It all started two weeks ago in a sudden phone call. On the line was an MEF marketing manager asking me if I wanted to represent MEF in the TNMO Conference in London, speaking about CE 2.0 initiatives related to mobile backhaul. Do I want to speak on mobile backhaul? And on behalf of MEF? What is there to think about?

Two days later, I had my travel arrangements sorted out, and off we went.

MEF is putting a lot of focus on pushing and aligning its standards, educational papers and implementation agreements with the fast paced progress of the mobile backhaul environment. MEF 22.1 is an implementation agreement that was written to address some of the LTE and even 3G requirements, highlighting and recommending the requirements on resiliency and protection, service management, performance objectives and cross Class of Service (CoS) level service mapping.
Other updates have been made concerning time synchronization paper enhancing the latest requirements needed to meet LTE and LTE-Advanced standards. Time synchronization techniques are going to be even more challenging in the next couple of years with the introduction of more stringent accuracy requirements needed to support new functionality, like LTE coordinated multipoint (CoMP) and inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC). It looks like SyncE is becoming the de-facto requirement regarding frequency synchronization, while phase synchronization issues are still far from reaching a consensus.

While a few years ago, you still saw legacy solutions presented at these shows, it looks like the world is now fully packetized and most operators have stated that regardless of the physical medium (copper, microwave or fiber) all backhaul is becoming Ethernet based. Two important trends we see is that SLA assurance is being widely adopted, and there is growing need to increase network visibility.

Another interesting topic that is picking up is the C-RAN architecture adaptation. Some of you may remember, but I addressed the C-RAN architecture almost 2 years ago when we analyzed the backhaul requirements of C-RAN architecture and pointed out the required functionality in Better Backhaul to the Cell Site White Paper

Now the focus is not only on backhaul, but also on Fronthaul. Fronthual is the connection between the base band unit (BBU) and remote radio head (RRU). This connection combines high capacity requirements (few gigs) and a very low latency budget. As the fiber availability dramatically affects the business viability of C-RAN based solutions in countries that do not have large fiber infrastructure, it is not surprising that the first real deployments are done in Korea, Japan and China, where there is a high viability of fiber.

C-RAN architecture reduces operational costs (OPEX) and eliminates X2 backhaul traffic, which increases network and resource efficiency, thus making it a very attractive technology. C-RAN architecture is creating high interest from both operator and vendor communities, which may lead to new technologies that will overcome these fiber and latency challenges.

And last but not least, small cells.

There is no question in the market if small cells will be deployed – just how and when. It is very clear now that small cells will become a vital element in the operator toolset, handling the new data requirements of their networks.

Few mobile operators have presented the current situation and their small cells plans. Some wireline providers, like Virgin Media and Colt, have introduced their vision and future plans on backhauling small cells and even offering the small cells as a service. In some places, where fiber availability is limited, small cells are very attractive as wireless backhaul solutions, and some of the vendors have introduced new E-band and V-bands solutions. In small cells as well as in the macro cell casewe clearly hear the mobile operators declare “fiber when you can, microwave when you can’t”.

Small cells also impose a greater challenge for mobile backhaul service security, provisioning and traffic engineering, so there is a growing trend of extracting IP/MPLS services further into the network edge.

To learn more about small cells solutions, I encourage you to listen to this webinar.

Seems like a lot of challenges still lie ahead, but new technologies, new concepts and new solutions are also arriving – so it is going to be a very interesting year.

This last month was full of action, personally as well as professionally, as another peak has now arrived for Telco Systems with the launch of our new next generation mobile backhaul product, the T-Marc 3312SC, at Ethernet Expo Americas 2012 in the storm-recovering NYC.

When we first discussed this product, we wanted to bring to the market something disruptive, that will help our customers face the mobile data tsunami and support them in their efforts in introducing innovative technologies like small cells.

We wanted something smaller.
We wanted something denser.
We wanted something smarter.

T-Marc 3312SC

We’ve heard from our customers that they are looking for something that will fit a small footprint, but at the same time, will provide high density to support a variety of deployment scenarios, especially the combination of Macro cells and small cells, and the convergence of 2G /3G networks. Furthermore, they want their products to have the brains to support assured SLA, very high quality of service (QoS) and time synchronization.

