Bigger Fish to Fry

The word tahoe is derived from the Washo Indian word meaning “big water.” Although wireless network equipment start-up Tahoe Networks (www.tahoenetworks.com) is less than a year old, the small fish already is swimming in a big pond. With nearly $40 million in venture capital and an executive team of serial entrepreneurs, the San Jose, CA-based Tahoe has its sights set on a market dominated by heavyweights Ericsson (www.ericsson.com), Lucent (www.lucent.com), Motorola (www.motorola.com), Nokia (www.nokia.com) and Nortel (www.nortel.com).

But that doesn't seem to bother Tahoe co-founders Anthony Alles and Arthur Lin, who in 1999 sold their upstart, Shasta Networks, to rival Nortel for $340 million.

At Shasta, the problem was optimizing broadband networks for the changing needs of ISPs, said CEO Alles. At Tahoe, the goal is similar, but this time, they're fishing for the perfect mobile-data-network solution.

By focusing on the inherent challenges of the mobile Internet edge (MIE), Tahoe will provide scaleable platforms, edge routers and sophisticated network software and operating systems. In other words, Tahoe plans to revolutionize the way data networks meet wireless networks.

“The more we looked at it, we realized that wireless was a really challenging space that is analogous to the problems we had solved at Shasta,” Alles said. “But it would require a very different approach because the mobile networks and the data networks are today so far apart … (We want to) bridge the gap between the mobile world and the data world. That was the challenge that attracted us.”

Convergence, Competition, Cooperation

The wireless-data convergence space has attracted attention from all sides. Traditional telecom network providers such as Lucent and upstarts such as Tahoe now are competing to provide the foundation for high-speed mobile data applications and services.

Tahoe claims its infancy is an advantage over established players, and there are benefits to starting with a clean sheet of paper. On the other hand, restacking the networking power structure is a tall order — even for experienced entrepreneurs.

As Tahoe was finalizing its funding, Lucent was launching its IP-based wireless network solution. In March, Lucent unveiled its Flexent IP Core Network Architecture.

In the phased approach, carriers first would deploy the Lucent Softswitch Toll/Tandem Solution to connect circuit-based MSCs with IP or ATM backbone networks. The softswitch, when combined with a media gateway, allows carriers to move voice traffic off the PSTN and onto their own IP or ATM network infrastructures, thus cutting access fees and charges by more than half, according to Lucent.

The softswitch is a first-step option for carriers migrating to 3G networks that ultimately will be packet based. Future phases include the Flexent Mobility Server and Wireless Router, optimized by Bell Labs for efficient management of 3G networks based on cdma2000 and WCDMA. The new architecture also includes platforms that will enable carriers to deliver enhanced services from third-party developers. The final phase will bring IP connectivity to the entire network, including multimedia devices.

With sufficient intellectual and financial fuel, Tahoe may out-swim larger fish like Lucent. In May, the company received $21 million in venture capital from Redpoint Ventures (www.redpoint.com), also a Shasta investor, and $17 million from Accel Partners (www.accel.com). Despite general reticence in the VC community today, Alles said Tahoe's funders are excited about wireless data.

Ironically, Tahoe's timing couldn't be better. Because a lot of top-notch engineering talent is on the market, Tahoe's phone has been “ringing off the hook” with potential employees since it was established in January.

What are all of those engineers working on? Tahoe's youth, coupled with the competitive nature of network R&D, has executives tight-lipped about exact products; however, Alles and Paul Francis, chief scientist, described the framework of their research efforts as enabling wireless carriers to offer IN services.

Besides the impending IP-address shortage and a poor user interface, wireless data convergence will require new routers and platforms designed to handle large amounts of disparate traffic efficiently.

“The MIE is a very strategic point where the network operator can choose to start offering intelligent network services, which, much as in broadband, is fundamental to the long-term business case,” Alles said.

Unlike broadband, wireless data can't rely on a traditional Internet-access device with lots of computing power and memory.

“We will have all kinds of devices — some very weak — and the mobile Internet edge will have to do a lot more work on behalf of the computer, sometimes just for simple performance reasons and sometimes off-loading the basic functionality of that device,” Francis said.

Mobility further complicates the scenario.

