Processor provides link to WiMAX

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Apr 25, 2005

Zarlink Semiconductor and Wavesat have carried out the industry's first successful tests of circuit-switched traffic over a WiMAX connection.

Zarlink Semiconductor and Wavesat have carried out the industry's first successful tests of circuit-switched traffic over a WiMAX connection.

These tests demonstrated carrying E1 and T1 services across a WiMAX broadband wireless access network, using CESoP technology.

WiMAX broadband wireless access technology provides a last mile alternative for service providers, allowing them to expand the reach of their access network by bypassing a copper or cable infrastructure in favour of a more flexible and less expensive wireless connection.

WiMAX is an IEEE802.16 standard-based, NLOS (non-line-of-sight), point-to-multipoint technology developed for broadband wireless access and backhaul, allowing data throughputs as high as 70Mbit/s over distances stretching as far as 50km.

Wavesat has announced general availability of the world's first WiMAX chip, the DM256, which can be used for both basestation and subscriber unit equipment.

In a typical broadband wireless access network, a WiMAX basestation communicates with all subscriber units at the customer premises over a point-to-multipoint wireless Ethernet connection.

The basestation can also backhaul traffic to another WiMAX basestation at the central office, where the TDM traffic is aggregated to the public switched telephone network.

Using Zarlink's CESoP technology in both the basestation and subscriber WiMAX equipment, circuit-switched traffic together with associated timing and signalling information is converted into Ethernet packets and seamlessly carried across the packet network.

Zarlink's packet processor technology supports residential requirements for basic plain old telephone service connections, and T1/E1 and fractional T1/E1 service for business customers.

With CESoP technology, operators can build out cost-effective packet-based networks delivering new revenue generating services, while still supporting T1/E1 services for customers without requiring an expensive "fork-lift" upgrade of installed legacy equipment.

Zarlink's standards-based CESoP processor family is currently being designed into digital subscriber line access multiplexer, passive optical network and Wi-Fi access technologies to seamlessly carry legacy traffic over packet networks.