Our engineers really pulled it together and managed to push 12x1G ports + 8xE1/T1 CES ports into a 1 RU high, half-shelf wide box that consumes very low power – thus lowering operating expenses (OPEX). Despite its small size, we insisted not to compromise its functionality, and managed to continue to extend MPLS to the demarcation point implementing full standard MPLS control plane signaling. On top of that, the T-Marc 3312SC offers very sophisticated and flexible HQoS (hierarchical QoS), as assuring SLA is key when replacing the legacy TDM networks and being a part of the mobile network infrastructure.

Resiliency is also mandatory in such a critical location, so dual redundant power supplies are implemented, as well as a variety of protection mechanisms like FRR, dual homing and secondary path for MPLS; G.8031, G.8032, and xSTP for Carrier Ethernet, and of course link aggregation (LAG).

Operation, administration and maintenance (OAM) technologies are being widely adopted in deployments around the world. They enable providers to reduce OPEX by doing real-time service testing during service activation and troubleshooting using embedded RFC-2544 and Y.1564 test heads. The OAM tools also enable service monitoring using Y.1731, which provides fault management, diagnostics and performance management. And of course, as a mobile backhaul demarcation device, the T-Marc 3312SC supports the required time synchronization and CES to substantiate  a smooth migration of the legacy 2G / 3G equipment that’s already installed.

As for my personal peak, when we showed this device to Telco Systems’ CEO, he asked me “Well, what will you tell the customers this device does best?”

So I answered “It was designed to run…” and then continued, “their mobile traffic”. 

He said “Prove it”.

So I had to… I had to prove to him that it was “designed to run”….

So I ran the Amsterdam Marathon.

The mobile data crunch has created a real need for more and more bandwidth. Since there is a limit to what can be done to defeat physics, this increase in demand has created a need for a new paradigm in mobile networks’ architectures. One possible solution is the “small cell” – a smaller version of the traditional base station in size, cost and transmission power (so the covered radius is smaller too). The magic is that the spectral efficiency of the small base stations is higher, allowing them to send more bits on a specific spectrum bandwidth. Using a higher average transmission modulation than a typical macro cell results in high average bandwidth in small coverage areas over the same frequency band.

New Concepts Bring New Challenges – New Challenges Bring New Solutions

As a result of the limited coverage radius and the deployment methodology, the number of “small cells” will be higher in an order of magnitude than the “macro cells” number. This new scale of RAN and mobile networks calls for new types of technologies – dynamic in nature, and able to handle this large scale. Examples for such technologies are Self-Organizing Networks (SON) and MPLS to the cell site.

SON is an industry term for technology aimed to ease the configuration, manageability, optimization, and healing of the radio access networks (RAN). One of the real paradigm changes SON introduces is the fact that the dynamic processes may now negotiate configuration parameters that were only set manually in the past by the operators. This is a major change from the current work done by RF planning engineers who carefully (and manually) engineer and optimize their RF network. Although SON functionality is being integrated as part of the 3GPP standards, there are implementation differences between the different vendors.

Bringing MPLS to the cell site requires similar paradigm changes – getting people to accept a dynamically configured network as opposed to a statically configured one. As packet-based transport technologies are replacing the old SONET/SDH transport technologies, there are few technologies to choose from in the mobile backhaul space. Operators often choose to adopt static technologies as this was the way they used to work with SONET/ SDH networks. This causes some to perceive the dynamic nature of MPLS not as an advantage, but rather as a disadvantage. Is it the time to change that mindset? We, as well as many carriers, believe the answer is yes.

MPLS brings a compelling functionality advantage to the table. As the core “de-facto” technology, MPLS is a mature, field proven, and more importantly, interoperable technology. It offers higher service scalability and better security. It also provides the dynamic nature of routing combined with the low delay and jitter performance associated with switching. MPLS was designed to provide high resiliency (sub 50ms using Fast ReRoute [FRR] and dual homing, for example) and extend it from the core to the edge, simplifying the network resiliency so operators can avoid switching between the MPLS and Ethernet protection mechanisms. MPLS was designed for very high levels of traffic engineering. In fact, as it has such dynamic and rich traffic engineering capabilities, it can really help to reduce OPEX as it better utilizes the physical infrastructure and can autonomously adopt to changes in the networks.

Up until now, the major claims against MPLS to the edge were higher CAPEX costs, and more complex operations. However, the new Telco Systems’ solutions dramatically reduce MPLS price differences compared to Ethernet solutions. Moreover, there is an increasing amount of MPLS-educated engineers who have a better understanding of the technology and its potential to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), making it easier to deploy than in the past. Market pressure to reduce expenses and increase mobile network scales are a key driver in the increasing demand for MPLS to the cell site.

