- CBNG is a fixed wireless access (FWA) vendor focused on the U.S. market but also sees opportunities in countries such as the U.K., Australia and Japan
- The company says its new VectaStar NR platform delivers multi‑gigabit FWA and supports up to 128 receivers per access point
- CEO Nedko Ivanov emphasized the importance of licensed spectrum to maintain FWA performance and avoid quality degradation
Cambridge Broadband Networks Group (CBNG), a U.K.-based fixed wireless access (FWA) equipment vendor, is assessing market opportunities with a global lens. But North America is “a lot more mature” on FWA than other parts of the world, said CBNG CEO Nedko Ivanov.
The reason why isn’t too surprising. Auctions like those for the C-band and 2.5 GHz band got FWA off the ground in the U.S., he told Fierce. The U.S. is also “a lot more suitable” for fixed wireless deployment compared to the U.K. and other parts of Europe, where fiber broadband is more broadly available.
That being said, Ivanov thinks the U.K. FWA market is poised for further growth, referring to an Ofcom auction last year that doled out 5.4 GHz of millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum to EE, O2 and VodafoneThree. Each operator paid £13 million for 800 MHz of spectrum in the 26 GHz band and 1 GHz of spectrum in the 40 GHz band.
Other countries where FWA is “heating up” are Australia and Japan, Ivanov added. Per OpenSignal, Japan touts one of the highest shares of FWA subscriptions in total fixed broadband among the OECD markets and Australian operators like Optus and Telstra have been expanding FWA to offset wireline losses.
CBNG doubles down on multi-gigabit FWA
CBNG recently launched the latest iteration of its millimeter wave (mmWave) FWA platform, dubbed VectaStar NR. According to Ivanov, the platform’s point-to-multipoint architecture allows operators to deploy 30 square miles of fixed wireless for the same cost it would take to run fiber for one mile and in a shorter timeframe.
“One access point can have up to 128 receivers,” he said, and that single hub can connect homes, businesses, campuses and public sector sites and provide multi-gigabit FWA.
VectaStar NR has the capacity to support throughput of “above 6 Gbps” across 5 kilometers, said Ivanov. Obviously those aren’t the speeds end users get, and the technology “gradually reduces with the distance,” he said. “But I think it’s a very competitive alternative to fiber.”
The product is currently in trial in the U.S., though Ivanov declined to name the operators. According to CBNG’s website, existing VectaStar customers include Airtel, C Spire and GeoLinks. The latter partnered with vendor Intracom Telecom in October to demonstrate FWA that can deliver 2.4 Gbps per customer premises equipment.
Like GeoLinks, CBNG works with licensed mmWave spectrum, which Ivanov believes is preferable to unlicensed spectrum so that FWA quality doesn’t degrade.
“When you go with unlicensed spectrum, it becomes a bit of a Wild West because anyone can access these frequencies,” he said. “You can advertise a particular speed based on particular usage, but then this usage is not controlled.”
Not all wireless internet service providers (WISPs) have the luxury of solely using licensed spectrum. According to Ookla, most of the largest U.S. WISPs rely upon some combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Tarana is one vendor that supports both licensed and unlicensed FWA use.
FWA’s potential for AI, slicing
As AI brings about increased data demands, Ivanov said operators could potentially offload some of that traffic to FWA networks so that they don’t have to “jeopardize the time-critical applications that they’d like to use for something else.”
Ultimately, that depends on how much FWA capacity operators have. New Street Research noted the major U.S. wireless carriers can support up to 32 million customers, but the FCC’s upcoming C-band auction could increase that capacity to 36 million.
Ivanov said AI could determine if there’s “a huge spike of [network] demand]” and allocate that traffic to less busy sectors so that operators aren’t required to “over-engineer the network.”
He also touched upon the opportunity of network slicing FWA, arguing the technology can “allow smaller players in the market to offer services” and expand WISP coverage in remote areas.
This story was updated to clarify that VectaStar NR's architecture allows operators to deploy 30 square miles of fixed wireless for the same cost it would take to run fiber for one mile, in a shorter deployment timeframe.