Business customers can now use RADWIN FWA to increase capacity and secure service availability over SD-WAN

1. www.fusionbroadband.com.au
Fusion Broadband certifies RADWIN wireless solutions as
interoperable with its award-winning SD-WAN solution
Business customers can now use RADWIN FWA to increase capacity and
secure service availability over SD-WAN
Johannesburg, South Africa. In live network tests based in the field and not in a lab, Fusion
Broadband https://fusionbroadband.com.au has together with RADWIN https://www.radwin.com/
completed interoperability testing. Based on location in Blackheath and Hoogland in the suburbs
of Johannesburg, the testing validated the use of fixed wireless within a Software Defined Wide
Area Network (SD-WAN) solution.
Fusion Broadband is an IBM Beacon award winner for 2020. They received their award in the
infrastructure solutions category and provides a SD-WAN solution aimed at last mile optimization.
RADWIN is a global wireless provider based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Ronald Bartels, CTO of Fusion Broadband South Africa states that: ”One of the perfect use cases for
the solution is where a fixed wireless solution is used in conjunction with a fibre solution to ensure
that the uptime of a location converges to 100%.“
The testing validated the use of the SD-WAN solution in an active configuration whereby both the
fibre and fixed wireless was utilized. The full aggregated bandwidth of both the fibre and wireless
was available for use at the location and in most tests exceeded this actual capacity when
compression was enabled. The abilities of the Fusion Broadband SD-WAN cater for the ability to
deliver on this aggregation even though there is often a difference in latency between the various
underlying links.
Bartels added that the stability of the RADWIN link was remarkable when compared to an
alternative of using LTE. LTE links are inconsistent in reliability as well as throughput and as a
result excessive retries of the underlying networking protocols are triggered which is identified as
packet loss. The RADWIN links at the testing locations recorded no packet loss within the SD-WAN
network performance management system dashboards. The testing was performed using the
platforms built-in throughput testing tools using the universal CPE and data centre aggregator as
testing end points.
The use of a fixed wireless solution is thus highly recommended, and an LTE would only be used
as a last resort. Bartels says: “The use of RADWIN makes sense to use for customers who during
the current economic times would prefer to not experience the adverse effects of LTE bill shock.
Customers on fixed wireless links can accurately budget for the cost of their networking for their
locations.”
During supplemental testing of LTE at these locations, it was difficult to provide consistent
performance over the LTE links as compared to the RADWIN links. Within the SD-WAN solutions
bandwidth adaption was required whereby algorithms would continuously monitor throughput to
determine the optimal clamping speeds. This was not required when the RADWIN links were
active.
Bartels noted that the stability of the RADWIN link is unique as often links deployed on alternative
wireless solutions are not as reliable due to poor interference mitigation. In many cases, when
alternative fixed wireless network equipment was used at other locations, the stability issues
required the links to be placed into a failover mode which is similar to using LTE as a connection
of last resort.

2. © Fusion Broadband 2020
Multiple link configurations are currently possible using legacy
networking equipment but notoriously difficult to deploy, manage
and troubleshoot. In all cases, the aggregated bandwidth
available from bonding the active links together is not possible
when a traditional CPE is used. The ability to use full aggregated
bandwidth is made possible by the hub and spoke nature of
SD-WAN solutions.
SD-WAN) technology provides several attributes that can be
leveraged by managed service providers to migrate their overall
network architecture from MPLS to SD-WAN. Unlike MPLS the
attributes available for SD-WAN include performance, reliability,
security, and management. These attributes are distinguishing
features of SD-WAN that allows operators to provide business
grade services that are more closely aligned to business
requirements than MPLS solutions that only address connectivity
requirements.
A business solution typically consists of not only the last mile but
includes the backhaul to a data centre and interconnection to the
cloud. During testing the problems that were identified related to
congestion with cross connection at an Internet Exchange.
Additionally, poor path routing of connecting to cloud resources
via non-optimal paths was encountered. Thus, instead of routing
to cloud service directly in Johannesburg, a long-distance path to
Cape Town was in use. This is useful when there is a regional
data centre failure but should not be encountered in normal
operations. The SD-WAN solution makes these problems
transparent where previously troubleshooting would be more
difficult!
Clint Sutherland, primary RADWIN network engineer in Africa,
states that the use of SD-WAN in the continent of Africa is
beneficial to the region’s operators and it makes deploying
complex network topologies that include multiple paths in a more
efficient manner. The operators will be able to deploy these
networks in an automated manner using resources while
maximizing operational efficiencies. These operational
efficiencies include RADWIN’s deployment tools which provides
installers the ability to configure a link with optimal throughput in
a minimal time frame. This is one of RADWIN’s unique features.
As an example, when an operator has multiple regions and a
customer has locations in all these regions it is a highly complex
engineering task to optimize the connectivity paths within the
solution. SD-WAN provides an overlay network that automates
this task. The latest SD-WAN version from Fusion Broadband
consolidates this private WAN ability into the data centre
concentrators/aggregators.
“One of the perfect use
cases for the solution is
where a fixed wireless
solution is used in
conjunction with a fibre
solution to ensure that the
uptime of a location
converges to 100%.“
Ronald Bartels
CTO
Fusion Broadband
South Africa

3. © Fusion Broadband 2020
Nick Ehrke, country manager of RADWIN South Africa, mentions:
“RADWIN is pleased with the results of the testing as it validates
the RADWIN products as being able to integrate into broadband
networks that can be leveraged to provide more advanced services
that will dramatically benefit business customers.”
The tests in South Africa were conducted using the Fusion
Broadband universal CPE. This platform catered for not only the
SD-WAN function but all the necessary protocols and connectivity
options over Ethernet to connect to various broadband networks.
As an example, the tests in Johannesburg used broadband FTTX
products from local Internet Service Providers. The Fusion
Broadband product does not require a special configuration to
connect over broadband networks.
Peter Turvey, RADWIN General Manager concurs. “The RADWIN
solution now fits into a greater ecosystem and its domain is not
only to provide singular links to a location but improve the
availability and performance of existing links as well as new links.
The reliability of the overall customer experience has a new
benchmark.”
Bartels agrees. “During the current pandemic we had locations
that experienced single link failures. However, as these sites
where connected by both fibre and fixed wireless that locations
remained up and connected to the Internet 100%. If it weren’t for
the RADWIN links these locations would have been down for up to
9 days as resource constraints prevented quick resolution to the
fibre link failures.”
During testing, the security of the solution was validated. By
default, the RADWIN product can encrypt the last mile using
AES128. The Fusion Broadband solution enhances this by
providing end to end encryption over PWAN links using not only
AES128 but AES256 as wells as SALSA20. Security is paramount to
solutions and SD-WAN solutions provide not only encryption but
conditional access and steering using firewalls. The SD-WAN
solutions in South Africa are also protected by advanced active
threat intelligence that prevents bad players from attempting
security breaches.
In conclusion, the testing by RADWIN and Fusion Broadband
displays that the binding of the two vendors into an ecosystem is
a viable alternative in using SD-WAN as an MPLS replacement or
supplement. Additionally, the fixed wireless from RADWIN
provides is a more reliable and consistent alternative to LTE for
multiple path connections to a location.
For more information:
Kirthesh Sundersingh
kirthhesh@fusionbroadband.co.za
0834423396
“RADWIN is pleased with
the results of the testing
as it validates the RADWIN
products as being able to
integrate into broadband
networks that can be
leveraged to provide more
advanced services that
will dramatically benefit
business customers.”
Nick Ehrke
Country Manager
RADWIN
South Africa