Throughput efficient solution for hybrid wireless network

Free Space Optics (FSO) links provide usage of high bandwidth and the flexibility of wireless communication links. However, weather patterns like fog and heavy snow fall limit the availability of FSO. Another technology providing similar properties regarding offered data rates and flexibility of set up is Millimeter Wave Technology (mmW), operating at several tens of GHz. In this case, heavy rain limits mmW link availability. A combination of both technologies has been proved to be very effective to achieve very high availability. This requires redundant transmission on both links, which results in loss of transmission bandwidth. In this paper, a bandwidth efficient switch-over between these technologies is discussed. This switch-over can maintain high availability without the loss of available bandwidth for unnecessary redundant transmission. The performance of this switch-over has been simulated for more than one year measured availability data for hybrid network of mmW link and FSO link. It has been shown that the availability with switch-over reaches the redundant link availability but it can increase the hybrid network throughput significantly.