MDS America installed an MVDDS system as a Proof of Concept on Cat Island to demonstrate:
- MVDDS wireless systems allow for inexpensive quick buildout of bandwidth
- connection download speed at least 50 Mbit/s per customer
- an MVDDS system is able to deliver over 100 IPTV channels per customer
- MVDDS’ advantage of dual-band frequency utilization
- the ability for simple upgrades as the system grows
An MDSA MVDDS system was chosen as the last mile solution to serve a minimum of 18 stationary customers for the initial trial as specified by the customer. The system has one central transmission site at New Bight and one repeater site at Devil’s Point (see the map.) The New Bight site has a termination point for fiberoptic cable bringing Internet backhaul and IPTV data stream coming from Jamaica head-end. The New Bight NOC has a 72 m (236 ft) tall microwave self-supporting tower with an MVDDS omni-directional antenna to downstream data to the customers and two sector antennas for 5 GHz band base stations for upstream.
There is 5 GHz band repeater site at Devil’s Point to extend the upstream system’s coverage area and to show that MVDDS system can be used as an upgrade layer to downstream data over an existing wireless network. This means that MVDDS can be overlaid on an existing WiMAX network to TURBOCHARGE that wireless system.
On Cat Island the MVDDS transmission uses two DVB-S2 8PSK transponders in 11.7-12.7 GHz band. One transponder – TR1, sends data at a rate of 45 MSymb/s and another one- TR2, using 30 MSymb/s. At each customer location the MVDDS RX equipment is able to receive two transponders and each customer receiver is tuned on one transponder, selecting the best performance based on the best microwave signal propagation.
There are two RF system configurations implemented:
– direct connection of MVDDS transponders (TR1, TR2) and 5 GHz uplinks
– direct connection of MVDDS transponders (TR1, TR2) and intermediate connection of 5 GHz uplinks trough the repeater site (RTX) at Devil’s point
This MVDDS system enables delivery of high speed Internet data with downstream connection data rate of over 50 Mbit/s and IPTV with over 100 TV channels. The TV package has a block of TV channels with Caribbean content to satisfy local market needs. The system averaged download speeds exceeding 60 Mbit/s across the entire trial period of 30 days. No customer had a measured bandwidth lower than 50 Mbit/s and some had speeds exceeding 80 Mbit/s of connection download speed.
Go to System Data Traffic Analysis page to find out details about IP data traffic through different parts of the MVDDS System.
