Acme turns focus to LTE, media streaming

Acme Packet will use next week’s Mobile World Congress show to define the role its session border controller (SBC) will play in next-generation wireless Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks.

Acme recently provided details on the use of its SBCs in more than 100 IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks worldwide. Many IMS backers, including Acme, are pointing to emerging IP-based LTE networks as the next big opportunity to push IMS architectures and individual components, like SBCs, forward.

At MWC, Acme will talk about the role SBCs can play in the recently unveiled 3GPP Release 8, which includes new guidance on how to link LTE radio access networks to IP core networks. Like all 3GPP networks, the new release provides generic network functions – rather than identifying the specific products and platforms to deliver those functions. That gives service providers some flexibility in deploying 3GPP-based IMS architectures, but it also lends uncertainty to the process, leaving room for vendors to step in with solutions, said Kevin Mitchell, Acme Packet’s director of wireless solutions marketing.

Acme is forwarding its Net-Net platform as a solution for LTE networks, including using its SBC to connect 4G mobile devices to IMS SIP-based services and applications; its multiservice security gateways for securing packets running over those connections; and session routing proxies for providing core session routing for incoming and outgoing SIP sessions, Mitchell said.

In related news, Acme said it has added support for real time streaming protocol (RTSP) proxy capabilities to its platform and has joined the GSM Rich Communications Suite (RCS) initiative, which is helping to define the delivery of rich, multimedia services over IMS networks.