IBM Pushes for Network Core Virtualization

IBM is endorsing the virtualization of network infrastructure to extend the benefits of a cloud delivery model to communications networks.

Under its "Smarter Communications" initiative, IBM is working with business partners, including Connectem Inc., to deliver telecom solutions that run on its elastic, on-demand cloud platforms.

The Virtual Core for Mobile (VCM) is a software solution from Connectem, an IBM Business Partner, which has the potential to deliver higher network performance during peak usage periods, where millions of customers could be accessing a mobile network via smartphones or tablets.

A virtualized solution can rapidly switch computing resources to deliver incremental capacity on-demand. As a result, customers experience lower network latency even during periods of peak network activity. The Connectem VCM software running on IBM PureFlex platform is a part of a key initiative that can dramatically reduce the time to deploy new services as software applications on general-purpose computing platforms.

The Australian mobile carrier Optus recently tested a new mobile network capacity solution from Connectem Inc. running on IBM PureFlex. The IBM PureSystems family offers carriers an alternative to current enterprise computing models, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain.

"The IBM PureFlex platform is uniquely suited to enable virtualization of network functions that are implemented as software applications running on elastic, on-demand infrastructure in 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi wireless networks," said Jacqueline Woods, global vice president of Systems Software & Growth Initiatives, IBM Systems & Technology Group. "We continue to support our partners as they develop and bring to market innovative solutions on the PureFlex platform."

http://www.ibm.com/press/pure

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DOCOMO's Mobile Base Station Hits 10 Gbps Uplink

NTT DOCOMO and the Tokyo Institute of Technology achieved an uplink rate of approximately 10 Gbps during a field experiment.

In the experiment, a 400 MHz bandwidth in the 11 GHz spectrum was transmitted from a mobile station moving at approximately 9 km/h. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology was used to spatially multiplex different data streams using 8 transmitting antennas and 16 receiving antennas on the same frequency.

In light of the squeeze on remaining frequencies as mobile data traffic continues to increase, DOCOMO aims to achieve a transmission speed of more than 10 Gbps using super-high-frequency bands exceeding 5 GHz. Such high frequencies have been difficult to use for mobile networks due to the limited distances their waves are able to travel, especially along indirect paths such as around buildings.

NTT DOCOMO said the technologies also are applicable to downlink packet transmissions, suggesting that it should be possible to achieve a 10 Gbps downlink.

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NTT DOCOMO Selects NEC Base Stations for Proposed C-RAN Architecture

NEC confirmed that NTT Docomo has selected it to develop LTE-Advanced base stations for its new C-RAN architecture.

NTT Docomo is proposing a new Advanced C-RAN architecture that uses small "add-on" cells for localized coverage that act in concert with macro cells in HetNet fashion.  Deep integration is achieved using carrier aggregation technology, one of the main LTE-Advanced technologies standardized by 3GPP.

Under the Advanced C-RAN architecture, high-capacity base stations utilizing advanced C-RAN architecture will serve as master base stations both for multiple macro cells covering broad areas and for add-on cells in smaller, high-traffic areas. The base stations will accommodate up to 48 macro and add-on cells at launch and even more later. Carrier aggregation will be supported for cells served by the same base station, enabling the flexible deployment of add-on cells. In addition, maximum downlink throughput will be extendible to 3Gbps, as specified by 3GPP standards.

Carrier aggregation is expected to yield 3 Gbps maximum throughput by aggregating multiple carriers of up to 100 MHz of carrier bandwidth.

http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/news_release/2013/02/21_00.html

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DOCOMO, China Mobile and KT Announce Wi-Fi Roaming Deal

NTT DOCOMO,China Mobile International and KT agreed to lay out a joint Wi-Fi inbound roaming scheme covering Japan, China and Korea.

The new arrangement will allow international mobile and/or Wi-Fi operators to roam into Wi-Fi hotspots in Japan, China and Korea through a single contract and a one-stop connection realized by hubs supported by the scheme.

China Mobile International is named to be one of the hub operators. The companies hope to launch in Q2 2013.

The three carriers also agreed to adopt EAP-SIM authentication technology to eliminate the need for customers to enter user IDs and passwords when accessing Wi-Fi hotspots, leading to improved convenience and experiences.

Separately, the three carriers have also agreed on handset and service requirements needed to realize NFC international roaming services, or NFC service roaming, between the three countries and for the rest of Asia. The companies have been exploring opportunities for NFC service roaming since January 2011, and from April 2012, efforts have focused on developing common requirements.

http://www.ntt.co.jp

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Gigamon Turns Big Data into Manageable Data for Mobile Carriers

Gigamon is developing an innovative approach for dealing with the problems that Big Data creates for network visibility in the networks of mobile operators.  The aim is to deliver a cost-effective solution for connecting single or multiple 40Gb and 100Gb pipes to 10Gb and 1Gb analytic tools.

