RAD’s Mobile Backhaul Strategy Confirmed by Heavy Reading Report

Report Shows Projected Demand for Ethernet Demarcation to Reach 461,000 Cell Sites by 2013

RAD Data Communications, a leading provider of mobile backhaul solutions, today announced that Heavy Reading’s latest Ethernet Backhaul Tracker Report has confirmed its Ethernet demarcation strategy. Heavy Reading found that “461,000 of the world’s cell sites will require Ethernet demarcation functionality by the end of 2013.” The research report also projects that the market for dedicated mobile demarcation devices will reach 304,000 in the next three years.

RAD Data Communications announced in late February that it was the first vendor in the industry to deploy Carrier Ethernet mobile demarcation devices (MDDs) that incorporate timing over packet capabilities with enhanced SLA assurance tools. The deployment was made by a major Tier 1 European fixed-mobile carrier. Carrier Ethernet is gaining market traction as it is the most economical backhaul infrastructure for mobile broadband data traffic. Demarcation devices add SLA assurances, thereby guaranteeing Quality of Service, which is crucial in HSPA/LTE networks, while also providing end-to-end visibility into network performance in order to pre-empt service disruptions. These capabilities are expected to lead to major growth in demand for Ethernet demarcation devices at the cell site.

Greater Intelligence Required at the Cell Site

“Heavy Reading’s findings confirm what our discussions with mobile operator customers and transport service provider partners have revealed: The proliferation of high bandwidth mobile applications, the marketing of tiered mobile service and data plans and sharing of the transport network for cost reduction mean that an exponential increase in backhaul capacity must also be accompanied by greater intelligence at the cell site in order to efficiently handle service prioritization and allow end-to-end service control,” explains Yacov Cazes, Director of Business Development for Carrier Ethernet Services at RAD Data Communications. “This includes SLA monitoring of service availability and end-to-end QoS according to Ethernet OAM standards, hierarchical traffic management with sophisticated policing and shaping rules, support for synchronization such as 1588v2 and Synchronous Ethernet, and where necessary, pseudowire emulation for running 2G and 3G traffic over the packet infrastructure.”

Heavy Reading noted in its study that “these devices are typically deployed where a backhaul wholesaler is deploying an Ethernet backhaul service to the mobile operator, although in a number of cases integrated incumbents are also deploying them to provide monitoring of the backhaul service being provided by their wireline operating arm to their mobile operating arm.” The report also found that Ethernet demarcation is estimated at being required at 70 percent of cell sites served by integrated incumbents.