Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) Extension establishes a wireless and wireline connection over a radio link between a base station and individual apartments in MDU buildings. A wireless connection can use low, mid, or high frequency bands from 700 MHz band to 60GHz depending on technology and what data rates are required. With frequencies above 24GHz (mmWave) it is possible to serve gigabit services. There are several FWA technologies available as point-to-point radio links, Wi-Fi radio links and 4G / 5G. These technologies can use unlicensed or licensed frequency bands.

In the spectrum above 24 GHz the wireless signal has difficulties to propagate through building walls and windows which can be coated in new buildings. The signal can attenuate as much as 45dB through each wall resulting that mmWave in-door coverage will be poor and, in many cases, not possible.

A mmWave link requires Line of Sight (LoS) to deliver best data rate performance and can transmit data rates of several gigabits per link over up to some hundred meters depending on the frequency band used. The transmission distance is dependent on frequency range, high frequencies shorten the distance, but major progress has been made in the technology, increasing both distance, speed, and Line of Sight necessity.

Northbound, the radio link is terminated at the base station, where it communicates through the Radio Access Network and Aggregation Nodes with the Broadband Network Gateway to provide Internet access.

Southbound, the radio link modem, which is typically roof mounted, receives the FWA signal with data communication. The modem is connected to a DPU which is placed where the in-building twisted pair or coaxial network entry points are located.

The smartest way to provide high performance gigabit broadband access to the individual apartments is to repurpose unused frequency spectrum in the existing coaxial network used for cable or satellite TV distribution.

Ethernet FWA Extension, using the InCoax MoCA Access technology, allows you to connect all apartments in a fast and non-intrusive way.

The DPU is connected to the in-building P2P coaxial network topology with individual lines from the entry point to each apartment. In a P2P deployment scenario, each subscriber has dedicated line capacity. A P2MP topology with a shared line to several apartments can also be used. In this case the apartments connected are sharing the network capacity. The most typical deployment case is based on shared FWA capacity.

The installation is terminated by the apartment wall coax outlets, to which the Network Termination Equipment is connected. In this case for best performance, InCoax NTE modems to which Residential Gateways such as routers can be connected.