“Small cells” is a hot topic in the mobile world today as it presents one of the possible solutions to help mobile providers cope with the mobile data demand tsunami. Changing business environments call for changing paradigms that can only be achieved by adopting novel technologies and concepts like SON and MPLS to the cell site. Operators who don’t adopt fast enough may find it harder and costlier to do so further down the road, and may struggle to offer a competitive solution to their customers.

We hope that you’ll stop by our Booth #G3 at Broadband World Forum 2012 to share your view of these options and the way you are planning to integrate them in your network, and to discuss the experiences and deployment plans we’ve heard from other operators and mobile backhaul providers like yourself.

Related Info: WHITE PAPER: Better Backhaul with MPLS to the Cell Site

Now, when the suitcases have been unpacked, I have some time to share the emerging trends we saw at CommunicAsia 2012. The main focus at the show was the transition of the market from TDM to packet based networks.

These are exciting times for Telco Systems, as a Carrier Ethernet and MPLS solution based company. But what were the main trends we’ve spotted at the show in the edge of the networks?

Here are some that I’ve captured:

First, extending MPLS to the edge is certainly starting to pick up with carriers and mobile operators, considering extension of their IP/MPLS cores to the edge of their networks.   Several major vendors, Cisco, Juniper and Telco Systems now provide customers the ability to migrate their TDM networks to packet based technology all the way to the edge of their networks.  There are several reasons customers are adopting this strategy: First is the need forscalability one of MPLS biggest values, especially in APAC where the scale of the edge networks can be huge. Secondly, MPLS’ dynamic and intelligent nature leads to highly elastic networks to help operators address today’s dynamic bandwidth requirements due to the mobile data explosion. Lastly, many in the industry believe that MPLS has a better price /performance ratio in terms of TCO for a converged network technology.

Another trend we saw in the show was the increasing demand for extended OAM functionality.  As operators are motivated to deliver premium services with differential CoS, they are required to prove to their customers not only the actual SLA, but also proofs and measurements (sometimes in near real time resolution) that their purchased SLA is being delivered. We’ve found Y.1731 measurements are used by our customers to count numerous SLA parameters and present end-to-end results to their end-user customers through various portals and service management tools such as our EdgeGenie system. Other tools like embedded RFC2544 test heads within the edge devices are used to minimize the track rolls and installation time, as the majority of actions can now be done from the central office rather than customer premises.

And finally, one of the hottest topics in the mobile industry was “small cells”.  The Cell site capacity and bandwidth crunch combined with the cost and availability of enough frequencies, calls for more creative distributed solutions in addition to typical macro cell deployments.

The term “Small cells” appeared to have a very broad meaning and it was very hard to meet operators with the same definitions and perception on what their “small cell” strategy would entail.  Whether it was femto, pico, carrier Wi-Fi or a combination of these new small cells technologies in combination with macro cell deployments, it was clear that most operators now recognize that limited spectrum coupled with the sheer cost/coverage model of only using macro cells cannot scale.

There is a large debate today in the industry how to differentiate pico cells and femto cells, and based on the discussion we had in the show I want to offer my interpretation: I will call “pico” to the cells that are owned and operated by the operators and “femto” to the cells that are not owned or operated by the mobile operators. Each of these categories presents different challenges in term of installation, radio planning and deployments, but will also use different backhaul technologies. Although most of the industry focus today is more around the RAN part of the small cells, some operators have realized that backhaulthe small cells traffic is a major challenge.  We started hearing more questions of the efficiency of PON in the “pico” scenario, especially around the latency, delay and jitter requirements of the LTE X2 interface.

Carrier Ethernet and MPLS are being considered and evaluated, each with its pros and cons as they bring better answer to this specific application. Also the devices size power consumption , physical attributes and obviously price are being looked at. So not only in the initial  CAPEX investment , but also the OAM capability to lower the operator ongoing OPEX, together with the TCO model. I think that this year we’ll see more focus around small cells backhaul and variety of vendors are trying to address the challenges with novel solutions and products (for example Symmetricom’s new small cell announcement just following the show)

While 3G data and 4G LTE continues to proliferate across APAC and mobile data continues to double year over year through rapid adoption of smartphones, it is clear some type of small cell strategy will be required to keep up with the demand.  As carriers and mobile operators deploy small cells, it was also recognized that while that may solve the spectrum and rate/reach issue when deploying 4G wireless, it  still will undoubtedly require significant” last mile or now last quarter mile” requirements for backhaul to these new smaller cell sites.   How this gets solved is still up for debate.  Maybe at the next show….;-)

