Chinese equipment supplier Huawei says it has deployed the first commercial Long-Reach E-band (LR E-band) microwave backhaul network in Europe in conjunction with mobile tower network owner Cellnex. Cellnex Poland now plans to extend its 5G-ready transport network coverage to the whole country.

Vincenzo Bombelli, Cellnex Global RAN Operations Director, said: ‘Old and new links were put in parallel, performing under identical weather conditions. The results showed that the LR E-band and Intelligent Beam Tracing (IBT) antennas performed exceptionally well, with better capacity and availability. They reliably achieved 10km link distance with 30% less service disruption, and delivered a 56% link capacity increase, resulting in a significant improvement in network quality.’

In 2020 and 2021 Spain-based Cellnex acquired mobile tower infrastructure from Polish network operators Play (P4) and Plus (Polkomtel).