Fastback aims to make wireless backhaul as simple as wifi

Wireless backhaul specialist Fastback Networks has launched a suite of new products designed to simplify the process of filling in the gaps in fibre backhaul coverage.

The Intelligent Backhaul Radio 1300 is designed to be small and discrete, thus able to be deployed wherever there’s a backhaul hole. The Liberator V1000 and E1000e dual port radios are designed specifically for large scale urban deployment in the 60 GHz band.

Telecoms.com caught up with Fastback CEO and co-founder Kevin Duffy to understand the thinking behind this new product family. “There’s an underlying theme for us: we believe that all operators should have a fibre-first mentality,” he said. “Everybody wants what fibre brings, which is super-high capacity, super-low latency and a feature-rich environment with a guaranteed service level agreement.

“Fibre will never be ubiquitous so there will always be an important role for what we call fibre fill-in. When you get to that location that fibre couldn’t get to there are other obstacles such as placement and aesthetics, but we are the company that guarantees fibre fill-in under any condition.”

Today’s Fastback Networks is the product of a merger with UK millimeter wave startup a year ago, the aim of which was to cater for all types of wireless backhaul, utilising spectrum from 6-60 GHz on both a line-of-light and non-line-of-sight basis. The ultimate aim is to be a wireless backhaul one-stop-shop and these launches represent the first major product of that merger.

“Nobody thinks about wifi anymore because you just use it,” said Duffy. “You don’t think about deployment complexity because you put it up and it just works. All of the complexity and barriers to entry have been absolutely removed. At Fastback we’re going to do to backhaul what wifi did to access.”