Wireless Backhaul Trends & Challenges. Ron Nadiv, VP R&D May 2012

Wireless Backhaul Trends & Challenges Ron Nadiv, VP R&D May 2012

Wireless Backhaul Trends & Challenges Presentation Overview Ceragon at a glance Cellular Backhaul & Microwave PtP Radios Market & Technology - Trends & Challenges Vendor Challenges % 2

The #1 Wireless Backhaul Specialist Ceragon provides high-capacity, point-to-point wireless communication for backhauling any advanced voice & data services (Cellular 2G, 3G, LTE networks, Wimax, Private networks, etc). >500,000 Radios since 2004 US $445.3M In 2011 Field Proven Experience >1000 Professionals 3

Global Presence Athens Ceragon RFIC design Strong Presence in Every Region, at over 38 countries R&D Centers Tel-Aviv, Bergen, Bucharest & Athens 4

Wireless Backhaul Fiber Backhaul Microwave Backhaul

Wireless Backhaul Alternatives Capacity (Mbps) 10,000 Fiber Capital intensive Limited availability Sourced from competitors 1,000 100 Microwave Radio Highly cost -effective Rapidly deployed No leasing conflict 10 Leased Line (Copper) Costly Sourced from competitors Distance (KM) 10 100 Optimal Technology for Backhaul 6

Wireless Backhaul Alternatives Marconi s Radio (1907) 7

Wireless Backhaul Alternatives Microwave Links Cost a Fraction of the Cost of Trenching for Fiber Rural break-even Urban break-even Even Leasing fiber is too expensive In Greenfield mobile network, there is hardly any economic reason for fiber deployment 8

Wireless Backhaul Alternatives 9

What we do Short Haul 100Mb/s-1Gb/s Long Haul > 1Gb/s RF Unit Indoor Unit All Outdoor All Indoor Ceragon provides high-capacity, point-to-point wireless communication for backhauling advanced voice & data services 10

Market Trends & Challenges 6

Market growth drivers The next billion subscribers From Wikipedia: Between 50 to 100 million people in the world have mobile phones, even though they do not have electricity at home 12

Market growth drivers Explosion in mobile data Global mobile data traffic is nearly tripling every year Smart-phones 13% of handsets but 78% of global traffic. Mobile video traffic is over 50% of the world's mobile data traffic 1 3

Market Drivers Bandwidth Hunger is Ever Increasing Everything gets mobile - We expect wireline experience from the wireless networks Video Cloud Computing M-2-M Video applications are the key drivers From local to remote IT infrastructure M-2-M will hit $12B and 50B devices (HD, HD 3D) taking the office with you in 2020 x1000 traffic Mobile Data is Exploding Solid Connectivity Gbps Speed msec Latency 14

Operators Challenges Revenues & Traffic Decoupling Over The Top (OTT) Content Delivery Much more network traffic but less revenues Network that just moves bits is the hardest one to make money running 15

Technology Trends & Challenges - Capacity 14

Capacity Challenge 2012 LTE 150 Mbps 2018 LTE-A 1 Gbps * LTE 4G is the Long Term Evolution defined by 3GPP R8,9. requires a broadband state of mind 17

Mobile Access & Backhaul Capacity Access Technology UE Peak Rates Backhaul Required Rates per site 14.4Kbps 2G (90 s) 384Kbps 3G R4 (2002) 4Mbps 8Mbps Circuit Switching (PDH, SDH) 3.6Mbps 14.4Mbps 3G R5/6 HSPA (2005) 42Mbps 3G R7 Evolved HSPA (2008) 170Mbps 320Mbps 3G R8 LTE (2010) 10-20Mbps 20-50Mbps 50-200Mbps Packet Switching (Eth / IP) Access Technology Spectral Efficiency (bit/s) / Hz per link 320Mbps at 20MHz, 4x4 MIMO 3.5G and LTE bring huge spectrum utilization benefits in the Mobile access 18

Mobile Access & Backhaul Capacity How Microwave Backhaul can match access capacity needs High QAM Modulations From QPSK 256QAM to 512 / 1024 / 2048 QAM New spectrum allocation 32GHz, 42GHz, V/E-Band (60/70/80G) New channel bandwidth 28..56 to 112MHz Nx250 MHz (E-band) Multi Carrier Radios 19

Mobile Access & Backhaul Capacity Point to Point Backhaul Spectral Efficiency (bit/s) / Hz per link X2 efficiency with XPIC Eth 1024 QAM XPIC STM1 155Mbps @ 28MHz Eth 256 QAM 1.1 5.5 11.1 14.3 18.3 2000 2004 2005 2008 2010 2013 and beyond MW Spectral efficiency is continuously improved to match access needs 20

Efficient Use of Capacity Optimize Traffic Is it just me or, I am surrounded by headers Header Payload Header Payload CH Compressed Payload CH Compressed Payload CH = Compressed Header CH Compressed Payload CH Compressed Payload 21

Efficient Use of Capacity Improve Network utilization 22

Technology Trends & Challenges Evolving Infrastructure 22

Evolving Infrastructure Bandwidth explosion and increasing amount of users demands rethink of wireless networks and traditional technologies HETNET Small-Cells WiFi-Offload Y *CoMP Coordinated MultiPoint As defined by 3GPP LTE-Advanced. CoMP Cloud-RAN 24

Small cells I hear we can make it big in Telecoms

Small cells Urban core Overlay approach- Macro cell for voice & HSPA Small cell for high speed data Street level deployment Low cost, Plug and play Macro CoMP (3GPP R9) for efficient spectrum usage Non-technology hurdles to overcome for deployment! Small Cells Backhaul - Connect via Macro sites Any Topology Mix of backhaul technologies 2 6 26

Small Cells - Backhaul Challenge Near / Non LoS (<6G) No antenna alignment Low capacity E-Band (70-80G) High capacity Low interferences Licensed V-Band (60G) Very small form-fit Mid-High Capacity Low TCO but Unlicensed Multipoint Microwave (6-40G) Mid Capacity Licensed Large Antennas Fiber VDSL GPON Satellite Free Space Optics No single winning solution 27

Cloud RAN C-RAN RRH - Remote Radio Head BBU Base Band Unit Distributed approach for Small cells Sharing of processing resources between cells CoMP Coordinated MultiPoint C-RAN enables Network MIMO (Coherent TX/RX) RRH connects with CPRI (ORI) => Requires High rates & low latency CoMP with Coherent transmission / reception ( Network MIMO ) =>Requires high capacity meshed backhaul with tight timing and delay 28

Vendor Challenge & Competitive Positioning 28

MW Vendor Challenges Innovation Technology Differentiation Complete Solution Radio, Networking, NMS Favorable Cost Position 30

Proven Technology & Cost Leadership Ceragon RFU Evolution - All radio technology in house! 1998 2005 2008 Next Gen. Higher Performance Ceragon RFIC (>1M chips used) Design by the team at Athens 31

Proven Technology Leadership All radio technology in house Cost effective Enabler for mass production Much less components Fast delivery times 2008 Low power consumption for better TCO More reliable (better MTBF) Tight integration between all components (networking, modem and RF) for BEST Performance. Agility and flexibility in rolling out innovation to market Ceragon RFIC (>1M chips used) 32

Thank You! Ron Nadiv VP R&D ronn@ceragon.com www.ceragon.com NASDAQ: CRNT