Q&A RAD Data Communications VMUX 425-405. Photo courtesy of RAD. Mobile solutions RAD Data Communications is an Israel-based company with many specialities but one of them is satellite-based cellular backhaul solutions. Helen Jameson spoke to Ronen Guri, Director of Product Management and Business Development for Mobile Backhaul Solutions to find out how much potential this sectors holds for the satellite industry and what solutions RAD has on of fer. For nearly 30 years, privately held RAD Data Communications has been providing innovative voice and data access solutions for mobile and fixed line carriers, service providers and enterprises around the world. Driven by technological innovation, guided by a veteran management team and imbued with a corporate philosophy that values longterm cooperation with its customers and partners, RAD is preparing users to meet future telecommunications and data delivery challenges while enabling them to deal quickly and effectively with their immediate access requirements. In the field of Cellular Backhaul, RAD produce a selection of products including cell site gateways and aggregation site gateways for 2G TDM, 3G ATM and Ethernet traffic over any transport network, efficiently handling real-time voice, HSPA traffic and best-effort data with cross-generation support, regardless of the underlying physical layer. Their Abis optimisation gateways help operators to enhance throughput in GSM networks. Question: What impact has the advent of cellular backhaul had on the satellite industry? Ronen Guri: In general, most of the mobile backhaul today is done on microwave, fibre, or copper infrastructure and, as far as we can see, the percentage of use of satellite to provide mobile backhaul is quite small. That said we see some applications where satellite is used. For example where there is a need for emergency connectivity, in the case of a crash or collapse of the fixed line infrastructure. Satellite is often the only solution. We also see a lot of situations where there are rural areas that have no fixed line connectivity and no infrastructure available. Satellite is also used in these situations. The reason why we observe that the use of satellite is 24 w w w.satellite-evolution.com | July/August 2009 rad.p65 24 20/07/2009, 00:11