City of Corona
Project: City of Corona, California. Wireless 10 Gbps solution for fiber redundancy
Background: The city of Corona is in Riverside County, California. The city has a population of 150,000 people. Corona was largely an agricultural community, dominated by citrus orchards, ranches, and dairy farms. High real estate prices in Los Angeles and Orange counties made Corona’s land desirable to developers and industrialists, and by the late 1990s Corona was considered a major suburb of Los Angeles.
Business Challenge: The city of Corona had commissioned Sun Wireless in 2010 to build a wireless network connecting remote points around their Animal Center and Senior Center facilities. Later, after a successful installation in 2013, Sun again was chosen by Corona to help with their emergency response facilities, connecting the Department of Water and Power as well as the Fire Department and Police Department facilities.
Most recently, in late 2016 Corona requested a solution to back up a critical 10Gbps fiber optic link providing communications to the Department of Water and Power. The City had previously requested links requiring no more than 300Mbps throughput in the network. The 10Gbps request was a major raising of the bar in wireless network performance expectations.
The 10Gbps requirement suggested that Corona would need to look for a new radio manufacturer and new testing solutions as the current fixed wireless manufacturers could only achieve a maximum of 1Gbps. Furthermore, configuration and testing was an issue above 1Gbps as mainstream microwave testing devices could not even confirm wireless link operation at 10Gbps.
Deployment/System Integration: The existing Siklu EtherHaul-5500FD brings 5Gbps of capacity. Fortunately, Siklu overcame this issue with a 10Gbps interface, to support operating two 5Gbps radios in parallel. The net performance is 10Gbps throughput, with redundant radios providing a 5Gbps fail-over.
Solution Options: The city of Corona had three options:
1) Commission a fiber optic provider to trench prohibitively expensive new lines,
2) Hire a second Telco or Cable operator with 10 Gbps service, and risk duplicating fiber optic paths, thereby eliminating redundancy, or
3) Use Siklu 5500FD radios and hire a wireless service provider capable of commissioning a fully redundant 10 Gbps wireless solution.
In Summary: Sun Wireless and Siklu won the project with trust, consistent service and cutting edge technology. Corona valued the economical wireless solution greater than trenching fiber. The City also was attracted to the novel design providing 10 Gbps with two independent, 5 Gbps radios: it provided radio redundancy, technology redundancy and path redundant solutions for this emergency services link.
Per Al Farland, City of Corona Telecommunications Manager: “I am extremely pleased with the project results and reliability of the Siklu radios thus far. I still receive exceptional service from Sun Wireless, they are my go-to solution for fixed wireless technology. Communications at the City of Corona flow flawlessly thanks in part to exceptional technology, solid planning and great execution from our partners at Sun Wireless and Siklu.”