Alcatel-Lucent upgrades mobile core network offerings

Stuart Corner
Monday, 22 March 2010 10:08

IT Industry - Market

Alcatel-Lucent has ramped up its play for the core of future mobile networks with upgrades to its mobile packet core networking products and new IP network management products that enable these to operate on both current and future mobile networks.

Alcatel-Lucent's product announcements are targeted at the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) the technology will underpin tomorrow's LTE mobile networks, and beyond, by making these all IP based: from radio base station to application.

Alcatel-Lucent announced its main routing product for the EPC last year and in its latest announcement quotes Peter Jarich, service director with market research firm, Current Analysis, saying: "While we applauded Alcatel-Lucent's entry into the EPC space last year, we encouraged the company to expand its solution into 2G/3G operations to better serve their mobile broadband customers and best leverage their expertise in the radio access network, IP core and vendor services spaces.

"The new solution expansion does just that. More importantly, [Alcatel-Lucent] positioning its gateways alongside policy and analytics tools helps to deliver a fuller mobile packet core solution – and helps operators with the service differentiation they're all chasing."

The new products, know collectively as the Alcatel-Lucent Ultimate Wireless Packet Core include:

- 2G and 3G GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node) functionality on Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 service router-based mobile packet core gateways. This now supports GGSN for GPRS/EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE. It is claimed to deliver more than ten times the performance and scale of typical 3G packet core gateways and to have been in global LTE trials since 2009. It will be available for commercial delivery of 2G, 3G and LTE services in the second half of 2010.

- The new Alcatel-Lucent Wireless Mobility Manager (WMM) that can manage 2.5G/3G SGSN (Serving GPRS Support Node) and LTE MME (Mobility Management Entity) on an in-house designed and optimised, common ATCAv2 platform. According to Alcatel-Lucent, "This combined functionality enables operators to expand or renovate their existing packet cores to support HSPA and HSPA+ today while having the signalling and control plane performance required of an MME when they migrate to LTE."

- The new Alcatel-Lucent 5780 Dynamic Services Controller (DSC), provides the 3G and LTE PCRF (policy charging and rules function). According to Alcatel Lucent, this enables mobile operators to optimise and monetise network resources, while offering personalised choice for the subscriber in both a 3G and LTE environment. It also "provides the foundation for converged wireline/wireless policy management to enable any application on any screen, anywhere." 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.