“People think mobility just means the device is moving around,” he said. “But it's not just the device. All of the services and network support also have to move with that device; the pathways for those services all have to go back to the same point. To me, the analogy for mobile is like the difference between shooting a stable target and shooting something that's flying through the air. But when you add services to the mix, it's like trying to shoot something that's flying through the air (while) on a moving horse. Everything's going at once.”

Tahoe's equipment will be compatible with all wireless standards and air interfaces. Its routers will be able to handle a large volume of control events, and its platforms will allow for more services to be provisioned, managed and billed over the air.

“The three key parts will be interfaces for the access technology, a box that can handle a lot of control and data traffic, and then the devices hanging off that box that will provide services,” Francis said.

On a basic level, today's network equipment already accomplishes much of this. But Francis said most approaches to mobile data networking have thus far been elementary.

“If you look at the GPRS world in Europe, they've basically found a point at the very edge of their otherwise circuit network and said, OK, cut a tiny hole in it and glue the router here,” he said. “They've simply said, if we attach an interface here, we can send IP packets out, and IP packets can come in. That's the first step, granted. But beyond that, it will evolve in fairly complex ways. With all the apps, the billing and the route-scaleability issues, we're looking at a multiyear challenge ahead of us.”

Standard Solution

Much of Tahoe's work hinges on standards development in both the wireless and data worlds. At the center of these converging standards is IPv6. The new standard will improve address availability, security and route optimization.

Ultimately, everything will operate on IPv6-based networks, Francis said. But before standards can be agreed upon, the IETF (www.ietf.org), 3GPP (www.3gpp.org) and 3GPP2 must work together (www.3gpp2.org).

“The move toward IPv6 is a decision that has been made,” Francis said. “We are just starting down that road.”

At the recent IPv6 (www.ipv6.org) Forum, a conference on standardization, Mark Lipford, chair of an ad hoc 3GPP2 group working on next-generation IP-network issues, expressed concerns about the standard's reliability.

“Work still needs to be completed for mobile IP version 6 to be used in voice-grade types of applications,” said Lipford, who also is Sprint PCS (www.sprintpcs.com) manager of wireless industry standards for data technology. “At the most recent IETF meeting, it was discovered that there are still potential security holes in some of these protocols.”

He said from the security perspective, the mobile IPv6 work took a small step back, but he expects the work to be back on track quickly.

Lipford said 3GPP2 will add support for IPv6 to its packet-data specification this year. Security and interoperability concerns first must be addressed; they are on the IETF meeting agenda this August in London.

“I think the convergence is happening,” he said. “If we look at the work that both 3GPP and 3GPP2 are doing, both are moving to all-IP-based networks for voice, data and multimedia services. We've also helped drive requirements to the next-generation AAA server (accounting, authorization and authentication). Even more recently, 3GPP and 3GPP2 both have submitted Internet drafts to the IETF on how they can collaborate and work more closely together … But it's two different technologies and mindsets that are getting to know each other.”

Lipford said the all-IP network architectures being developed by both 3GPP and 3GPP2 are moving away from circuit-switched connections using an MSC, an HLR and ANSI-41 signaling for call control toward a packet-based call model that would use session-initiation protocol for call control.

“As networks migrate to this new multimedia call model, you may see some of the same players, but I think the equipment will be vastly different,” Lipford said. “It's going to be more of the router-server type of equipment. There are going to be a lot of interesting opportunities out there, which will hopefully bring in competition and drive creativity. If it's one manufacturer or 100, from an operator's perspective, we're looking at the cost and the capabilities that we can provide our users. Those are our main objectives.”

Dumb Pipe or Intelligent Network?

Tahoe Networks' goal is to help carriers migrate from the pure network-operator model to a value-added-services model via an IN upgrade.

“Right now, there are many solutions out there, and they are essentially built for providing a dumb pipe to the Internet, not really providing the smarts required to enable a smart business plan,” said Keerti Melkote, Tahoe Networks senior director of product management. “The carriers have two questions: How are you going to help me save money? And how are you going to help me make money? And those, indeed, are the questions that we are answering for them.

“First of all, by providing scaleable network equipment at the mobile Internet edge, they can now aggregate a lot more subscribers into the network. More importantly, by integrating services and accounting for them and enabling them to bill for these services, we are giving them the ability to start to build a profitable mobile data service business for them.”