Cable Assembly Opportunities in Wireless Infrastructure Equipment
By Lisa Huff, Bishop & Associates Inc.

Wireless networking of all types — cellular, LAN, WAN, and satellite ‑— is undergoing a period of transition. While it took more than five years for cellular sites to be upgraded from 2G to 3G, it appears that the conversion from 3G to 4G or LTE will be much shorter. In fact, Verizon claims that the changeover will happen within a year — very aggressive, in Bishop’s opinion. But then again, there are many more factors driving this upgrade than there were when 3G was being deployed. Smartphones were just coming onto the scene and the tablet computer had not been invented. Now, these devices are everywhere and their users want to be connected all the time, which has put a tremendous burden on aging 3G networks.

Evolving Network Architectures

After almost 30 years of cellular telephone use, world standards organizations are finally realizing that a global system is needed. Within the next few years, you should be able to take your 3G or 4G phone anywhere in the world and have it work without having to mess with changing the frequency range or getting a temporary phone that will work in the foreign country you’re visiting. Figure 1 shows the various standards groups and their effort to harmonize to an all-IP network. 

In addition to cellular moving to 4G LTE and harmonizing globally, there is movement to converge it with WiFi and WiMax as well. And eventually, some experts say, wireline, wireless WAN, and cellular applications will merge into one ubiquitous network. Figure 2 shows the evolution of each and the fact that they are all on a path to all-IP.

Figure 3 shows how the 3G network will eventually migrate to all-IP, where 4G LTE is just the first step in this advancement.

Opportunities for connector and cable assemblies providers will primarily be in two areas:

1. Base transciever station RF connections

2. IP switch/Softswitch/mobile backhaul equipment connections that include RF, 10/100/1000 copper Ethernet connections, gigabit and 10-gigabit Ethernet SFP and SFP+ connections, and SMF connections for long-haul DWDM and antena.

Figure 4 is an illustration of the mobile backhaul network.

In rural areas where backhaul cannot be achieved by a fiber connection, microwave is used. Trango Systems has a good illustration of this, along with the equipment used, online.

Base Transceiver Station RF Cable Assemblies

While bandwidth requirements have changed drastically in the last 10 years, the RF cable assemblies used in wireless base transceiver stations have not. A diagram of the BTS structure for a 4G mobile broadband wireless access system is shown in Figure 5.

Still present are the N-type connectors and cable assemblies for antenna links. In this implementation of mobile broadband, there are eight of these connections for Smart Antenna operation and they vary in length, depending on how close the outdoor remote radio unit (RRU) is to the antenna array elements. Typical lengths are about 10 feet. Figure 6 shows a RF N-type cable assembly that connects the antenna to the RRU.

Mobile Backhaul/IP Switch Cable Assemblies

In a 4G LTE system, the IP switch may be incorporated into the mobile backhaul equipment. The mobile backhaul equipment connects to the RRU through a duplex single-mode fiber (SMF) cable, as shown in Figures 3 and 5 above, or through a microwave connection as shown in the Trango Systems diagram. If it is purely 4G, the system will look like Figure 7, with just a few connections.

If it is a legacy network that needs to cover 2G, 3G, and 4G, many more connections are needed in order to manage these disparate technologies. Figure 8 is an example of this. 

Interfaces on this equipment include SFP/SFP+ optical for gigabit and 10G, RJ45 for 10/100/1000 Mb/s, ruggedized SC or ST for connections to the RRU, USB, and D-sub control ports.

The near-term wireless infrastructure opportunities for connector and cable assembly suppliers will be in both RF and data connections. The base transceiver station segment is expected to have a five-year CAGR of more than 10%, while the IP-switch sector will see almost 28%. As a result, the RF coax content will grow close to 10%, and the datacom content, such as the RJ45, SFP, and fiber optic, will see close to 15% growth.

Lisa Huff Telecom Director, Bishop & Associates Inc. Lisa Huff is a Certified Data Center Professional and electrical engineer with more than 25 years experience in the electronics industry. Her connector and market research-related work includes being a manager in Nexans Inc. North American Competence Center; a marketing manager at Berk-Tek, A Nexans Company; an optical components analyst for Communications Industry Researchers (CIR); a communications marketing manager at FCI; and development engineer at AMP Incorporated (now TE Connectivity). Her expertise is in data centers, data communications cabling and connectivity, networking equipment, and optical components. Lisa has produced more than 20 publications, including market research reports, industry Webinars, articles, short courses, and white papers.