France Telecom outlines mobile offload strategy

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Frederic Esbert

By Mary Lennighan, Total Telecom, in Paris, Wednesday 28 September 2011

French telco says WiFi offload is the right approach to dealing with mobile data traffic, provided ease of use is addressed.

France Telecom-Orange on Wednesday emphasised the importance of using WiFi to offload traffic from its mobile network, based on its existing network of WiFi access points, but warned that there are still challenges to be overcome.

“We have a real opportunity to offload onto WiFi a part of the traffic,” said Alain Maloberti, senior vice president of network architecture and design at France Telecom-Orange, speaking at Broadband World Forum in Paris.

Lire la suite …

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Stoke Supercharges Its 4G/LTE Security eXchange With 5X Performance Boost

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Frederic Esbert

Mobile Broadband Startup Introduces Ultra High-Speed Version, Ramps Shipments of Gateway Solutions To Meet Escalating Demand for Standalone LTE Security Solutions

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — October 18, 2011 — Mobile broadband developer Stoke, Inc. today announced an ultra high performance version of its Stoke Security eXchange solution for 4G/LTE networks. Capable of an unprecedented 40 Gbps of throughput, the standalone Security eXchange with XGLC20 packet processing card equips operators with unmatched capabilities to secure and encrypt huge volumes of LTE mobile broadband services without introducing latency or impairing quality.

The ability to adapt to traffic surges, deliver a high quality multimedia experience, aggregate multiple radio types and secure IP-based communications are among the chief operator priorities as they transition to 4G/LTE. With mobile broadband traffic expected to grow by over 3000% over the next five years, there is intense pressure on traditional network infrastructure elements to secure and intelligently handle exponentially increasing mobile broadband traffic.

Integrating encryption into LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC) elements can significantly reduce performance whereas specialized approaches such as Stoke’s relieve this pressure. As a result, Stoke is taking an increasingly prominent role in delivering affordable, scalable encryption solutions for LTE and is currently the market leader in deployed standalone LTE security solutions. Since the beginning of 2010, Stoke has consistently increased its shipment rate by 50% quarter on quarter, and between Q4 of 2010 and Q2, 2011 has more than doubled its installed base.

“Security is a priority function in LTE networks and is also a prescribed aspect of 3GPP mobile networks,” said Jennifer Pigg, Vice President at industry analyst firm The Yankee Group. “The standalone model, as in the case of Stoke, allows network operators to scale the security function independently from other EPC functions, which becomes increasingly important as pressure on the network grows.”

Now in pre-production with customer trials scheduled in Q4 of 2011, Stoke’s Security eXchange with XGLC20 provides 10Gbps line rate encryption of user and control plane traffic between LTE base station (eNodeB) devices and the core network, offering five times the throughput and up to four times the session management capacity of previous versions. This massive performance boost underscores Stoke’s increasingly prominent position in providing scalable secure backhaul and traffic management solutions for LTE communications.

In recent Voice over LTE trials with the MultiService Forum, Stoke successfully demonstrated that, with the right standalone platform, operators could deploy IPSec without system latency or throughput performance penalty while ensuring subscriber, network and services integrity.

Stoke believes the enhancement is ideally timed to support increasing demand as the volume of subscribers and traffic grows in early deployments, and the industry at large accelerates its transition to 4G/LTE services.

“This performance increase continues our strategy of enabling operators to keep ahead of the traffic demand curve,” said Mike Homeier, vice president of product management at Stoke.

“Achieving true line rate, 10 Gbps encryption stretches the physical boundaries of what has previously been possible. It exemplifies leading edge silicon design and manufacturing and once again raises the bar for other mobile broadband vendors. We have broken new ground in amplifying the performance of our already outstanding solution.

Stoke Security eXchange With XGLC20

Stoke’s Security eXchange encrypts user and control plane traffic between LTE base station (eNodeB) devices and the core network at line rate, with no impact on throughput or performance quality. It allows operators to mitigate the strategic risks inherent in deploying all- IP LTE networks and improves their ability to scale their networks to accommodate growth in traffic and eNodeBs. The new, enhanced capacity and capabilities for evolved packet core gateway applications include:

  • 4 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports (active and standby) per line card;
  • 20 Gbps (full duplex) total throughput line rate processing per line card;
  • 40 Gbps of total throughput in a fully redundant 5 RU SSX-3000;
  • 10 Gigabits per second line rate encryption / decryption down to 96 byte packets;
  • Up to 240k active concurrent sessions and 3.8M active service classes per card; and
  • Power efficient: XGLC20 consumes less than 25 watts per Gigabit of throughput.

The Stoke Security eXchange with XGLC20 is completely lead-free.

