ALU adds Wi-Fi to lightRadio to address offload flood

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ALU adds Wi-Fi to lightRadio to address offload flood

Leads wave of vendors seeking to support seamless management and experience across cellular networks and WLans

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 15 February, 2012

READ MORE: Core Network | Infrastructure | Wi-Fi

Offloading traffic to Wi-Fi has become a standard tool in operators' boxes as they struggle against rising data levels. But harnessing their own, or third party, WLans comes with clear trade-offs - unreliable quality of experience in congested spectrum, lack of control of the customer; clumsy sign-in routines when users move to the new network. The industry is moving towards fuller integration of Wi-Fi and 3G/4G, to support unified management of both systems and seamless hand-off, first with initiatives like HotSpot 2.0 and finally by incorporating Wi-Fi into full HetNets. With these issues set to be key themes at Mobile World Congress this month, vendors are racing to set out their stalls.

A year after it stole the MWC thunder with its disruptive lightRadio mobile network architecture, Alcatel-Lucent is welcoming Wi-Fi into the family. ALU is integrating Wi-Fi access points tightly into its lightRadio architecture, allowing users to move seamlessly between the two networks and authenticate with both via the SIM card and the emerging HotSpot 2.0 specifications. There is no need for a special client at the device end and the network can automatically select the best connection based on various criteria such as congestion levels or subscription type, or whether the consumer is moving around.

The lightRadio Wi-Fi solution is based on ALU's 7750 service edge router, which now gains a Wi-Fi gateway, plus new software for the firm's policy manager, the 5780 Dynamic Services Controller. The latter will now support teh 3GPP's ANDSF (automatic network discovery and selection function). ALU will support Wi-Fi access points from partners (to be announced) and, in future, metrocells or femotcells running both 3GPP and WLan technologies. The system will support seamless hand-off and allow operators to keep track of their users by keeping them within carrier WLans, rather than offloading them to ISPs with unpredictable quality of experience.

The 7750 gateway and the upgraded policy manager are both in trials now, and will start shipping in the next couple of months. ALU's own lightRadio architecture for cellular systems is in trials with several carriers, including China Mobile and reportedly Sprint, and deconstructs the classic RAN, relying on virtualized baseband processing to support slimmed-down cell site units consisting of integrated antennas and radios. These base stations, with the new Wi-Fi option, will roll out late this year and into 2013.

Meanwhile, BelAir has been in the vanguard of creating carrier class WLans to handle large scale mobile data offload, and has its eyes on a place in the integrated 4G/Wi-Fi network. It has outlined the enhancements to its GigXone platform, which is designed to evolve towards multi-access networks of small cells. The updated system focuses on rapid deployment and simplified management once networks reach thousands of access points, and also boosts capabilities for handling video. New video over WLan hardware features boost buffering speeds by up to 500% and use dedicated video priority queues and video rate adaptation algorithms.

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