Verizon is looking to implement a fiber alternative to scale 5G deployments

In the early stages of their nationwide 5G rollouts, US telecoms must grapple with ensuring that any 5G equipment they install has sufficient infrastructure to handle the increased data traffic it may need to support. For its part, Verizon has thus far concentrated on building up the fiber backbone it needs to support 5G service. But now, the company is also planning to take advantage of a new tool that will allow it to expand where it can operate its 5G network without necessarily needing an equivalent fiber rollout, according to Light Reading. Verizon is considering Integrated Access Backhaul (IAB) technology as a way to deliver 5G service to areas where it's prohibitively expensive to run fiber cabling. IAB will allow the telecom to link a tower that has fiber running to it with another tower that doesn't via a wireless connection, so that traffic from 5G wireless equipment installed on the nonconnected tower is routed to the fiber-connected tower.