The company announced significant upgrades to its mobile packet core solution along with a comprehensive and unique approach to IP network and policy management that will bring the IP capabilities of 4G networks to today’s 3G subscribers.
With the advent of smart phones and bandwidth hungry applications such as real-time video – which together are generating unprecedented growth in mobile data traffic -- service providers are faced with a variety of simultaneous, and often conflicting challenges including: increasing network capacity while reducing the cost per bit of supporting data services; enabling new business models beyond today’s ‘all you can eat’ offerings; and transforming their networks to take advantage of the benefits of the shift to all-IP networks, which offer simplified operational models and reduced complexity.
“As mobile data traffic continues to grow, every part of the network is being strained,” said Peter Jarich, Service Director with Current Analysis and author of the company’s most recent mobile packet core analysis: “Mobile Packet Core: Engine of Mobile Broadband Success.” “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 RAN, IP core and vendor services spaces. The new solution expansion does just that. More importantly, 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 and enhancements announced today deliver best-in-class capabilities at every point in the network, including the 3G and LTE mobile packet core. Service providers will now be able to deliver bandwidth-hungry, enriched and personalized services with enhanced subscriber quality of experience - all with reduced provisioning, operating and maintenance costs across all parts of the network, from the radio access network (RAN) to the backhaul elements and into the packet core.
These developments are an important contributor to the realization of Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage NetworkTM strategy - a fully converged, scalable, next generation, all-IP multiservice infrastructure that enables operators to deliver traffic more reliably, efficiently and at the lowest cost, while also leveraging the network to generate revenue from sophisticated managed services and applications.