Mobile World Congress 2014: 85,000 Visitors, up 18%

This week's Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona set a new attendance record:  more Than 85,000 visitors, up 18% over 2013. "By any measure, the 2014 Mobile World Congress was a stunning success and we thank our attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and partners for their continued support," said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. "Beyond the number of attendees and participating companies, the continued expansion of the event to address key adjacent...

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NEC Launches Virtualized MVNO Solution

NEC has introduced a Mobile Virtual Network Operator solution that leverages Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) to enable services such as traffic restrictions/filtering of communication data and collection of charging information. NEC’s vMVNO-SL enforces services between an MVNO's own communication network and a carrier's mobile network. NEC delivers the MVNO solution as software that runs on a virtualized all-purpose Intel Architecture...

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Qwilt and Procera Partner on Transparent Caching + Policy Control

Qwilt, a provider of online video delivery and transparent caching solutions, and Procera Networks have formed a partnership to offer a transparent caching and Internet Intelligence solution for service providers. Qwilt’s QB-Series transparent caching technology and Procera’s PacketLogic platform together provide a plug-and-play solution to seamlessly deliver over-the-top (OTT) video traffic and improve quality of experience (QoE). “Our PacketLogic...

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Procera and Openet Develop NFV-Based Policy and Charging Control

Openet and Procera Networks demonstrated a turnkey Policy and Charging Control (PCC) solution based on network functions virtualization (NFV). The Revenue Express solution combines Openet’s Policy Manager and Procera’s Intelligent Policy Enforcement capabilities.  The companies said elasticity is a key benefit for operators because the capacity dedicated to each network function can now be dynamically modified according to actual load on the...

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NSN Delivers Wi-Fi Traffic Steering

Nokia Solutions and Networks announced two advancements in mobile traffic steering. Wi-Fi traffic steering, including automated creation of traffic steering rules, and enhanced ANDSF capabilities for real-time traffic steering based on network loading. Both new features are part of NSN’s Smart Wi-Fi solution. NSN’s CEM Analytics for Traffic Steering analyzes network traffic and billing data trends to automatically generate and update ANDSF rules...

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Sequans Showcases Cassiopeia LTE-Advanced

Sequans Communications showed off its Cassiopeia silicon compliant with 3GPP Release 10 specifications and is software upgradeable to Release 11. Cassiopeia supports highly flexible dual carrier aggregation up to 40 MHz total bandwidth. In 30 MHz FDD, combining two channels of 10 MHz plus 20 MHz, which will be one of the most common configurations deployed by LTE operators, Cassiopeia can deliver maximum theoretical category 6 LTE throughput of...

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Sequans and ALU Show Carrier Aggregation and LTE Broadcast

At Mobile World Congress, Sequans Communications and Alcatel-Lucent demonstrated carrier aggregation, using Sequans’ Cassiopeia LTE-Advanced Platform, and LTE Broadcast, using Sequans’ Mont Blanc LTE platform. The carrier aggregation demo showed Sequans’ Cassiopeia LTE-Advanced platform, as well as of Alcatel-Lucent’s LTE Overlay solution. In the LTE Broadcast demonstration, Sequans and Alcatel-Lucent showed tablets based on Sequans’ eMBMS-capable...

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NTT Develops Nanowire and Photonic Crystal on a Silicon Chip

Researchers at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) have developed a novel method to create an optical nanocavity  at an arbitrary place on a silicon chip by placing a compound semiconductor nanowire on a silicon photonic crystal. NTT sais a large number of nanophotonic devices could be integrated on a silicon chip using this methos, paving the way for dense optical networks on a processor chip. NTT Nanophotonics Center (NPC) is located...

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DOCOMO Demos Field-tested Active Antenna System

NTT DOCOMO announced the first field test of an active antenna system that achieves a 4 dB reduction in electrical loss compared to conventional antennas. This promises to help enlarge the coverage range of base stations 1.7-fold. The active antenna system, which was developed by Tokyo-based Nihon Dengyo Kosaku Co., integrates multiple antenna elements, each equipped with a small transceiver, which enables installment in confined spaces and assures...

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Simgo Develops a "Virtual SIM" Platform

Simgo introduced a virtual SIM chipset that enables cellular users to benefit from reduced roaming costs, broadband global M2M, and increased operational efficiency. Simgo's solution, which allows for the separation of the SIM card from the cellular device, is comprised of 2 components: a remote device which acts like a SIM and a cloud-based platform which physically contains tens of thousands of SIMs. The remote device is available as either...

