Dish to use Ceragon’s microwave and mmWave transport solutions
Networking equipment vendor Ceragon Networks announced Monday that Dish Wireless will use its products to help manage 5G wireless backhaul. Specifically, Ceragon’s providing Dish with its IP-50C microwave radios and IP-50E universal E-band radios for millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum support. According to Ceragon, Dish is using it for transport, maintenance and support.
Ceragon specializes in 5G wireless transport. The company counts service providers, government agencies, public safety organizations and utility companies among its customers. Ceragon’s IP-50 platform is part of its disaggregated wireless hauling solution.
The IP-50 is a universal E-band radio with up to 20 gigabit per second (Gbps) capacity. It can be combined using additional microwave, fiber, or leased line connections using layer-1 carrier bonding. The IP-50C is a universal microwave radio built on the company’s popular IP-20C, which it claims is the world’s best-selling wireless backhaul outdoor radio. The IP-50C can be deployed as a stand-alone unit or combined with an indoor unit. Ceragon claims the IP-50C is capable of 8 Gbps transfer speeds by layer-1 carrier bonding.
In March, Dish’s chairman Charlie Ergen told investors that the company’s 5G greenfield deployment is six months behind schedule. In building a cloud-native Open RAN network, Ergen indicated that Dish had failed to anticipate the full technical scope of their plan. The company said in March that it plans to activate 25 metro service areas by June, providing 20% population coverage.
“I think that ultimately, we found that we had to become the system integrator,” he said. “It wasn’t a role that we thought we’re going to take on. But with all the vendors, somebody has got to be the middleman between them and the glue that holds them together, and we’re much more involved in that than maybe we thought we were going to be. So, a lot of lessons learned there, but we’re certainly moving at a very fast pace. Now we probably squandered some time, but that’s my fault.”
Ceragon reported first quarter revenues of $70.3 million on Monday, up 2.9% percent year-over-year (YoY) and down 9.6% sequentially, slightly missing analysts’ expectations. Gross profit was $19.3 million, or 27.5%. Component shortages and increased shipping fees cut into gross margin, the company said. It posted an operating loss of $1.3 million for the quarter. The company revised its FY22 revenue guidance downward $5 million, from $305-$320 million to $300-$315 million.
Ceragon CEO Doron Arazi told investors this week that the company sees increasing operator and private network activity in the United States and Europe. But he said the company’s quarterly revenue was constrained by supply chain issues which remain present in the current quarter. Ceragon hopes for fewer constraints during the second half of the year. Ceragon’s CFO, Ran Vered, left the company in late March.
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