ECI Telecom broadens mobile backhaul options

ECI Telecom this week laid out an expanded set of options for mobile operators and backhaul providers to move toward more packet-based infrastructures while recognizing that not every company – despite dire needs for backhaul data capacity – is able to move in that direction at the same pace.

ECI’s overall solution is dubbed 1Net and supports jumping right into an all-packet network, overlaying packet capabilities to handle data traffic or capabilities to get as much as possible out of existing TDM networks.

“We support a very transitional approach. Operators want to get to the next generation of mobile backhaul, but they need to figure out the best way to do it,” said Rafael Francis, vice president of marketing-Americas for ECI Telecom. The “best” approach typically “varies operator to operator and sometimes even within an operator. If they are trying to serve a metro area and have access to fiber and more demand for broadband services, they might go one route. If they have rural type customers, a microwave or copper-based solution might make sense.”

For operators, mobile backhaul choices represent an extremely strategic decision – impacted by business goals, competitive scenarios and customer demands – yet at the same time has a big impact on straightforward operational issues as well. For instance, moving to a packet backhaul infrastructure might deliver cheaper (opex-wise), more flexible and more dynamic bandwidth for supporting exploding mobile data needs, but at the same time going all-in with packet represents a major capital expenditure and also poses significant operational challenges for operators as well, Francis said.

The desire to keep minimizing operational disruptions is in large part behind ECI’s support for MPLS-TP in the latest release of its Ethernet switch/routers. “In the past, wireless backhaul has definitely been more transport-oriented, with things like T-1, E-1, SDH and Sonet,” Francis said. “With packet backhaul [via] IP/MPLS, it brings a new complexity. MPLS-TP, meanwhile, is a more transport-optimized flavor of MPLS. It’s an operational paradigm that operators are much more accustomed to.”

ECI Telecom is delivering MPLS-TP via two new switches in its 9000 family of carrier Ethernet switches: the SR9600 metro aggregation switch and BG9300 cell site access platform. The switches actually support both IP/MPLS and MPLS-TP, in addition to a variety of synchronization schemes, circuit emulation for TDM traffic services, and end-to-end management to support both pure-packet and existing TDM services.

The vendors’ other major addition this week is a new in-house-developed microwave platform: the BG-Wave Series of packet and hybrid platforms. The BG-Wave supports Ethernet/MPLS switch, ADM, digital cross connect and circuit emulation service within the same platform – which means it fits in with ECI’s larger vision of supporting a transitional approach to mobile backhaul, Francis said.

Other platforms in the 1Net family of backhaul solutions include the XDM and BroadGate families of multi-service and packet optical platforms (which added an additional switch this week, the Hybrid+) for native handling of both Ethernet and TDM traffic, as well as the Hi-FOCuS family of multi-service access nodes, for leveraging DSL/GPON networks.

ECI offers a unified network management system (dubbed LightSoft) for managing all of its backhaul platforms, as well as a series of consulting, planning and network design services to help carriers – especially smaller operators – put together their future packet backhaul infrastructures.

“Everybody is trying to get to pure packet backhaul, but there are different phases and different ways to get there,” Francis said. “That’s why ours is a much more consultatitive approach. We aren’t coming with one solution. We’re asking what’s your existing infrastructure look like, what are you business plans and needs. We can come to a solution that will best fit your needs.”