NEC plots future path for integrated backhaul
Adds high end aggregation unit to iPasolink platform, looks towards small cell RANs
Published: 10 February, 2011
One of the key themes of next week's Mobile World Congress is going to be the new way of designing modern wireless networks, focusing on small cells and flexible networks. While Alcatel-Lucent has hit the headlines in this respect this week, NEC has been pushing the small cell idea for some time, and sees it as a route to increase its presence in the RAN market at the LTE stage. Of course, NEC is a far bigger force in the transport part of the network, and it plans to increase its competitive advantage this year by adapting its microwave and optical backhaul platforms for the new-style RANs.
"We believe NEC will have a big advantage in small cells for LTE, and we have to think in terms of how that affects backhaul," commented Dejan Bojic, senior product manager at NEC Europe. "We will have news later this year."
This could add another dimension to a backhaul offering that has become more broad-ranging and also more integrated over the past six months, since NEC unveiled its iPasolink common platform. This spans packet microwave and packet optical technologies, reaching from the cell site almost to the core, and supporting IP/Ethernet alongside legacy TDM traffic. The first product was the iPasolink 200, a small unit for the network edge, and this was followed last month by the 400, for low level aggregation sites, and now the MWC debut of the 1000, a far heftier unit that takes NEC further into the transport network itself, at high level aggregation sites. The 1000 supports native TDM and Ethernet, and a wide range of interface options including 10Gbps Ethernet and CWDM.
The next stage will be the shipment of a network management system for the whole system. This will bring together the various units and ease the migration of the installed NEC microwave base to IP. It will also be important as operators' complex data requirements demand greater intelligence in the backhaul network, and as highly intelligent aggregation site units need to be mapped by an NMS onto more basic edge platforms.
"Next part of the solution for consideration is a compact all-outdoor unit for low cost last mile deployments, where "the tail link is a simple packet pipe", as Bojic put it. More speculative is the potential to add an even higher end unit to the range, above the 1000, which would penetrate further into the metro and core network. This is still under discussion, and involves the "debate over where the core stops and aggregation begins", said Bojic, who acknowledged that the product requirements of such a move - as well as the competitive threats - would be very different.
NEC also announced that Russian cellco VimpelCom would deploy iPasolink for its current, and possibly future LTE, networks in the central, northwest and Volga regions of the country.
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