New Partners Bring New Solutions

Mobile operators benefit from a new backhaul alliance

By Dawn Bushaus
Damian Dalgliesh, head of mobile backhaul sales at NSN

Despite a stubbornly sluggish global economy, market For its part, Tellabs developed a mobile backhaul projections for growth in mobile data services continue to business case that estimates network operators can achieve skyrocket. Research firm IDC reported a 56.7% increase an OpEx savings of up to 93% simply by offloading HSPA in global smartphone sales in one year (through the first traffic over broadband links. In the business case example, quarter of 2010). With the explosion of mobile data in HSPA traffic is offloaded and encapsulated as Ethernet or mind, Tellabs and partner Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) ATM packets over a Tellabs 8660 Edge Switch-enabled IP/ MPLS network. By eliminating T1/E1 leased-line circuits are teaming up to help mobile operators fine-tune their and replacing them with DSL, the mobile operator can to networks for data services. achieve a 93% OpEx savings. In March, the 2 companies announced interoperability In another instance, Tellabs shows how an operator can between NSNs FlexiPacket Microwave Radio (MWR) and save 60% on both CapEx and OpEx by using Pseudowires the Tellabs 8600 Managed Edge System. Combining the 2 solutions will help mobile operators offer new data services to ease microwave congestion. Pseudowires are used to at attractive prices and lower mobile backhaul costs. emulate the attributes of a Layer 2 connection-oriented The compelling event that is driving this interoperability service like TDM or ATM over a packet network. is mobile broadband: the operators desire to offer highWhat were really achieving with the Tellabs 8600 speed data services, said Damian Dalgliesh, head of mobile system is mobile backhaul CapEx and OpEx savings, backhaul sales at NSN. By working together, NSN and said Alois Zellner, global partner manager, NSN at Tellabs can offer network operators classic OpEx savings. Tellabs The flexibility of the Tellabs 8600 system also We can also reduce churn and provide a better means an operator can address every kind end-user experience, which can drive data of network possibility. By working usage and ultimately increase revenue. By adding an IP microwave radio such as In existing TDM and ATM mobile networks, FlexiPacket to the Tellabs access switches, together, NSN the last-mile access portion of the network operators can achieve even greater savings. and Tellabs can becomes a bottleneck, with the primary points The relationship between the 2 solutions offer network of congestion sitting between the cell sites is extremely powerful, Dalgliesh said. If operators classic Captionthe RNC. By using NSNs IP microwave and here youre trying to take a microwave access OpEx savings. technology at cell sites and Tellabs switches domain and stitch it to an aggregation in the access network, mobile operators can domain, you end up with the classic problem Damian Dalgliesh, move toward all-IP or Ethernet networks for of how to maintain quality of service and head of mobile mobile backhaul transport. The combination connectivity between the 2. Together, Tellabs backhaul sales can dramatically reduce the operational costs and NSN are going a bit deeper to pretest associated with backhaul transport. solutions, so that we understand how the at NSN
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company is familiar with the others products. Beginning in 2009, the partners began working specifically on interoperability between NSNs FlexiPacket Microwave radios and Tellabs 8600 family of transport nodes. We started in 2009 with an innovation meeting where we came up with the idea of connecting the solutions, Alois Zellner, global Zellner explained. We were looking for ways to bring partner manager, additional value to the customer. NSN at Tellabs Initially, NSN and Tellabs conducted tests on equipment in NSN labs in Italy and Finland and then moved on to testing in live customer environments. The tests looked at the performance of FlexiPacket MWRs connected to Tellabs 8605, 8620 and 8630 access switches including the integration of NSNs Transport Network Management System (TNMS) with the Tellabs 8000 Intelligent Network Manager (INM) for an Usually when end-to-end view. you perform The first goal was simply to understand how interoperability the companies can map services, Dalgliesh said. We looked at questions like how to deal with testing, a lot mapping takes place and how we can roll out virtual LANs and how to use Layer 2 mapping of changes networks quickly and efficiently with good with the Tellabs 8605 switch, for example, he are necessary, quality of service. explained. The companies ran services looking but our In Indonesia, which is a huge market for packet loss, delays and other issues that connections for us, close to 100% of the individual base could affect synchronization. stations are connected by microwave, The next step was mapping services in a worked right Dalgliesh said. In North America, maybe only more constructive way so that we were able to from the 20% to 30% of connections are done with look at quality of service, Dalgliesh said. During beginning. microwave. The other 80% are either copper this second phase of testing, Tellabs and NSN or fiber. mapped Pseudowires across the equipment. The main driver for adoption of both FlexiPacket MWR Still another aspect of testing focused on resiliency. and the Tellabs 8600 system is the ever-increasing demand We needed to understand what would happen if we for higher data rates among mobile subscribers. built a network using a slightly different configuration, Smartphones and USB sticks are driving mobile Dalgliesh said. If, for example, we wanted a resilient broadband, Dalgliesh said. These subscribers start to microwave network, what would we have to do on the look like a DSL subscriber. They e-mail all day, and then Tellabs side to deal with issues like protection and their kids Web browse at night. They are 24-hour, highload-sharing? speed mobile data users. Once lab testing was complete, Tellabs and NSN moved And that makes ensuring end-to-end quality of service on to testing with customers in live environments. Vodafone increasingly important. In order to offer end-to-end quality was one of the first companies to test the interoperability. of service, you have to figure out how to map services in the Vodafone has an NSN microwave aggregation network and aggregation network, Dalgliesh said. Thats exactly what NSN uses Tellabs for its mobile backhaul, so they were a good and Tellabs have done through joint interoperability testing. first customer, Dalgliesh explained. Tellabs and NSN have worked together on mobile Both Tellabs and NSN are pleased with the test transport solutions for more than 10 years, so each results so far. I was really happy with how quickly the interoperability worked, Zellner said. Usually when you perform interoperability testing, a lot of changes label switching aTm: asynchronous are necessary, but our connections worked right from Transfer Mode OpEx: Operating expenses the beginning. DSl: Digital subscriber line QoS: Quality of service Lab testing and customer testing will continue for the HSpa: high-speed Packet access rNC: Radio network Controller ip: Internet Protocol foreseeable future, Zellner added. TDm: Time Division Multiplexing mplS: Multiprotocol This will be ongoing; its not a finite process, he said.

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