We recently received a call from a petroleum exploration company in the USA that needed to network a facility in Angola to their two domestic offices. For those of you that are not familiar with Angola, there simply is no telephone service outside of the capital and a few other areas. How would it be possible to network their office if there are no wires to deliver the service? No problem!
As long as the terrain permits a line of site view from the customer location to a location that does have telephone facilities, then microwave can be used. A deal is made with a Western hotel to pay monthly rent to allow an antenna and transceiver on their roof. The MPLS E1 is delivered to the hotel and connected to the microwave transceiver and antenna. The customer has a similar transceiver and antenna at their site, on a mast that is high enough to “see” the antenna on the hotel roof-top. The result is dependable connectivity where many thought it was impossible to provision. This approach can be used for distanced up to fifty miles as long as you can obtain the height to have line-of-site.
