Utilising Cambium 60GHz Technology for Backhaul Connectivity: A Technical Overview

As network infrastructures evolve to support the ever-growing demand for high-speed connectivity across large geographical areas, the need for robust and efficient backhaul solutions becomes paramount. Applications such as high-definition CCTV, public Wi-Fi deployments, and extended LANs require reliable backhaul links to ensure data integrity, low latency, and high throughput. Cambium Networks’ 60GHz solutions provide an innovative approach to backhaul connectivity by leveraging millimetre-wave technology, which offers multi-gig throughput and low latency over short to medium distances. In this technical overview, we will explore how Cambium’s 60GHz devices can be deployed for backhaul in specific use cases, including CCTV, Wi-Fi, and extended LANs, while detailing the underlying protocols and technologies that enable their operation.

Cambium 60GHz Devices: Technical Features Overview

Cambium Networks’ 60GHz wireless devices, notably the cnWave series, operate in the V-band (57-71 GHz), which is part of the unlicensed millimetre-wave (mmWave) spectrum utilising Terragraph technology. The devices are designed to handle high-throughput data traffic with ultra-low latency, making them ideal for backhaul critical components of your network. These can be used in Pont-to-Point (PTP) or Point-to-Multipoint (PTMP) scenarios allowing for single or multilink use-cases.

Key technical advantages of Cambium’s 60GHz solutions

·??????? High Data Rate: 60GHz devices can support multi-gigabit throughput, up to 7 Gbps in real-world scenarios.

·??????? Interference: Use of Golay coding techniques prevents unwanted interference from your own network.

·??????? Low Latency: Millisecond-level latency ensures suitability for applications like CCTV video backhaul, real-time data analytics, and enterprise-grade LAN extensions.

·??????? Point-to-Point (PTP) and Point-to-Multipoint (PTMP): The flexibility to configure as either a direct link between two nodes or as a base station serving multiple clients.

·??????? Line-of-Sight (LOS) Operation: Requires direct LOS between transceivers due to the nature of high-frequency mmWave propagation.

·??????? Beamforming: Active beamforming technology improves link reliability by dynamically steering the signal to maintain optimal link performance.

Use Cases

The following sections will explore specific use cases where Cambium’s 60GHz devices can serve as an efficient backhaul solution, followed by a deep dive into the key protocols and technologies utilised in their operation.

Use Case 1: CCTV Backhaul

Video surveillance systems, especially those operating with high-definition or 4K cameras, generate large amounts of data that must be backhauled to a central monitoring location. Some CCTV solutions build their own Wi-Fi mesh network, but these typically experience interference form other nearby 5GHz networks or aren’t able to support the bandwidth requirements resulting in laggy streaming and having a detrimental affect on your other Wi-Fi connected devices.

Traditional fibre-based solutions, while reliable, are often costly and difficult to deploy in many environments. In contrast, Cambium’s 60GHz wireless solutions provide a highly flexible and cost-effective alternative, particularly if you already have light poles with power that can be converted to accommodate the cameras and Cambium equipment. 60GHz Cambium devices can also be used to backhaul temporary CCTV at large outdoor public events and construction sites.

Technical Approach to CCTV Backhaul

In this scenario, a Cambium 60GHz Point-to-Point (P2P) link can be used to connect remote cameras to a central location. The high data rate of the 60GHz spectrum allows multiple high-definition camera feeds to be transmitted over a single wireless link with minimal latency. Given the sensitivity of CCTV applications to packet loss and latency, Cambium's devices ensure stable transmission using advanced error correction and retransmission mechanisms, thereby providing robust connectivity.

Technical Deployment Example

You oversee the security of a large warehouse distribution centre where 1000s of pounds of products moves through on a daily basis. You have a fairly basic CCTV coverage with some blind spots around the perimeter and know the business is planning to buy the adjacent yard area to expand their lorry capacity. To ensure security is extended you can either trench new fibre routes or setup a cambium 60GHz network which can quickly remove your blind spots and provide CCTV to the new yard area.

Use Case 2: Outdoor Wi-Fi Backhaul

In today’s world everyone expects Wi-Fi no matter the location. As holiday parks and outdoor hospitality sites look to provide a better experience for their customers, outdoor Wi-Fi is becoming the norm. Historically service providers would often offer a mesh solution which when under load would fail to meet capacity requirements not meeting guests’ expectations. Attempts were also made to utilise 5GHz PTP/PTMP backhaul however this shared the same frequencies as the Wi-Fi network so was often susceptible to interference as well as impacted by radar and DFS events which could take out a link for 10 minutes at a time. Cambium 60GHz devices avoid all of these shortfalls by utilising light licensed spectrum with 1Gbps + wireless links.

Technical Approach to Outdoor Wi-Fi Backhaul

Wi-Fi networks typically consist of multiple APs spread across a large area; each requiring backhaul to a central network. Cambium’s 60GHz devices can be deployed in Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) configurations to create a wireless distribution network (WDN) that connects several APs to a centralised hub. In this model, a cnWave base station acts as the central aggregation point, while each Wi-Fi AP is equipped with a client node to connect to the base station over the 60GHz link. This removes the need for sharing 5GHz spectrum either in a Wi-Fi mesh network or 5GHz PTP/PTMP network.

Technical Deployment Example

Consider a large holiday park where Wi-Fi is offered to the guests both in external areas and within chalets or static vans. 100s of APs are deployed throughout the park, and each AP needs a backhaul connection to the main network. Using Cambium’s cnWave P2MP solution, each AP can wirelessly connect to a central aggregation node, which is itself connected to the broader network via fibre. This setup allows the park’s Wi-Fi network to deliver high-speed, low-latency connections to users without the complexity and cost of installing fibre to each individual AP.

