BandRich successfully completes rural LTE trial
  • BandRich successfully completes rural LTE trial
  • Customers with the BandRich E500 received an average of 35Mbps in rural not-spots

18th November 2013, United Kingdom: BandRich today announced the successful completion of a rural LTE trial, utilising the E500 outdoor router.

The trial, conducted over the EE network for 18 months in Cumbria, United Kingdom, concluded that broadband speeds are enhanced through the deployment of outdoor routers, which utilise integrated high-gain antenna, such as the BandRich E500.

In areas that experience poor coverage and at the edge of the mobile network, the BandRich E500 has been proven to deliver broadband speeds averaging 35Mbps download and near 15Mbps upload on the EE 4G network. The BandRich E500 was successfully deployed in the following rural applications:

  • Residential broadband
  • Broadband to home-based micro businesses
  • Broadband to small business premises
  • Broadband to educational facilities
  • Backhaul for small cells, providing 3G voice and data services

Dr. Wen-Yi Kuo, Chief Executive Officer, BandRich, said: “The results from the trial completely validate the performance of the E500 series, proving that it meets a real customer need when mobile coverage is poor, particularly in rural areas.”

Paul Coffey, Head of Strategic Development, EE, said: “When it comes to rural broadband the BandRich E500 delivered excellent data speeds when deployed on the cell edge, where not all devices would connect. The unit performed very well in challenging weather conditions.”

Trialist Stephen Woolley, Cumbria, said: “Our holiday cottage business is located in an area with poor fixed broadband speeds and poor mobile coverage. During the trial of the E500, we received a superb Internet service via the E500 on the EE 4G network. In one of the most rural parts of the country, we are able to offer guests world-class Internet access, and have used broadband to transform the way we manage our business on-line.”

The BandRich E500 series, which is available in a wide range of frequency bands, is a weatherproof 4G router, suitable for mounting outdoors. Utilising an integrated high gain antenna technology developed in-house by BandRich, the E500 delivers superfast LTE performance, even in areas where the LTE signal is weak – making it an ideal solution for rural broadband.

With its IPX66 enclosure and an outdoor location, the E500 eliminates between 8dB and 15dB of building penetration loss. Together with an antenna gain of between 10dB and 13dB (depending upon frequency band of operation), the E500 delivers more than 20dB link budget improvement. This link budget improvement is reflected in the significantly extended coverage and superior throughput performance verified by the trial conducted with EE. In the mean time, the operator cost per bit is much lower in radio resource consumption.