Alcatel-Lucent boost for mobile operators

Network giant Alcatel-Lucent today announced a series of new products and upgrades as part of its Ultimate Wireless Packet Core (UWPC) designed to help mobile operators cope with growing bandwidth issues on 3G networks and ready themselves for next gen networks.

Basil Alwan, head of Alcatel-Lucent’s carrier group strategy, explained that as mobile networks come under increasing pressure it is important to help improve the end-to-end hosting of the networks.

He explained that the firm has now upgraded its flagship 7750 Service Router able to support both 3G and 4G gateways in order to meet the demands of mobile data and help provide a seamless and scalable solution for LTE, GPRS and HPSA+ traffic.

"Many smartphones are accessing several megabytes of data on a regular basis, some ten times that of regular mobile devices. Now, we are also seeing around four per cent of users are using two to three gigabytes of bandwidth," he said.

"In time, 4G networks will handle this traffic but there will be a period of transition from the 2G and 3G before 4G becomes completely dominant so operators need to be able to handle this demand."

Alwan added that the 7750 SR would deliver more than ten times the performance and scalability of typical 3G packet core gateways and would be available for commercial delivery of 2G, 3G and LTE services in the second half of the year.

The firm also launched a new Wireless Mobility Manager (WMM) that is designed to offer both high-performance and scalability for both 2.5G and 3G networks and LTE MME (Mobility Management Entity) delivery.

Alwan also said that to enable smarter use of bandwidth and let mobile operators improve efficiency and monetisation of their networks, its new 5780 Dynamic Services Controller (DCS) would offer improved end-to-end network and policy management.

"Policy management is vital in order to allow operators to determine what their subscribers can get from the network in areas such as supporting low latency applications, handling high quality voice and video and scalability," he said.

"Furthermore, the 5780 DSC will enable the convergence of wired and wireless policy management in order to meet the growing number of connections being made by users to access applications on networks, regardless of connectivity type."

He also said that customers now wanted a common approach on all service issues, from troubleshooting to network management.

"Users don't want us to build individual silos for networks but want to be able to view connections in the same way, whether wired or wireless", he added.

Alwan explained that the 5780 DSC is currently in global trials and will be available for commercial 3G and LTE service delivery in the second half of 2010

The firm also added enhancements to its 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) to include support for the 5780 DSC and the UWPC to include unified, end-to-end management of user data and control planes.

Finally, it launched its 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) to provide mobile operators with real-time visibility into network element performance and end-user experience across the entire wireless data network.