I want to thank all of our guests and also our neighbors from MetaSwitch that brought these amazing guys to keep us in the EUROCUP atmosphere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OBVEQatP6c

2011 has left the North American mobile operators breathless. A wide adoption of smart phone, exponential increase in smart devices (phones , tablets, game consoles), and rapid growth of Smartphone  applications have compounded to make the mobile economy very dynamic.  Mobile data usage and the LTE deployment trials have driven operators’ to address bandwidth shortages for mobile backhaul.   More importantly, carriers are now faced with the realization that there is true need for network change to support the troika of the new mobile economy tsunami:  How to manage and adapt their networks to support the convergence of Mobile broadband, smart device growth and applications adoption. ( CLICK HERE to download the WHITE PAPER)

The first quarter of 2012 was no different, with exciting applications like Instagram being added to Android (later acquired by Facebook) or Apple announcing iPad3 with LTE connectivity.  The rapid rise of smart devices and applications acceptance has been staggering

Other markets are also following, some with slightly different characteristics, for example the Asia Pacific market where in many countries the mobile device is the only broadband access device used. In Western  Europe we see similar to North America all of the tier 1 players gearing up for the challenge with frequent announcements on LTE trails and new networks deployments, all boosting up  the demand to the amazing predicted 92% CAGR in 5 years.

Change is expected in almost all aspects of the network (maybe beside the OSS / BSS) as a result of this massive growth and convergence of smart device technology, mobile broadband, applications and content acceptance. To address the mobile broadband arena, carriers are adapting their networks through a number of mechanisms:

RAN technology is moving forward with HSPA+, progressing to LTE and later LTE Advanced to accommodate up to 1Gig downlink bandwidth. It is ironic that the needs are changing so fast that while LTE is hardly commercialized, the next gen “advanced” generation is already being introduced.  The fast pace of the changing technologies may cause some operators to skip some technological generations while others will have even bigger mix of technologies in their network. For example

Mobile architecture is changing, with new concepts entering the market, such as “small cell” and “Cloud RAN.” The Evolved Packet Core (EPC) concept of flat, all-IP-based network also has caught on as LTE offerings mandate an end-to-end IP service. Such architecture will enable easier introduction and creation of new services to support new business models, partnerships, and deployment options .

As a result, the mobile backhaul space is going through considerable change, but as oppose to the RAN and Packet core, which has been well defined by the 3GPP standard body, mobile backhaul wasn’t defined at all, leaving the operators with multiple technological options each offer different values and disadvantages.  Two standard bodies are addressing the mobile backhaul technology space: the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) with MEF22.1 and the new CE2.0 initiative which promotes assured services, OAM, and network to network interconnection for Carrier Ethernet as the transport technology, and the Broadband Forum’s TR-221 specification for MPLS use in mobile backhaul networks.  (See http://www.telco.com/blog/?p=310 for CE 2.0 ,  BBF’s TR-221 http://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/download/TR-221.pdf )

Why operators are looking for change of backhaul technology?

The rising data use forces many mobile operators to massively invest in the network infrastructure in order to remain competitive, despite the fact that they can’t link this capital investment to increase of revenues to minimize churn. Since data traffic is taking the higher share of the operator networks, there is a need to migrate the backhaul links to technologies that are more efficient in delivering these services as well and supporting the exponential growth in the demand.

Competition is fierce not only with the mobile operators traditional competitors but also with new types of competition.  Over-The-Top (OTT) applications providers (GoogleVoice, Skype, texting applications) threaten their traditional services (Voice, SMS and video conferencing). As competition is moving into the mobile operator playfield, some operators are looking outside of their traditional market and taking advantage of their infrastructure to offer fixed connectivity services to business customers. The combination of these two elements has driven the backhaul providers to offer improved backhaul offerings with various new characteristics to assure bandwidth is managed more efficiently and judiciously for customer based SLA agreements

Today, mobile backhaul is provided not only by the mobile operators but rather a combination of the mobile operators and other service providers providing services to the mobile operators. These operators or carrier’s carriers, have networks based on variety of physical transport such as cable, copper, fiber, wireless as well as multiple technologies such as DOCSIS, ActiveE, xDSL, xPON. Some new players have joined this market (Utilities  and pure wholesale providers) utilizing  their existing network footprint to change the costs models for new service offerings as a result of   implementing FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) based networks.