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RAD Demos Distributed NFV for Business Services

At Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, RAD demonstrated Distributed NFV (D-NFV) that integrates a Layer2/Layer3 FPGA-based NID and compute infrastructure with a standard x86 server. “The common perception of NFV is that it has to be implemented in data centers, but in reality that approach isn’t ideal in every situation, in particular when targeting services for business customers,” notes Ulik Broida, RAD’s Vice President of Marketing. “In...

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Napatech Launches 40 Gbps Adapter

Napatech introduced a 4-port 10 Gbps adapter provides a full 40 Gbps of packet analysis in networking appliciances. Napatech software provides hardware abstraction that allows up to eight network adapters in an appliance to appear as one, enabling up to 320 Gbps of throughput per appliance. Napatech allows real-time data from multiple points in the network to be collected and merged into a single analysis stream, allowing for easier correlation...

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Blueprint: Impending ITU G.8273.2 to Simplify LTE Planning

By Martin Nuss, Vitesse Semiconductor Fourth-generation wireless services based on long-term evolution (LTE) have new timing and synchronization requirements that will drive new capabilities in the network elements underlying a call or data session. For certain types of LTE networks, there is a maximum time error limit between adjacent cellsites of no more than 500 nanoseconds. To enable network operators to meet the time error requirement in...

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Deutsche Telekom Tests LTE Direct with Qualcomm

Deutsche Telekom is working with Qualcomm on the first LTE Direct operator trial in Germany. LTE Direct is a new device-to-device proximity technology that enables discovering thousands of devices and their services in the proximity of ~500m.  The platform would be owned by the mobile operator.  It uses licensed spectrum, allowing mobile operators to employ it as a way to offer a range of differentiated applications and services to users....

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Huawei and China Mobile Demo Virtualized EPC

Huawei and China Mobile jointly demonstrated a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) and virtual IMS this week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Both solutions are a part of Huawei’s CloudEdge solution, which has four parts: Mobile: Focused on continued LTE build outs, virtual EPC and simplification of Gi-LAN by introducing service chaining Service: The introduction of MANO (Management and Orchestration)in NFV related to operation management,...

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SK Telecom to Offer Tracking Service via Mobile Sensors, Patterns

SK Telecom has developed a "Context Platform" that seeks to know more about the user by leveraging a smartphone's camera, sensors, GPS and Wi-Fi, along with usage patterns in calls, SMS, SNS, scheduling, and applications.  The carrier says it is using the data to offer a "Life Log" service to help its users automatically track their lives. "Along with Big Data, Context Platform is an important pillar of the newly emerging field of ICT intelligence,"...

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BTI Wireless Builds TD-FEMTOs for China Mobile with Radisys

BTI Wireless, which supplies TD-FEMTO end-to-end solutions providing 3G and 4G Small Cell and Gateway System products, has selected Radisys’ Trillium software for deployment of an advanced LTE-TDD solution for China Mobile. Specifically, BTI Wireless will leverage Radisys’ Trillium TOTALeNodeB software and protocol stacks and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) ATCA platforms to provide dual-mode TD-SCDMA and LTE-TDD small cells and gateways,  achieving...

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DragonWave Intros 70-80 GHz EBand Radios

DragonWave introduced its Harmony Eband, a compact, lightweight radio that operates in the 70-80 GHz spectrum with low-energy consumption and designed for fronthaul, macro backhaul and small cell deployments. The Harmony Eband delivers a complete, all-outdoor solution and delivers the industry’s first uncompressed CPRI transport mode that enables wireless fronthaul. The radio comes equipped with an integrated switch, multiple ports and a proprietary...

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TIM Brasil Deploys Juniper's SRX5600 for LTE Security

Telecom Italia Mobile Brasil (TIM) has deployed Juniper's SRX5600 and 5800 Series Services Gateway for improved performance, scalability and integrated security services across its new LTE network. Financial terms were not disclosed. Juniper noted that its SRX5600 and 5800 support 450,000 connections per second, up to an industry record-breaking 100 million concurrent user sessions and 300 Gbps throughput. The SRX line cards provide TIM zero downtime...

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Saudi Telecom to Launch TDD LTE-A with Huawei

Saudi Telecom has succeeded Huawei to deploy TDD LTE-Advanced technology in its network.  network to the advanced 4th generation LTE-A network. Financial terms were not disclosed. "Saudi Arabia is considered as the largest telecom market in the Middle East. Therefore, launching the first quad systems network in the world (GSM/ UMTS/ LTE TDD/ LTE FDD), and upgrading the network to the advanced 4th generation LTE-A, enhances the Internet service...

