AT&T cellular network going all IP

AT&T is upgrading its core wireless network to an all-IP platform, building on the next-generation architecture Nortel began deploying in 2005. The new core, based on the latest-generation Nortel softswitch, will turn AT&T’s GSM and UMTS voice network into a flat IP platform using the off-the-shelf computing equipment and standard IP interfaces—a move Nortel claims will streamline operations and vastly reduce the cost and complexity of scaling the network.

Nortel this week announced the availability of its new MSC Server, a hybrid switch based on the 3^rd Generation Partnership Project’s release 4 (R4) standards for core networks, along with a new high-density VoIP media gateway to handle increasing subscriber traffic. While Nortel has been deploying R4 softswitches into the Cingular GSM and UMTS network since 2005, the new version is the first to complete the full transition from voice-over-ATM to voice-over-IP, creating a unified IP network that carries all traffic from SMS to data to bread-and-butter voice calls. In addition the kit is Nortel’s first to adopt an Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) chassis, said Alan Wilson, Nortel director of product marketing for the GSM/UMTS core.

“We’re using a commercial off-the-shelf computing platform as opposed to a Nortel proprietary computing platform,” Wilson said. The shift acknowledges the fact that Nortel’s value comes in its software platform not in the physical servers themselves, which can be bought at much lower prices from any number of computer makers, Wilson said. “This way we’re not competing with the much larger computing market,” Wilson said.

While Nortel has floundered in the UMTS access market--selling its UMTS business to Alcatel-Lucent--it has made steady inroads in the UMTS core with 13 million R4 ports deployed to date. For example, Nortel was left out of the Cingular’s massive UMTS rollout in 2005, but a year later it landed the core contract for the network, adding it to its wins in the Cingular GSM network.

Wilson wouldn’t comment on the extensiveness of the previous-generation rollout of R4 switches, but he said the new-generation switches are already making the way into the AT&T network, supporting VoIP traffic today.