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MSF Interoperability Event Included Stoke Security eXchange To Prove IPSec Is Capable Of Handling The Most Sensitive Of Mobile Services

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Frederic Esbert

Stoke Successfully Identified The Need To Include Secure End-To-End LTE Communications In VoLTE Interoperability Testing In The MultiService Forum

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — October 4, 2011 — Mobile broadband developer Stoke, Inc. participated in the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Interoperability test event organized by the MultiService Forum (MSF) and backed by the GSMA, on September 12-30, 2011. Stoke’s Security eXchange, a standalone high performance gateway, was part of the interoperability event hosted at the Vodafone Centre for Test and Innovation located in Dusseldorf. Stoke contributed in building and validating practical LTE network use cases such as secure association and encryption of VoLTE traffic from the radio access network to the evolved packet core, followed by recommendations for deployment scenarios.

The event focused on validating the GSMA’s technical recommendations for IMS-based VoLTE, and establishing best practices for VoLTE deployment strategies for LTE/EPC/IMS technology. Stoke contributed to development of IOT test scenarios related to the scalable encrypted communications function, a likely requirement in planned heterogeneous LTE network deployments. This was accepted as a component of the VoLTE interoperability event, and Stoke continues to be active in defining the required amendments to LTE architecture and the definition of the interface specification itself.

“We are excited to be part of the MSF’s efforts in applying the industry standards set by 3GPP to actual use cases, leveraging our ground-breaking experience from live deployments,” said Dave Williams, CTO at Stoke. ‘As a leader in the field of LTE security solutions we are seeing a growing industry focus on this key requirement, which is a prescribed aspect of 3GPP mobile architectures, and we are very pleased to have successfully contributed to this aspect of the MSF testing.”

Late-stage startup Stoke is taking an increasingly prominent role in building awareness of the importance of scalable encryption solutions for LTE communications, particularly in small cell deployments where traffic backhaul services cannot always be ‘trusted’. Williams added, ‘Through the MSF testing, our goal was to prove to mobile operators that, with the right standalone platform, IPSec imparts no additional system latency or throughput performance penalty, and ensures subscriber, network and services integrity.”

“We’re pleased to welcome Stoke to the MultiService Forum,” stated Kyu-Ouk Lee, MSF President. “The knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm that Stoke brings to the MSF is making a valuable contribution to our ongoing interoperability program, and we welcome its contribution.”

Stoke’s Security eXchange encrypts user and control plane traffic between LTE base station (eNodeB) devices and the core network at line rate, with no impact on throughput or performance quality. The Security eXchange allows operators to mitigate the strategic risks inherent in deploying all-IP LTE networks and improves their ability to scale their networks to accommodate growth in traffic and eNodeBs.

The MSF VoLTE Interoperability event was hosted by Vodafone and China Mobile in the Vodafone Centre for Test and Innovation in Dusseldorf and in the China Mobile Research Institute Lab in Beijing.

About the MultiService Forum
The MultiService Forum (www.msforum.org) is a global association of service providers, systems suppliers and test equipment vendors committed to developing and promoting open-architecture, multiservice Next Generation Networks. Founded in 1998, the MSF is an open-membership organization comprised of the world’s leading telecommunications companies. The MSF’s activities include developing Implementation Agreements, promoting worldwide compatibility and interoperability of network elements, and encouraging input to appropriate national and international standards bodies.

About VoLTE IOT Event 2011
The MSF hosted the VoLTE IOT 2011 Event in the Vodafone Centre for Test and Innovation in Dusseldorf and the China Mobile Research Institute Lab in Beijing in September 2011. The event is backed by the GSMA following the launch of its global VoLTE initiative in 2010, which is supported by more than 40 leading organizations in the mobile space. The event built on the major success of the previous Global MSF LTE Interoperability Event that took place during March 2010 and reflects the industry’s drive to continue to deliver major carrier driven events that benefit all its members in their quest to keep pace with an ever faster moving industry. The MSF VoLTE Interoperability test event focused on validating core network interfaces to ensure multi-vendor deployment strategies for LTE technology and will validate the MSF physical scenarios developed to incorporate 3GPP LTE/EPC technology and the GSMA’s technical recommendations, focusing on Voice over LTE, with the support of China Mobile and Vodafone. http://www.msforum.org/interoperability/VoLTE.shtml

About Stoke, Inc.
Stoke is the mobile industry’s only transformation platform, delivering future-focused thinking and solutions for 3G and 4G mobile broadband infrastructures. Stoke enables mobile operators, through the application of Business-Crossover™ thinking, to overcome limitations inherent in legacy approaches and architectures, helping them tackle the new realities of 3G mobile data service delivery today and successfully navigate their transition to 4G services platforms tomorrow. For more information, visit www.stoke.com.

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