Extending Power and Dynamic Range in E-Band Backhaul Test Sets

According to Ericsson’s 2022 Mobility Report, global mobile data traffic is expected to grow by a factor of 4 to 325 Exabytes total per month or 46 GB per smartphone on average by 2028, excluding Fixed Wireless Access usage. Network operators’ ability to support this rapid growth in consumption hinges on the speed and capacity of the backhaul systems connecting base stations to the core networks. Accordingly, the market for cellular backhaul equipment is projected to grow by 12.6% CAGR from 17.85B to 32.29B USD between 2020 and 2025. Looking more narrowly at E-Band systems still in nascent stages of development, that growth rate jumps to 22.3% (534M to 1.46B over the same period).

Backhaul systems transmit signal traffic from network nodes to aggregation points via either fiber-optic cable runs or point-to-point (P2P) microwave radio links. Operators have historically faced a tradeoff between the superior speed and capacity of fiber versus the lower cost, faster deployment and greater flexibility of wireless backhaul. P2P links in the E-Band range (71 to 76 and 81 to 86 GHz) have become a popular solution to increase data rates without the heavy investment in land use and construction required for fiber.