Wireless local loop is used for wireless communication links which deliver plain old telephone services or broadband services to customers. This is an ideal application which provides telephone services remotely and is mostly used in developing countries where cable infrastructure is either expensive or speed is not fast. This wireless link can be a part of the connection between the subscribers and switch.
This system is based on radio networks which provide services like telephone in remote areas. Different types of wireless local loop include Broadband Wireless Access, Radio in the Loop, Fixed Radio Access andFixed Wireless Access.
Wireless local loop market is one of the extremely growing markets which offer internet services and immediate access to internet for customers. And as the name suggests it is wireless which means that it does not use cables for the access of internet.
In wireless internet loops electromagnetic spectrums are used. Electromagnetic Spectrum includes electricity which means light and radio waves. All these travel in the form of cycles. As higher the frequency is of radio signals, the greater would be the data available for transfer. These radio signals use to be disturbed because of the natural conditions like snow, smog, rain, humidity etc. So to control these situations distance between transmitter and receiver is used to be improved.
RF Issues and Solutions in Wireless Local Loop: RF services are provided for licensed frequencies. This frequency assures that all the data would be transferred on the wireless local loop without any interference. But now days many unlicensed frequencies are also used with the help of some newly developed technologies, modules and other mechanisms. The benefit of using these frequencies to customers are that they do not have to pay the licensing costs and delays and this benefits make the use of these unlicensed frequencies more attractive to them. So to protect the rights of licensed frequencies authentications and encryption is used. With this some other solutions are named as LMDS, MMDS, cellular telephony and WLANs.
LMDS (Local Multipoint Distribution Services) is a licensed microwave frequency range with total width of 1.15 GHz up to 45GHz bands. For availing higher frequency line of sight and distance matters a lot. Most common LMDS involves a hub or node, antenna. The node should use a backbone fiber optic network.
MMDS (Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Services) is a two way communication method. MMDS enjoy the excellent signal propagation qualities. This service can transfer data in the range of 35 miles.
Licensed Microwave is point to point microwave technology. Its distance is limited up to 5 miles.
Cellular Telephony has actually achieved the status of wireless local loop. There are many growing digital cellular standards like GSM, D-AMPS and PCS but they are not compatible enough. In this many 3G specifications are included which provide internet on different speeds like 128 Kbps, 384 Kbps and 2 Mbps etc.
In wireless local loops some standards are introduced, these standards are as followed.
HCSD (High-Speed Circuit Switched Data), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution), UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access 2000).
WLANs run in unlicensed frequency bands. WLAN technologies include Wi-Fi, WI-Fi 5 and Bluetooth. Use of unlicensed frequency bands reduces the cost of using wireless local loops. Usually LAN is not considered as the part of local loop. But when we talk about 802.11b WLAN then is becomes a special case. In all of the WLAN technologies Wi-Fi is at the top and is among the most famous wireless local loops. The reason of this favoritism to Wi-Fi is that is support the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) with other conventional data and applications. This is the most famous wireless local loop technology. This is very fast and cheap way of using the internet.