Author: Jed Rabe

By Jed Rabe, Senior Wireless Engineer, CWNE#280, ACDX#925, ACMPV8 -- DEFINITION: A band of spectrum which utilizes wavelengths from 30GHz to 300GHz. The wave lengths are between ten to one millimeter in length. The millimeter wave band is above the micro-wave band and is typically used for similar applications.  Background: Recently I was involved in a project that required a network upgrade and expansion for a rail yard. The scope of the project was to provide network connectivity to several out-buildings to support the current network requirements but to also support security cameras later. Railyards are a challenging environment as they have many buildings that support different functions. It is cost prohibitive to run fiber or ethernet to these locations as it would require permits, scheduled maintenance and other factors that would become very costly. It is also difficult to provide high throughput and reliable wireless point-to-point or point-to-multipoint connections using 802.11 due to the distances required. The railyard I worked at was a little more than a mile long! Not only that but 802.11 WLAN networks have become overcrowded, bringing channel interference issues which is not good for wireless backhaul links. This provided me with the opportunity to implement…