What are the mobile backhaul technology requirements?

The mobile network combines multiple technology generations including 2G, 3G and 4G –which may co-exist in the same cell or in different cells. Any technology that is selected must offer a seamless migration path from TDM to packet based transport as well as to support maintenance of carrying TDM over the packet network. As each mobile macro cell serves large amounts of customers and some aggregation points may even serve multiple base stations, operators and cell sites must implement transport protocol(s) that can provide high resiliency support with sub 50 ms recovery time.

While there are many technological options, there is one common denominator, and that is that all options are packet based technologies. As mobile backhaul evolves together with the mobile network, and new application requirements are presented, operators need to choose their next generation mobile backhaul networking solution. For the most part, there are two main mature options, IP/MPLS solution and L2 Carrier Ethernet network. As the network grows with more mobile cells (big and many new small cell technologies), scalability can become a limiting factor in the use of L2 Ethernet E-Line, tree, or E-LAN connections  as large numbers of cells may become difficult to manage and maintain . In this article we will focus on the use and benefits of IP/MPLS to the cell site for mobile backhaul.

Why extend MPLS to the cell site?

MPLS was created to combine the best of two worlds: ATM switching and IP routing. MPLS decouples the data plane from the control plane; it is a connection-oriented technology, so the connection has to be established prior to the data’s delivery. The MPLS control plane establishes the connection by signaling through each hop along the path. MPLS has significant traffic engineering capabilities that can be used to provide end-to-end service-level-agreement (SLA) assurance. The MPLS data plane switches the packets based on MPLS labels that  are carried inside a 32-bit MPLS header.

IP/MPLS is the de-facto standard in the core today and while most edge and access networks will be L2, rapid changes due to the dynamic nature of mobile connectivity have forced operators to understand that MPLS needs can be extended to the access and aggregation layers for easier control, resiliency, redundancy, and scalability of their overall networks.

Offering MPLS at the edge of the network for mobile backhaul service provides multiple advantages:

Maximize Scalability – MPLS is highly scalable.  The 20-bit label allows for over one million LSPs per node.  With each node changing the label and reusing labels, practically infinite LSP numbers can be supported. By using VPWS or VPLS (virtual private wire/line services) such a network can support thousands of customers and each customer can have a different logical topologies. H-VPLS technology further increases the scalability by segmenting the network into several partitions each concentrating into the VPLS hub that are fully meshed between themselves.

In contrast, Ethernet’s 12-bit VLAN tags allow for 4K VLANs per switch.  VLAN stacking (Q-in-Q) allows for 4K customer VLANs to be carried in 4K provider VLANs.  Since each customer is likely to use multiple VLAN IDs, the number of customers that can be supported is quite limited.

Dynamic Path Creation – MPLS is a connection oriented technology. Which means that the path between two points has to be established prior to the traffic passing. The path creation is handled by control plane protocols (namely LDP and RSVP variants), starting from the source LER (Label Edge Router), traversing the LSR (Label Switch Routers) all the way through the destination LER. These protocols base their path creation on the dynamic routing information exchange between peers. The dynamic nature of MPLS minimizes the service creation time while increasing the network scalability, as most of the work is done by dynamic protocols. This will ease the manageability of the network as path creation if done by configuration only the end devices.

If you’re interesting to read more on this topic CLICK HERE to download the WHITE PAPER

An interesting market research published by Akamai and Ericsson shows the state of fixed and mobile broadband market worldwide. It was interesting to see in report that while it is hard to compare mobile and fixed broadband (different penetration level, different user mix), the bandwidth differences are interesting.

In the second quarter of 2011 average connection speeds on known mobile providers ranged from 5.3 Mbps down to 209 kbps. Average peak connection speeds ranged from 23.4 Mbps down to 1.2 Mbps. On fixed line broadband the global average connection speed was 2.6 Mbps, and the global average peak connection speed was 11.4 Mbps.

So while in many places mobile broadband is still very slow in many others worldwide it is high and exceeds the fixed data link. This is evidence to the growing need for higher bandwidth from mobile providers (no real surprise there). We see different providers approaching it with a variety of solutions, or combination of solutions including: increased deployments of LTE based solutions, offloading (when possible) traffic to local WiFi links, and creation of smaller cell sites (pico cells) for condensed areas to offload the macro cell. On top of that providers are looking on future solutions and architectures like C-RAN (should be link) that will allow them to combine these solutions in a more economical way.

