There’s been a lot of questions about where did Terragraph come from, where is it going, and what exactly is it? We have the honor to actually have a couple of guys here that can answer some of those questions; David Botha a strategic partner manager at Meta Connectivity, and Alex Doorduyn the VP & GM of Siklu Americas.
Let’s start from the beginning, David could you tell us what prompted Meta to start Terragraph, and where did it come from?
Meta: Sure, we basically realized that it’s expensive to bring high-speed connectivity in the last mile using traditional options such as buried fiber. It’s expensive and it takes a long time to deploy. We believed there must be a better alternative, that’s really what we said to work solve using wireless technology. In doing so we took stock of all the available spectrum possibilities, 60 GHz became very quickly interesting for a variety of reasons. We basically went from the ground up developing this specification that we now call Terragraph.
Can you give in to some of the benefits of what you get from a telegraph solution?
Meta: Terragraph offers a number of benefits. It’s a far less costly means of delivering gigabit per second class connectivity to a subscriber premise, and the second major benefit is the time to market. It’s incredibly quick to deploy compared to buried fiber. You can break down a number of specific benefits if you look at it in the context of, as wireless technologies go, what does Terragraph bring to the table? 60 GHz is very interesting, it’s it’s very widely available and often license-free worldwide. That, again, feeds into the cost aspect. Even though it’s unlicensed its propagation characteristics are often viewed as a challenge for the technology. A big benefit in terms of interference when you have Terragraph deployment that’s a fairly clean piece of spectrum to operate in. Some of the attributes of the technology itself, like the ability to mesh and deploy on street furniture, make it a flexible technology to deploy and solve last mile connectivity problems.
Do you think like the size of the channels, being as big as they are will be able to offer those kind of speeds that the 60 gig offers also correct?
Meta: Absolutely. It’s not just that the spectrum is available, and often free to use, but there’s a massive amount of it so you can deploy huge channels and pump a lot of data through that spectrum.
I don’t know if this is a Meta question or a Siklu question, but do you feel that Terragraph has taken off as expected?
Siklu: We launched a Terragraph globally in 2021 and we have been very happy with the products. Updates are still growing and developing with technology solutions; new products, new software, etc. But yes, it’s been very successful. We have deployed a number of applications. Just give you some examples; We use it in divide, type of projects where is being used to provide internet connectivity for low income. It has been huge during Covid when people were working and studying. There was such a huge increase in demand for broadband connectivity, particularly from those who do not currently have it. We really needed to address that significant problem. We are now finding new opportunities and new opportunities as well, outside of even internet. People are starting to use it in the small city deployments for connecting cameras for example. There at other applications outside the cities, Wi-Fi access points, public Wi-Fi, etc. A lot of obligations to solve that mile where there is no fiber. Buried fiber to be very expensive, which has actually got worse during Covid because of the supply chain crisis. This is a technology which is a very quick and very easy to deploy.
Meta: I would echo that it has been a very positive experience for us, and indeed the traction and interest we have seen in Terragraph has exceeded our expectations. It’s been positive relative to our objectives. It is also early days, just under a year now that commercial solutions have become available. It has still not quite been a full year of availability. Given that timeframe with the number of deployments, trials, and engagements we’ve seen it has been fantastic. We have gotten behind our partners (like Siklu) securing a number of opportunities where collaboration is made sense. Our teams are helping the Siklu teams to go and deploy, working with the service provided to get the solution to market. It’s been quite a bit to keep up with, which is a good problem to have.
What do you see is the biggest barrier to have broadband everywhere, where do you see those problems right now?
Meta: Obviously we look at that problem very deeply within the Meta connectivity group. The one that Terragraph specifically addresses is a big one, it is affordability. If you bring in an infrastructure option that allows lower-cost connectivity to the broadband subscriber it’s directly addressing that problem. There is multiple other barriers and different programs we had that tackle those, but affordability is definitely the key one that Terragraph tackles.
Let’s go to the million-dollar question: If you could look into a crystal ball and see where Terragraph is going to be in 5 years, 3 years, 18 months, the end of the year …where do you see this going, or where do you think it will go?
Meta: I’ll give the Meta dream answer, and then turn to Alex to hear a bit more about Siklu’s vision. As we mentioned, it’s still in the early stages of Terragraph GoTo Market, just under a year of commercial availability. So, in the next 2-3 years we expect that hockey stick growth to continue. We were just now seeing the beginning of the of the journey so we expect to see a lot more deployments, full adoption, and a lot of service providers getting their hands on the technology for the first time. There’s been a lot of positive output from these early projects that should lead to subsequent adoption in deployment, which I think we will see in the next 2 to 3 years really scaling up. Looking at OEM partners Siklu I believe there’s already been an announcement of another product skew for Terragraph, we can expect to see variations come to market. It is quite a flexible technology in terms of how it can be packaged and then brought to market in different form factors and configurations. I think companies like Siklu gain further experience and see how service providers are deploying it you will see products come to market that really address the biggest opportunities coming through from that experience. We also expect to see expansion of the used cases that it serving, we obviously care about people connectivity at Meta, but certainly, there is physical security, smart city deployments, and lots of other used cases which you’ll see Terragraph be adopted in good scale.
Siklu: I agree with David. It is still in the early days in terms of the numbers if you're looking at it from a very high level with all the ecosystem partners. Siklu has been doing a proof of concept where the last 10 to 12 months or so and proof comes with a few hundred deployments, so I would really like to think the next 12 to 24 months a lot of these are going to really start rolling out. The technology has really proved that it works, it reliable, and it’s easy to deploy .. all the things that Meta, and the customers and partners of Meta, have promised. I think now it’s going to really start getting traction. In the past we all know somebody who has been burned by wireless or other technologies that doesn’t actually do what it says on the packaging, I think this one it really does. We also have Meta behind it, you can’t get any larger company than that for their reputation backing this technology. Meta has a number of ecosystem partners behind us, Siklu + others. It increased competition, which is very healthy because it encourages development in products enhancements and driving the costs down which is good for the market and the customer. Keeps us on our toes to make sure we stay ahead of the competition as much as possible. From a global perspective we are we doing a lot of deployments within the US, but we have already deployed in Latin America, Central America, APAC, Europe. Once it starts getting adopted in places like India and countries like Southeast Asia were there was poor construction and very little fiber it is going to explode. I think the other thing will be to get people to move away from thinking you can only use fiber to get good connectivity. It will be a bit of a mind-shift to get some supervisors to think outside the box. Sometimes you can not always deploy fiber, or it is too expensive, this technology is available now, it works, let's use it. 60 GHz has been niche product until Meta took it on board and created a new product of it, it is becoming more of a widely accepted technology.
Meta: Global regulators as well are paying attention to it. We are seeing a huge movement worldwide in the right direction in terms of 60 GHz becoming an unlicensed in countries where is previously restricted. There’s been really good developments on that front of the last year and I believe it will continue. A lot of times those regulatory changes are based on some observations and cases being made based on trials of Terragraph to show the regulators what it can actually deliver in terms of connectivity.
That is a lot of great information. Terragraph is something that is is new, but it’s somethings growing rapidly and there’s a lot of awesome applications (you’ve heard some of them today) and we really appreciate David (Meta) and Alex (Siklu) being here being here with us to talk about that. Once again, always reach out to your sales rep at DoubleRadius, talk to them about Terragraph, talk to them about Siklu, ask questions. Let us educate you on the possibilities and where you can go with this. Every day we’re seeing more applications, more used cases, and 60 GHz is a great solution for fiber-like speed.
Thank you for being here, I hope you all learn something and we hope to see you on the next want-to-solution series.
