Availability of 7 km-long parallel 18 GHz band and E-band links for multi band solutions

E-band (70/80 GHz) backhaul links are nowadays available with multi-Gbps capacity. Unfortunately, the high attenuation due to rain is limiting the link lengths to about 2 km. One way to overcome this limitation is to set up the E-band link in some sort of carrier aggregation solution together with a conventional backhaul band, usually 18-23 GHz to guarantee availability of critical data transfer also during heavy rain. This study compares long term logging of 7 km-long parallel backhaul links with carrier frequency 18.6/19.6 GHz and 71.6/81.6 GHz. This summary includes a comparison with ITU recommendations and a discussion on which phenomena, more than precipitation, is influencing the availability of these links.