Cambridge Broadband Networks Limited (CBNL) is a telecommunications company which develops and manufactures

point-to-multipoint In telecommunications, point-to-multipoint communication (P2MP, PTMP or PMP) is communication which is accomplished via a distinct type of one-to-many connection, providing multiple paths from a single location to multiple locations. Point-to ...

(PMP) wireless backhaul and access solutions, providing services to telecommunication customers in more than 30 countries. The company is a privately held backed by institutional investors:

Amadeus Capital Partners Amadeus Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in European high-technology companies, founded by Anne Glover and Hermann Hauser in 1997. It is a member of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and is approve ...

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...

, TVM Capital GmbH, Adara Venture Partners and Samsung Ventures Europe.

Leadership

* Jonathan McKay (Chairman) * Lionel Chmilewsky (Chief Executive Officer)

Locations

The company's headquarters are in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, as part of the Cambridge technology cluster (

Silicon Fen Silicon Fen (also known as the Cambridge Cluster) is the name given to the region around Cambridge, England, which is home to a large business cluster, cluster of high-tech businesses focusing on software, electronics and biotechnology, s ...

). CBNL also has offices in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

Products and services

The company's VectaStar product uses its PMP topology to share wireless backhaul and access resource between several cell sites, each generating voice and packet traffic. This technology means spectrum can be managed dynamically and efficiently, reducing capital and operating costs. VectaStar is used by telecommunications network providers across the globe to build a variety of wireless backhaul and access networks. This includes new packet networks; mobile broadband network upgrades; ethernet enterprise networks and 2G – 3G IP backhaul migration. VectaStar delivers up to and over 300Mbit/s full duplex per sector and is deployable in 2G, 3G, 4G,

small cell Small cells are low-powered cellular radio access nodes that operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum that have a range of 10 meters to a few kilometers. In other words, they are base stations with low power consumption and cheap cost that ...

and

Long Term Evolution In telecommunications, long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for mobile devices and data terminals, based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA standards. It improves on those standards' capacity and speed by us ...

(LTE) backhaul networks. The company offers services including network planning and design; network deployment; network operation; customer training; 24-hour customer support and WEEE recycling.

History

The company was founded in 2000 by ten engineers from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

who secured private equity funding to develop an innovative solution to the increased demand for mobile communications. Soon after the company started, the earliest variant of VectaStar was launched and shipped to the first customers. Over the following years CBNL identified new market opportunities and developed product variants to address those, featuring new frequencies and a move into the backhaul space. The period of 2005–2010 saw the Company grow 864 per cent – growth which ranked the Company in the top 200 on the

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professio ...

Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2010, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in EMEA, and reaching number 38 in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 in 2011. In November 2011 the Company supplied microwave radio equipment to backhaul Telefónica UK's O2 4G trial network in London, UK.

Small cells

In April 2012 CBNL announced that it had been accepted as a member of the Small Cell Forum, a not-for-profit membership organization that seeks to enable and promote small cell technology worldwide. CBNL has since been appointed Vice Chair of Small Cell Forum Backhaul Special Interest group. As a member of

Next Generation Mobile Networks The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance is a mobile telecommunications association of mobile operators, vendors, manufacturers and research institutes. It was founded by major mobile operators in 2006 as an open forum to evaluate candid ...

(NGMN) Alliance, CBNL recently led a mixed group of both operators and vendors to generate consensus around the specific needs for Small Cell backhaul technology. Results from this work were published in July 2012 in the NGMN Alliance's white paper ‘Small Cell Backhaul Requirements’.NGMN outlines requirements for small cell backhaul
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References

{{reflist Private equity portfolio companies Companies based in Cambridge Companies established in 2000 Telecommunications companies of the United Kingdom