What other methods do you see operators use?

Enterprise applications like telepresence, data center outsourcing, and cloud computing are pushing service providers to go beyond selling just connectivity or ‘dumb pipe’ to selling services. However in order to generate revenue, providers need cost effective solutions that support multiple services each having its own SLA. To meet the required level of service, the provider must honor certain OAM attributes for delay, jitter and packet loss.

OAM (Operations, Administration and Maintenance) allows service providers to measure and verify the SLA to the customer. It also provides a means to efficiently monitor and manage the network, saving on operational costs. These OAM attributes have been implemented into Carrier Ethernet making it the technology of choice for many service providers.

Get a FREE copy of this White Paper, addresses the different OAM standards and the advantages to allow better service verification and management

Carrier Ethernet networks today are migrating from being uni-service network (i.e., best effort) to being a multi-service network (prioritized). In order to run a multi-service network the carrier needs a mechanism that allows him to enforce QoS policies per user per service.

HQoS allows the carrier to make sure each service gets the network resources it needs while coexisting on the same network infrastructure with other types of services. An additional value of HQoS is the ability to share unused network resources between different services. This optimizes network resources while keeping the same level of service and eliminates allocating bandwidth to unused services.

Watch this video to learn more on our HQoS solution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXvgWPwBJNg

What is HQoS and how is it different from QoS?

HQoS is a tiered quality of service technology that classifies and schedules traffic based on service type and/or COS.

HQoS allows a carrier to consolidate different services on the same physical box on the same physical infrastructure.  This is mainly done by the ability to have a policy per service, or even a policy inside a service.  We can look at different packet types and different flows and give them the correct priority, the correct bandwidth requirements and the correct policy requirements.

Classical QoS examines the packet puts it into a queue and runs a scheduling method – strict priority, weighted round robin or other technology.  It is limited to 8 queues and 1 level of scheduling and priority.

HQoS on the other hand can have 2 to 4 levels of scheduling and prioritization This means that you can look at each service individually for each customer.  While you may have only one big pipe for services, you can give the customer smaller pipes each one for a different application, each one with its own prioritization requirements, each one with its own quality of service policy.

Why is HQoS needed?

In a today’s network, carriers need to run bandwidth hungry application like video services, alongside time sensitive applications voice over IP services or wireless backhaul traffic.  Each of these services has its own set of requirements.  Wireless backhaul is very sensitive to fluctuations in the packet stream because it relies on synchronization and it’s a voice-based application.  The same is true for voice over IP.  Delay in a voice over IP environment would basically kill the service.  On the other hand, video applications are bursty and delay doesn’t matter if the traffic is buffered.  But from a bandwidth perspective, it is very demanding. Any congestion in the network will prevent a video from running.

If you add business customers on the same infrastructure, each business customer has their own SLA and their own requirements – some run different services – some combine voice applications with storage applications, with critical data applications like bank transactions that require specific quality of service demands.

For example, HQoS is implemented on our T-Marc 300 at the demarcation level.  It can serve up to 10 customers and each customer can run up to 64 different services. So you can imagine for each port a different customer can be connected, and underneath this port, virtual lines would run different services, and each service can actually receive its own policy regardless of the same service in a different customer.  So rather than having a single policy for voice, one for video, one for critical data, you can define a policy per customer per service rather than relying on a single policy per service globally.

What types of transport technologies can utilize HQoS?

Telco Systems today supports HQoS on QinQ, 802.1ad & VPLS transport technologies.

Provisioning multiple services, with the associated policies sounds complex.  What’s the easiest way to implement HQoS?

We visualize our devices as service machines. This means that the device transports services across the network. Using our service management system the EdgeGenie the user only needs to engineer a few general HQoS service package policies which can then be re-used on all other devices. Whenever a new service is added the technician only needs to apply the HQoS policy name and participating customers  in the service and the policy is implemented across the path. This saves time and eliminates mistakes that might occur for each new service that is being added.

How can HQoS help a cellular wireless operator support more services?

Cell towers are sometimes located in good strategic places like industrial parks or city centers, where the operator might want to start offering business services alongside with its cell tower traffic. One of the main challenges in such an installation is how to make sure that the sensitive cell traffic will not be affected by the new business services running on the same infrastructure. In this example, each type of traffic has its own subsets of internal priority flows and bandwidth constraints. It is exactly in these types of applications where HQoS can support such a mixture of services, allowing each of them to get the required resources and quality.