OR/BT Microwave Towers

Seeing how most ISPs seem to use the word Fibre in their non-FTTP offerings, just wondering whether telecommunication microwave towers still exist in an active sense in the UK and if so, do they carry any Internet traffic?

If so, perhaps some ISP's offerings should have microwave in their title?

Cheers!

There was microwave equipment pointing towards Ireland on Holyhead mountain. It has largely been removed.

yes, Openreach even uses microwave links to connect some of their cabinets to the fibre network

Some rural and many island exchanges are microwave backhauled to the rest of the network

The BT Tower has has most if not all of the microwave antennas removed. And as the tower is Grade II listed, planning permission was needed for the removal!

But yes there are still some microwave links around.

So should they sell that as µWTTC ?

I remember in the late 60s when I was 18, seeing a VHF telephone link from the Orkneys to the Scottish mainland. From the size of the array, somewhere between 50 to 100 MHz I would estimate.

Cheers!

Don't forget that the BT Tower, as it was, was a SECRET!

https://cabbieblog.com/2011/12/27/londons-top-secret...

Then, just down the road from me, is the Capenhust Tower http://www.lamont.me.uk/capenhurst/original.html

Cheers!

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Seeing how most ISPs seem to use the word Fibre in their non-FTTP offerings, just wondering whether telecommunication microwave towers still exist in an active sense in the UK and if so, do they carry any Internet traffic?

Significant number of mobile phone transmitter sites (cell sites) are linked together by microwave connections.

Top picture on this page shows a new 5G street works pole with a small microwave dish on the left hand side just below the second set of antenna panels.
https://pedroc.co.uk/content/ee-three-monopoles

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Seeing how most ISPs seem to use the word Fibre in their non-FTTP offerings, just wondering whether telecommunication microwave towers still exist in an active sense in the UK and if so, do they carry any Internet traffic?

Significant number of mobile phone transmitter sites (cell sites) are linked together by microwave connections.

Top picture on this page shows a new 5G street works pole with a small microwave dish on the left hand side just below the second set of antenna panels.
https://pedroc.co.uk/content/ee-three-monopoles

Indeed they are. However fewer are fed by microwave from BT exchanges, which used to be quite common. More common nowadays is to feed one mast with a 10Gb fibre, and then microwave from there to other ones. But increasingly it is necessary to use 10Gb fibre links rather than microwave, for capacity reasons.

In reply to a post by _Icaras_:

Indeed they are. However fewer are fed by microwave from BT exchanges, which used to be quite common. More common nowadays is to feed one mast with a 10Gb fibre, and then microwave from there to other ones. But increasingly it is necessary to use 10Gb fibre links rather than microwave, for capacity reasons.

I remember in the original 4G roll out (2012/2013) at the surprise that every cell site needed a 1Gbps connection. As usage / load has increased, many cell sites now transmit a lot more capacity on the radio side, so need sufficient back haul to the core network. 5G of course changes the calculations again in favour of 10Gbps. Good business for the physical network operators, (Openreach, Cityfibre, Vodafone etc).

I just stumbled upon this!

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/05/northu...

Seems quite cool!

Whitehall

Same solutions keep reappearing just with bigger bandwidths. Back in 1995 (!) we used a double hop Radio link to provide PSTN service to a community in Mid Wales that was at or above the distance the telephone would work by a metallic path to the exchange. It carried 4 x 2Mb for just over 35 Customers so only used 50% of system capacity. Cost over £300k for the whole scheme but the phone worked consistently for the first time ever! I wonder if it has been upgraded to carry BB now.?

I would have thought so, can you remember exactly where it is? Look it up on the checker.

Icarus

On the map the whole valley bottom and half the hamlet shows as FTTP & FTTC , other half shows as FTTC but only around 20Mb, Wholesale checker shows the same all on the same cab. Rest of the postcode up the valley sides address matches but no ADSL iis found! Map shows as under 2Mb, I suspect no service. Some of the valley bottom shows FTTP but no FTTC still on same cab.

I suspect they have strung the Fibre on the old poles up the valley as upgrading the radio would have cost more due to two hops and they would reach more of the properties..

That is what you call "rural" when you can't even receive an ADSL service. I didn't know that was even a thing, still!

Some of them struggle to get a phone service they are so far from anywhere. If you are 8-10 miles from the exchange copper tech does not really work, fibre is actually better as distance is no object (below 60 Km that is). so Phone USO turns into BB USO . If you are not in a conservation area Mobile solves both issues at the cheapest cost as it can reach houses up two valleys from the top. Conservation areas basically you are 'stuffed' unless you are rich enough to pay for fibre in the £100k+ range.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Some of them struggle to get a phone service they are so far from anywhere. If you are 8-10 miles from the exchange copper tech does not really work, fibre is actually better as distance is no object (below 60 Km that is).

That's a GPON limitation, proper fibre 120km optics are available off the shelf for next delivery.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Some of them struggle to get a phone service they are so far from anywhere. If you are 8-10 miles from the exchange copper tech does not really work, fibre is actually better as distance is no object (below 60 Km that is).

That's a GPON limitation, proper fibre 120km optics are available off the shelf for next delivery.

They could deploy a subtended OLT headend. The backhaul optics to which as you say can do 100km+, then maintain PON for the local village distribution