Mobile Networks - Evolving to all-IP Backbone

Mobile operators have made substantial investments in legacy protocols. Third generation (3G) data networking have brought carriers into the IP world and fourth generation (4G) data will require an all-IP backbone. Though a considerable amount of knowledge about IP has been accumulated within mobile operators, their IP investment is relatively young when compared to both IP itself and their respective legacy protocols and infrastructure.

This report targets primarily network design teams within mobile operators and assumes that the reader has a good understanding of IP protocols and related technologies; it addresses most, if not all, of the problems and questions that such teams will face while evolving a legacy backbone into an all-IP one. More specifically, the following subjects are addressed:

• Optimising an IP network for use as a backbone for a mobile operator: Not all IP networks can deliver either the functionality or the critical level of performance that a mobile backbone requires. This section focus on the elements that should be fine-tuned and modified so as to produce the desired behaviour.
• MPLS Traffic Engineering as a method to maximise the ROI and effectively utilise all available resources within the network. The benefits that pseudo-wires (PWE3) introduced.
• OSS/NMS enhancements to support the new functionality
• VoIP - migrating from a circuit switched voice transport into VoIP transport:
• Pre-requisites imposed on the IP backbone.
• The effect of codecs on the service and how their parameters should match each network
• How to calculate the VoIP bandwidth (hidden overheads) starting from the traffic on the legacy network
• Mobile backhaul: How to use the IP backbone to backhaul 3G and 2G traffic
• LTE and IP issues and challenges

The report also presents vendor-specific solutions. For the executive level readers of the report; we also present how each choice affects and impacts budgets and operating expenses and evaluate the companies and the services they offer. The vendors evaluated in the report are: Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, Juniper and Tellabs.

• Understand the optimization path of an IP/MPLS network in order to support transport for a mobile operator
• Learn VoIP details for a legacy operator
• Major vendors review and evaluation in general with regards to the subject and specific for:
• End to end integrated solution
• Time to implement on a network
• Issues and challenges
• Network stability
• Prospective services
• Operational expenses

Questions Answered in the Report:

• Which are the most important VoIP details
• What is the approach of specific vendors (Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper Networks, Tellabs, Cisco Systems)
• How each vendor is measured against the same metrics and how choosing each one would affect budget and operations
• What is a mobile backhaul solution (drivers, technical specification, synchronization and clocking, migrating from a legacy solution)
• How to prepare and optimize an IP/MPLS network to act as a core network for a mobile operator (IGP tuning, MPLS-TE, MPLS VPNs, OSS/NMS, other important details)

Target Audience:

Mobile operators

• Network Design teams working their way from legacy protocols into IP
• Executive Level individuals wanting a concise view of their choices and how these choices could affect their companies

Vendors

• Infrastructure suppliers seeking to better understand the future of IP for mobile operators
• Software developers seeking opportunities for IP based OSS and application software