Use Case 3: Extended LAN Backhaul

In enterprise, industrial, or campus environments, extending a LAN over a large geographic area often involves significant physical infrastructure in the form of fibre. However, Cambium’s 60GHz solutions offer a high-performance alternative that can create wireless bridges between locations, effectively extending LANs over distances of several kilometres without the need for wired connections.

Technical Approach to LAN Backhaul

By leveraging a Point-to-Point (P2P) link, Cambium’s 60GHz devices can extend a corporate LAN across multiple buildings or remote sites. This is especially useful in situations where multiple facilities or departments need access to centralised IT resources, such as servers or databases, while maintaining LAN-like performance in terms of throughput and latency.

Technical Deployment Example

An enterprise office recently decided to lease two floors of the building opposite them to accommodate the increase in headcount. Since this expansion moved quick, ordering a leased line, getting it installed and building a full network stack would take at least a year. Instead, Wirth permission from the landlord installed two distribution nodes on the rooftop to connect back to two PoPs (Points of Presence) located on the main office building providing a resilient link between the two locations.

Technical Deep Dive: Protocols and Mechanisms in Cambium 60GHz Devices

To fully understand the capabilities of Cambium’s 60GHz devices, it’s important to explore the networking protocols and technologies that enable their operation.

IEEE 802.11ay

Cambium’s 60GHz devices are built on the IEEE 802.11ay standard, an extension of 802.11ad, optimised for the 60GHz band. Key enhancements of 802.11ay include:

Channel Bonding: 802.11ay supports bonding multiple channels to increase bandwidth. In the 60GHz band, this allows the use of up to four 2.16 GHz channels, providing total aggregated throughput of up to 7 Gbps.

MIMO and Beamforming: Multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) techniques allow the simultaneous transmission of multiple data streams, increasing the overall spectral efficiency of the system. Beamforming further improves link reliability by dynamically adjusting the antenna pattern to focus signal power towards the receiver.

Low Latency: With transmission times reduced to milliseconds, 802.11ay provides the low-latency operation required for real-time applications like CCTV or VoIP.

Layer 2 and Layer 3 Functionality

Cambium’s 60GHz devices operate at both Layer 2 (data link) and Layer 3 (network), allowing them to function as either transparent bridges or routers. This flexibility enables seamless integration into a variety of network architectures:

Layer 2 Bridging: In this mode, the 60GHz devices act as Ethernet bridges, transparently forwarding frames between network segments. This is ideal for extending LANs or linking remote CCTV to a central server. All user traffic is encapsulated within a GRE tunnel.

Layer 3 Routing: The devices also support full Layer 3 routing functionality, making them suitable for more complex network architectures where different IP subnets need to communicate across the wireless backhaul such as WAN redundancy.

Golay Code & Interference

Cambium supports 4 channels within the V-band spectrum which doesn’t sound many compared to Wi-Fi, but this is where Golay Codes play a huge part. The most important part in designing a 60GHz Cambium network is correct placement and to ensure the polarity and Golay Code is set correctly. Golay Codes prevent nearby distribution nodes operating on the same channels signal from being demodulated by an unintentional receiver. This means that received signal is ignored, unlike when using Wi-Fi technology which suffers from co-channel interference from nearby APs and clients operating on the same channel.

IPv6 Support

Cambium’s devices support IPv6. The expanded address space of IPv6 ensures that networks can scale to accommodate the growing number of connected devices, especially in IoT-heavy environments.

Key features of IPv6 in Cambium 60GHz devices include:

Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC): Simplifies large-scale deployments by allowing devices to automatically configure their IPv6 addresses without relying on a DHCP server.

Neighbour Discovery Protocol (NDP): Facilitates efficient discovery and communication between devices in the network, reducing overhead and improving scalability.

Quality of Service (QoS)

QoS is critical in environments where multiple types of traffic are transmitted over the same network, such as CCTV, VoIP, and data. Cambium’s QoS implementation ensures that high-priority traffic is given precedence, thereby preventing network congestion from affecting time-sensitive applications. This can be really useful if the link is being used as WAN connective or extending the LAN to a large segment of the network.

Traffic Shaping: Ensures that high-priority traffic, such as video feeds or voice communication, is delivered without delay.

SLA Enforcement: Allows network operators to define and enforce performance metrics for different types of traffic, ensuring that the backhaul link meets the requirements of specific applications.

Security

To protect sensitive data, Cambium’s 60GHz devices employ strong encryption and authentication mechanisms:

AES-256 Encryption: Ensures that data transmitted over the backhaul link is protected against interception.

802.1X Authentication: Provides port-based network access control, ensuring that only authorised devices can connect to the network.

Summary

Cambium Networks’ 60GHz devices offer a highly scalable and flexible solution for wireless backhaul, particularly in scenarios where traditional wired infrastructure is impractical or cost prohibitive. By leveraging the latest protocols and technologies, such as IEEE 802.11ay, beamforming, MIMO, and QoS, these devices provide gigabit-level throughput with low latency, making them ideal for applications like CCTV backhaul, public Wi-Fi, and extended LANs. The combination of advanced Layer 2/Layer 3 functionality, strong security protocols, and support for both IPv4 and IPv6 ensures that Cambium’s 60GHz solutions are future-proof and capable of supporting complex network deployments.