In the past year, wireless carriers have been placed in the spotlight as they roll out their 5G networks. Each of the four major wireless carriers in the U.S. are busy racing to the 5G finish line, and one common theme is emerging: The user experience is critical.
The simple fact is that wireless users are demanding. Phones serve as personal and business lifelines — streaming services, videoconferencing and file sharing are non-negotiable. And experience on the road must equal that of the home and office.
This reality has led wireless providers to the realization that in order to supply that fiber-like experience, they need the real thing: fiber.
At Everstream, we’re seeing significant interest from wireless service providers for backhaul from 5G towers to the fiber network. Naturally, they want service level agreements (SLAs) in place to ensure their customers are getting a 5-star experience. That means committing to and delivering on ultra-low levels of latency, jitter and packet loss from the network.
What Are Greenfield Networks?
Greenfield fiber network service providers — defined as those actively building and densifying new fiber infrastructure — have a clear advantage in achieving and exceeding customer requirements for 5G. While incumbent networks’ patches and overlays have created increased hops and latency, next-gen fiber providers are engineering the most direct paths possible.
Many network performance metrics that used to be measured in milliseconds now are measured in microseconds on new fiber networks. If you’re not familiar with the math: A single microsecond is 1,000 times faster than a millisecond.
When the goal is to deliver a user experience that is above and beyond that of the competition, an improvement in speed by a factor of 1,000 makes a huge difference.
A fiber service provider’s ability to deliver on a 5G SLA is dependent on myriad factors, including:
- Network density
- Age and capacity of the fiber
- Distance of the backhaul route from the tower to the network core
Select fiber providers like Everstream are exceptionally well-positioned to deliver on customer requirements — engineering the shortest path to achieve the lowest levels possible of latency, jitter and packet loss. At Everstream, we specifically architect our network to meet the SLAs wireless carriers need and are ready to deliver on the promise of 5G.
Want to learn more about the how fiber service providers are enabling 5G? Check out our CTO’s latest article in Capacity Magazine.