Gigamon's technology essentially takes the network traffic flowing through the large pipes, and controls the volume of data being forwarded to the tools.  The concept is being showcased at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The company said this approach will faithfully reproduce the data on a smaller scale, retaining its stateful condition with session awareness. Single tools can then effectively process throughput of what was originally 100Gb or 40Gb traffic flows.

When commercially available, this new innovation will work in tandem with Gigamon’s Flow Mapping and GigaSMART applications technologies. Flow Mapping enables advanced filtering of individual network traffic packets that are forwarded according to a set of user-defined rules that are optimized to provide customers with unique granularity and scalability.

GigaSMART applications modify, manipulate, transform and transport packets, along with the information they carry, in order to enhance and improve the value of the network traffic before delivering it to the appropriate management, monitoring and security tools.


“Gigamon was the first to recognize that the flow of data rushing through mobile carrier pipes has scaled to such levels that no technology out there can sufficiently filter and process it all, so we decided to design an entirely new approach,” said Andy Huckridge, director of service provider solutions at Gigamon. “For the first time, the industry as a whole has a real way to tackle the issues associated with Big Data. Through this new concept we hope to alleviate much of the data running through 40Gb and 100Gb pipes, allowing it to fit into smaller existing pipes and saving the carrier from drowning under the massive flow of data and resulting greater tooling costs.”

http://www.gigamon.com

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Huawei Shows SDN-based Mobile Backhaul

Huawei introduced an SDN-based mobile backhaul solution that simplifies the operation and maintenance (O&M) and management of mobile backhaul networks and shortens the time to market (TTM) of new services. The solution helps operators resolve network issues during the evolution to LTE networks.

Huawei said three large gaps persist in backhaul networks that operators must leap over during the evolution to LTE and LTE-A networks.

First, a large gap exists between massive LTE hotspots and limited hotspot backhaul sites. The LTEHaul solution extends the traditional backhaul network downwards to form a fronthaul, facilitating the management and maintenance of massive hotspot backhaul nodes.

A second large gap is present between the vast increase in the LTE bandwidth and the limited bandwidth on the traditional backhaul network.

Third, there is a large gap between the traditional backhaul and core networks. The LTEHaul solution stretches the traditional backhaul network upwards to achieve end-to-end fast service provisioning, protection switching, and fault locating from eNodeBs to evolved packet cores (EPCs).

http://www.huawei.com

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Ericsson Highlights SDN for Mobile Operators

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Ericsson is highlighting its vision for how software defined networking (SDN) vision will transfer Service Provider infrastructure.
Ericsson said its Service Provider SDN vision expands the industry definition in three important ways to open new revenue opportunities and costs saving for network operators:

Integrated network control, extending SDN control from the data center into the wide area network, all the way to the radio access network

Orchestrated network and cloud management bringing both legacy network management and new management system together in a unified control plane
Service exposure opening network interfaces to applications developers

At Mobile World Congress, Ericsson also announced its commitment to deliver the first commercial Service Provider SDN application in the fourth quarter of 2013. That initial application will be Service Chaining running in the SSR 8000 family of Smart Service Routers.

http://www.ericsson.com

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KPN Awards Five-year Managed Services Deal to ALU

KPN awarded a five-year managed services agreement to Alcatel-Lucent for the transformation of KPN’s fixed network in The Netherlands. In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of KPN’s network, Alcatel-Lucent will migrate existing Voice and Transport networks to next-gen Alcatel-Lucent technology.

Under the deal, Alcatel-Lucent will plan, design and implement an end-to-end solution to provide KPN’s network with increased capacity, upgraded equipment, and best-in-class customer service processes. Alcatel-Lucent also will help KPN transform its existing multi-vendor voice and core networks enabling its customers to access and share multimedia content from wherever they are or using the device of their choice be it smartphone, computer or tablet.

As part of the network upgrade, Alcatel-Lucent will migrate KPN’s core network to next-gen Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technology, move KPN’s VoIP service to Alcatel-Lucent’s IMS platform and provide WLAN and security gateway for Wi-Fi networks, as well as Professional Services.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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Ixia Introduces GTP-Session Awareness Visibility

Ixia introduced a network visibility solution to help mobile operators gain better insight and control over individual user sessions in order to increase customers’ quality of experience.

Highlights of the Ixia Anue GSC include:

• GTP-session awareness -- Offloads GTP session correlation from monitoring tools while keeping GTP sessions together across multiple probes. The Anue GSC understands GTP protocol and can deliver all packets from a single subscriber to a single tool as well as send GTP-session and non-GTP, non-session traffic to different pools of probes.
• A scalable load balancing solution -- Distributes millions of subscriber sessions to tools in a 32-port configuration, doubling the number of ports for twice the performance in a 2RU chassis.
• Carrier-grade robustness — NEBS Level 1 certified, including high-availability features such as redundant management ports, power supplies and fan trays.

http://www.ixiacom.com

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Meru Expects $12 Million in Secondary Offering

Meru Networks announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 3,000,000 shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $4.00 per share. Gross proceeds, before deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses payable by Meru, are expected to be approximately $12 million. http://www.merunetworks.com

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