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Saudi Telecom Picks Ericsson's Evolved Packet Core

STC has selected Ericsson's evolved packet core (EPC) solution. The deployment includes the Ericsson Blade System, MKVIII for SGSN-MME and Ericsson SSR 8020 for GGSN/EPG. The solution handles the growing demand for mobile broadband through common high-capacity multi-access platforms. The new core elements act as a common platform supporting 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE network technologies, providing additional capacity and throughput to cater for surging...

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Blueprint Column: Five Big Themes at RSA 2014

by John Trobough, president at Narus Now that RSA is underway I wanted to take some time to cover five key themes being talked about at the event. Machine Learning Machine Learning is at the top of my list.  As the frequency of attacks, the sophistication of the intrusions, and the number of new networked applications increase, analysts cannot keep up with the volume, velocity, and variety of data. The use of machine learning is gaining critical...

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Blueprint Column: Making 5G A Reality

By Alan Carlton, Senior Director Technology Planning for InterDigital By now we’ve all heard many conversations around 5G, but it seems that everyone is pretty much echoing the same thing—it won’t be here until 2025ish. And I agree. But it also seems that no one is really addressing how it will be developed. What should we expect in the next decade? What needs to be done in order for 5G to be a reality? And which companies will set themselves...

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Deutsche Telekom Drives Network Transformation

Deutsche Telekom is moving as quickly as possible to retire its legacy PSTN and go entirely IP, with the goal of having around 8 million IP-based lines across its footprint in Europe by the end of 2014 and the entire project completed in 2018. It's long term goal is an IP network that integrates mobile and fixed lines across all the European markets in which it operates. In presentations at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Deutsche Telekom...

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Small Cell Forum Launches Release Three

The Small Cell Forum announced Release 3.0 -- a set of documents aimed at identifying demand and supporting operators in the deployment of urban small cells. The 18 documents in the newly published release covers market drivers, business cases, service opportunities and technical overviews in areas such as self-organizing networks, backhaul, Wi-Fi integration and network architecture as well as regulatory challenges and deployment processes. The...

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Huawei Announces Ultra Wideband Active Antenna

Huawei announced an ultra wideband AAU (Active Antenna Unit) that employs SDBTM (Software-Defined Band) technology for band-programmability. The AAU leverages optimized algorithms, high-performance radio frequency (RF) chipsets, and significantly enhanced RF module integration. It supports 4 * 4 MIMO and carrier aggregation LTE-Advanced technologies, which can improve up to 90% network capacity. Huawei said that compared with industry similar...

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Huawei and Vodafone Announce FDD and TDD Carrier Aggregation

Huawei and Vodafone announced the first implementation of LTE-Advanced FDD+TDD Convergence Carrier Aggregation (CA). At Mobile World Congress, the companies said their prototype achieved a single user peak downlink speed of more than 500 Mbps. The demonstration involved 3 FDD carriers and 1 TDD carrier. Vodafone currently has 800MHz, 1800MHz, and 2600MHz, a total of 50MHz spectrum bandwidth in FDD mode and 20MHz of 2600MHz in TDD mode in Spain....

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Narus Accelerates Cyber Threat Assessment for Enterprises

Narus introduced new tools to accelerate the time it takes for enterprise security teams to resolve cyber threats.  Once network administrators suspect an attack, current practices can take days or weeks to isolate the breach and understand its implications. The next generation of the Narus nSystem enables organizations to build “zero trust” networks and take a proactive approach to cybersecurity. The system provides visibility, advance...

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Infonetics: Challenges for Outdoor Small Cell Rollouts

A survey of 20 incumbent, independent wireless, competitive, and cable operators conducted by Infonetics Research reveals numerous challenges in the rollout of outdoor small cells, including: Operators are finding that outdoor small cell deployments are more expensive than anticipated: more respondents now expect the 5-year TCO ratio of a small cell deployment to be 25% of a typical macrocell deployment, up from 10% in Infonetics' 2012 survey There...

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IBM Boosts Data Breach Detection Capabilities

IBM is boosting its security solutions to help organizations to reduce detection time for security breaches and investigate these threats before they can significantly impact the business. IBM Security QRadar Incident Forensics, a new software product designed as a module for the QRadar Security Intelligence Platform, can help security teams retrace the step-by-step actions of sophisticated cyber criminals.  By adding this forensics capture...

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Telefónica's UNICA Architecture Targets NFV

Telefónica unveiled UNICA -- it's end-to-end vision for virtualized network infrastructure that will transform the company into a true Digital Telco. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Telefónica described UNICA as a paradigm shift in the way networks are designed, installed, provisioned and managed.  Its first goal is to address the logical re-grouping of resources needed to deploy a new services via the new generation data centers it...

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