XCIEN Selects Mimosa Fixed Wireless to Offer Ultra-Broadband Services

With a backbone network covering over 4,000 square kilometers and eight metro areas in Mexico, one of the country’s largest Wireless Internet Service Providers, XCIEN, has a clear mission - to provide reliable and high-speed internet to subscribers in both dense urban areas and in difficult to access rural areas. XCIEN’s business model is to provide Gigabit internet over wireless, avoiding the cost and delay of deploying fiber to the premises. Using wireless links, installation time to its residential, business and government customers is cut from months to days.

XCIEN is deploying Mimosa fiber-fast fixed wireless solutions throughout its network of business and residential subscribers. XCIEN selected Mimosa access, backhaul and client devices to address the increasing customer demand for ultra-broadband speeds without the expense and hassle of fiber deployment.

XCIEN’s customer base is comprised primarily of urban business customers, including small and medium businesses, small ISPs, cable companies and government entities. In recent years, the WISP has seen tremendous growth in cities with little to no fiber access, and predicts the number of business services to top 3,000 by year-end with more than 1,000 enterprise clients.

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Cuts Costs and Delivers Speeds 50% Faster Than Competitive Offerings

Using Mimosa solutions, XCIEN was able to lower the cost of provisioning point-to-point dedicated services to under US$1,000 for the complete link, with business customers now seeing speeds of up to 250 Mbps in point-to-point and 30 Mbps in point-to-multipoint deployments, an average of 50% increase over previously available speeds from competitive solutions.

“We trialed a number of fixed wireless solutions and were most impressed with the capacity, performance and economics of Mimosa,” said Juan Hector Medina, CEO of XCIEN. “The Mimosa solutions have enabled us to improve our offerings and profitability, and importantly, have enabled us to reach a large part of the country which previously did not have access to broadband speeds. We are excited to partner with Mimosa to achieve our goal of providing broadband speeds throughout Mexico.”

In addition to directly servicing its core business customers, XCIEN also indirectly supports 4,000 residential subscribers through partnerships with local companies who install and manage “the last yard” to subscriber homes. XCIEN provides connectivity, expertise and support to these companies, training their technicians in engineering and installation techniques. This access to cheaper connectivity is a critical factor in providing service to price-sensitive residential customers, and the partnership enables the local companies to provide quality service at affordable prices.

Updated Network Supports Increased Demand

In partnership with Mimosa, XCIEN’s updated network is ready to take on the increasing subscriber demand. XCIEN has deployed Mimosa’s B5-Lite and B5c point-to-point links across seven states, from Nuevo Leon to Jalisco to the State of Mexico. XCIEN also deploys Mimosa’s A5c access devices, and C5/C5c client devices in its extensive point-to-multipoint network. The Mimosa Design Tool and Network Management System help XCIEN design and manage performance across the entire network.

“For XCIEN, Mimosa means peace of mind and future capacity growth from the get go. Mimosa has improved our network stability where we need to reach extremely long distances and bandwidth capability, which in turn opens a new horizon in our ability to offer services and do business”, said Francisco Martinez Salas, Director of Operations and Connectivity at XCIEN. “We were thrilled to see that after deploying Mimosa in our network, our backhaul link speeds increased fourfold to an average of 400 Mbps, with some links delivering up to 800 Mbps.”

In addition to the higher speeds, XCIEN was able to achieve higher efficiency by deploying the Mimosa B5c connectorized radios using tower space and re-using RF spectrum. They also cut costs by 25% by decreasing the number of secondary links previously installed with other manufacturers between radio base stations. The addition of Mimosa to XCIEN’s network allowed the company to improve its capital budget, using Mimosa wireless systems to replace fiber to communicate with some of the radio base stations. In addition to providing cost savings and higher speeds, Mimosa successfully passed RFC2544 testing, which is a critical mandatory service requirement demanded by XCIEN’s key clients.

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Installation of the Mimosa radios and devices was a simple procedure for XCIEN, with a typical installation taking about three hours. To optimize their final configurations, they worked closely with the Mimosa support team. “We found the Mimosa products to be extremely user-friendly, and any questions we had were quickly solved by the very knowledgeable tech support team via chat, which is a tremendous advantage,” said Martinez Salas. “We also took advantage of the Mimosa Cloud and Design tools for planning and monitoring our network.”

“We trialed a number of fixed wireless solutions and were most impressed with the capacity, performance and economics of Mimosa.”

“We are honored to continue to partner with XCIEN on its large-scale broadband expansion initiatives for both business and residential subscribers across Mexico,” said John Colvin, SVP of Global Field Operations at Mimosa. “We are especially excited to assist XCIEN in delivering broadband to hard-to-reach places that might otherwise remain unconnected. In selecting Mimosa’s fixed wireless as the solution of choice, XCIEN is able to offer fiber-fast speeds and the ultimate broadband experience more affordably and at a faster time-to-market compared to other technology solutions.”

As XCIEN continues to build out its network, they are looking to upgrade their network with additional Mimosa backhaul links, and will begin to deploy the new Mimosa A5 access point and C5 client radios. “Mimosa is definitely a key part of our expansion plans going forward,” continued Martinez Salas. “We would love to see a scenario where 100% of our backhaul links are Mimosa radios.”

To learn more about Mimosa solutions, please visit mimosa.co.