Sub10 Systems @ MWC14: Bridging the Ethernet of the Future

Sub10 Systems is a company that designs, develops and sells world leading Point-to-Point (PTP) Ethernet bridges operating in the Millimetre Wave (mmW) area of spectrum, at frequencies above 60GHz. The Sub10 was in the latest MWC 2014 in Barcelona and the European Sting, as media partner of the event  that was eager to listen to companies that had something different and interesting to say inside less spectacular pavillions, was there to take an exclusive interview from the CEO of Sub10, Stuart Broome. The discussion was on the company and the innovative products that it develops.

History

Sub10 is based in Newton Abbot, Devon, UK. At the same area, Sub10 has the manufacturing, design, R&D, sales and marketing as well as administration departments for both the Liberator and Dominator ranges. Sub10 got its name from the wavelength which are shorter than 10mm for frequencies above 50GHz.

Sub10 Systems is a relatively new company, since it was founded back in 2010. Despite the fact that has only four years in business, its executives are highly experienced in that field as a result of their previous working experience in telecom companies such as Nortel Networks, Orthogon Systems and Motorola. This enabled the founders to address the “next big thing” in the market which was over the 60GHz spectrum band in the wireless back-haul.

Sub10 realized soon that the most frequencies were between 2 GHz and 40 GHz, the market was saturated and the quality of the services were poor. Thus, the development of devices that could capture the spectrum above those established frequencies was very challenging.

Products

Sub10 manufactures two products of its Liberator family in the 60GHz band (often licence exempt or lightly licenced) between 57GHz and 64GHz, with both of them delivering Full-Duplex data. The first one is the Liberator-V320, which offers 320/160Mbps rate data, up to 1600m range, and the relatively light weight of 2.5kg. The other one solution is the Liberator-V1000, which offers 1Gbps rate data (full-duplex 8-PSK), a range of up to 800m and the same weight of 2.5kg.

Sub10 also manufactures the Liberator-E1000e, which is also a PTP equipment but for 70GHz (71GHz-76GHz) and 80GHz (81GHz-86GHz) E-Band spectrum. The Liberator-E1000e offers 1Gbps rate data, a range of up to 4000m and the same weight as the other products. The establishment of the terminals is not very difficult, as a result of their size which is quite small, measuring 18cm by 18cm. Sub10 has created products that are cost-effective and easy to deploy in its effort to differentiate its operations from the competition.

Future

The trend in this market is to increase the frequencies and Sub10 seems to be ready to seize this huge opportunity. Moreover, Sub10’s products offer big transfer speeds, something that is very important in a world that the amount of data is increasing with very high rates.

As Stuart Broome stated, Sub10 sells 95% of its products to operators, governments, hospitals etc., outside the UK in countries such as EU countries, Russia and Mexico. This is very important because it shows a company that is export oriented and ready to expand its presence in a global scale.

As the community is going to be more dependent on data, the need for technologies to manage the huge amount that are generated every day is more than essential. Sub10 with its products provides an extended spectrum for a variety of new uses and high speeds that are important to transfer huge amount of data.