The OpenSoftHaul (OSH) is an Operator-defined Wireless Backhaul solution which comes as the next wave of disaggregation in backhaul networks, Complementing TIP backhaul solutions and helping the service providers to overcome the challenges they face when building Wireless Backhaul networks. The OSH Product aims to boost the backhaul capacity with Multi-band Frequencies, enables Multi-Vendor interoperability with Open Standardized interfaces & Targets Lower footprint, power consumption and overall Total Cost of Ownership.
Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is a global community of companies and organizations that are driving infrastructure solutions to advance global connectivity. Founded in 2016, TIP is a community of diverse members that includes hundreds of companies – from service providers and technology partners, to systems integrators and other connectivity stakeholders. All members are working together to develop, test and deploy open, disaggregated, and standards-based solutions that deliver the high quality connectivity that the world needs.
The goal of the Wireless Backhaul TIP's project group is to create an ecosystem to further advance wireless backhaul technology to help overcome traditional delays in deployments and meet critical time to market requirements with effective use of resources.
This group will work toward providing improvements to overall system performance with reliability and proactive capacity adjustments. The Wireless Backhaul solution will address ease of site configuration and turn up by reducing configuration overlap.
This solution is a wireless backhaul transport solution, adopting the principles of an open and disaggregated architecture. The document “Disaggregated White Box - Technical Specification” analyzes and assesses the potential options that may apply towards an open wireless backhaul transport solution and provide hardware and software requirements and features for HW and SW implementations.
This Unified Transport solution with centralized processing, capable to utilize microwave and mmWave frequency bands, provides the following benefits:
Software and hardware can be from different sources. This flexibility, the White Box Wireless Backhaul concept, allows operators to deploy a software driven network.
Intracom Telecom is an active member of TIP community. The company follows the developments and participates in the writing of functionality and interoperability test cases. In addition, it participates in test cases execution, providing innovative solution(s) that includes its own radio devices along with 3rd party cell site gateway devices (white boxes) loaded with 3rd party Network Operating System (NOS).
The solution that will be tested consists of the following items:
Apart from the UltraLink™, OmniBAS™ family is also examined on how it can be modernized to fit better into the OpenSoftHaul concept. The possibility to connect the OmniBAS™ powerful radio units (ODU) with modern DCSG devices (directly or by using an intermediate modem concentrator) will further enhance the OmniBAS™ family and will provide additional options to operators in order to fit their existing (or new) OmniBAS™ equipment into a modern wireless backhauling network with the required capacity and functionality to support current and new (5G) needs.
Axiata, Deutsche Telekom, MTN, Telefónica, and TIM Brasil have been coordinating a joint RFI to assess the global technology landscape for building the first-in-the-world service providers-driven Open and Disaggregated wireless backhaul solutions as a part of the TIP’s Wireless Backhaul Project Group (WBH PG). The industry’s leading hardware and software technology providers have been asked to participate in the RFI, share information on their current technical capabilities and supported features to measure the level of compliance, and their plans to build solutions that fulfill the OpenSoftHaul (OSH) technical requirements developed in TIP.
Following the technical evaluation, last October, the operators have identified Intracom Telecom as a “best positioned supplier” among more than twenty leading technology providers who participated in the three main categories of the required solution:
The full announcement can be found at https://bit.ly/2MX7Vkd
Wireless Backhaul is not the only Project Group of the TIP community. The following Project Groups have also been created:
In addition, the following Solution Groups exist:
To find out more on TIP, you may visit https://telecominfraproject.com.