Airvine: Next Generation Indoor Broadband Backhaul Solution

Vivek Ragavan, CEO of Airvine.

Speed, flexibility and ease of deployment form the bedrock of today’s connectivity solutions. With the innovation around Wi-Fi making great strides with WiFi 6 and 7, enterprises need an equally agile and adaptable indoor wireless backhaul solution to benefit from it. The solution should ensure a large amount of data transfer while remaining easy to manage, monitor and troubleshoot without requiring massive business disruptions when installed. This is where Airvine’s breakthrough technology makes a world of difference.

Airvine is one of the fastest-growing Silicon Valley innovators offering a broadband wireless indoor backhaul solution. The company has found a way to capitalize on the unlicensed spectrum, 60 GHz (57 to 71 GHz in the U.S.), as an indoor backhaul solution for enterprise data traffic, making it feasible to keep pace with bandwidth-hungry applications, along with the ability to support upcoming 5G innovations.

To facilitate multi-gigabit indoor backbone transport, Airvine has developed the industry’s first indoor 60GHz wireless system, the Wave TunnelTM. The product matches the speed and rivals the reliability of the existing ethernet cable at a fraction of its deployment cost and time. WaveTunnel is also an answer to the fundamental issue of the V band spectrum—high attenuation.

“Our WaveTunnel houses a novel combination of advanced electronic beam forming, intelligent high-speed switching and innovative RF technology which enables it to overcome high attenuation while seamlessly connecting the access points,” says Vivek Ragavan, CEO of Airvine.
The WaveTunnel comes with a high-gain, beam-forming antenna providing enough link margin to address the high attenuation in 60GHz. Each node of the WaveTunnel has two radios; one pointed upstream and the other downstream, allowing the beams to traverse longer distances in free space path loss (FSPL) conditions. For non-Line of Site scenarios, the WaveTunnel system can steer around corners and even punch through most interior walls.

WaveTunnel also has a dual antenna design, allowing the product to be installed in a ring-like manner inside buildings.

“Our WaveTunnel nodes can operate in a ring or spur configuration, enabling data transfer in both the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. Even if one fails, other neighbor nodes will turn the ring back on automatically, which keeps the traffic moving through the network, ensuring its resiliency as a whole,” explains Ragavan.

WaveTunnel has a high-speed switch that gives it additional capabilities, including the ability to add/drop data from all the devices connected within the ring network. The high-speed switch also gives clients governance over the telemetry data on these devices and the potential to segment them for security and maintenance purposes.

The installation of WaveTunnel is simple as its beam steering is designed to tether onto neighboring nodes as much as 45 degrees on both sides. This makes installing the product effortless and fast, as technicians don’t require special training in how to ‘aim.’ In addition, the product can be readily configured and monitored via a purpose-built, smartphone-based application, simplifying the cumbersome process of device maintenance.
For instance, one of Airvine’s clients in the hospitality industry was looking for a better backhaul solution to enhance their customers’ digital experience. They wanted a product that was easy to monitor, manage and deployable with minimal planning. Airvine stepped in with its WaveTunnel, enabling the client to re-configure their backhaul cost-effectively without tearing down any structures. WaveTunnel seamlessly connected areas that were previously WiFi blind spots, providing a holistic digital experience for their customers.

Our WaveTunnel houses a novel combination of advanced electronic beam forming, intelligent high-speed switching and innovative RF technology which enables it to overcome high attenuation while seamlessly connecting the access points


Airvine’s WaveTunnel technology is a viable indoor backhaul solution for a number of industry verticals, including heritage buildings, factories, warehouses and multi-dwelling units (MDUs). In addition, the product’s flexibility has been well-received right from its pilot stage. Airvine credits the success of WaveTunnel to its expert team of RF system and software engineers, antenna, chip and modem designers. For today’s fast-paced business environment, a solution like WaveTunnel, that quickly adapts to business imperatives, is an effective way to future-proof infrastructure investments, eventually realizing the possibility of an all-wireless enterprise.