes that the industry, for the first time, “can comfortably say we can hit that goal.”
