 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific I 2008 |
| Article no.: | 8 | |
| Topic: | Greenfield deployments | |
| Author: | Aviel Tenenbaum | |
| Title: | President, Asia-Pacific and Corporate Vice-President | |
| Organisation: | ECI | |
| PDF size: | 243KB |
About author
Aviel Tenenbaum is ECI’s Corporate Vice-President and President for Asia-Pacific. As President, Aviel Tenenbaum oversees the business, sales and operations of ECI’s Asia-Pacific regional office and is involved in ECI’s corporate planning as part of its corporate management team. Mr Tenenbaum has had extensive experience in his 15 years in the ICT sector. Aviel Tenenbaum holds a BA from Hebrew University Jerusalem and a MBA from Tel Aviv University.
Article abstract
Operators in developed regions and new, ‘greenfield’ operators in emerging economies seem quite different but face many similar challenges. They have difficult decisions to make preparing their networks to meet current challenges while, simultaneously, planning the upgrades that must follow to meet rising demands for greater capacity and new services. Multi-service access nodes (MSAN) are designed for high bandwidth NGN access. They offer greenfield operators a cost-effective foundation network for today’s voice and data, easily upgradeable to handle future applications.
Full Article
Service providers worldwide are struggling with network transition and the migration to next-generation platforms, as they need to offer both legacy voice and advanced data services to their customers. In most of Western Europe, North America and some parts of Asia-Pacific, the existing network infrastructure is highly developed and the PSTN (public switched telephone network) infrastructure was constructed many decades ago. In the so-called emerging world, in countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, this is not so – islands of highly developed networks co-exist alongside vast areas of ‘greenfield’ network development, where no communications infrastructure was ever previously deployed. The emerging-market scenarios pose both a challenge and an opportunity for network operators. The challenge is how to quickly and cost-effectively expand their networks and offer communications services to the vast majority of their countries’ populations that until recently had no access to communications services. The opportunity is to take advantage of the experience gained by their counterparts in developed markets to leapfrog legacy technologies and migrate to next-generation networks. Much has been written about the infrastructure choices a network operator must make when determining the strategy to migrate from its existing legacy infrastructure to modern next-generation networks. Operators focus upon how they will be able to make money and upon the services, such as video, fibre access and next-generation voice, they believe will be most popular over the next five to ten years. For mature markets like Japan, Korea and Australia, that is where carriers are focusing their energies today. In emerging markets, on the other hand, network operators are deploying as simple a network as possible, to support the basic voice and broadband service requirements in those greenfield areas. At the same time, they need to plan for the time when these basic services will not be enough and more advanced services will be in demand. This may come earlier than expected. How can carriers that are building brand new networks make sure they are deploying infrastructures that will serve their needs both today and tomorrow? The answer depends upon another question: Will network operators deploy a legacy access network, based on next-generation digital loop carrier (NG-DLC) equipment, and upgrade it when it is time to offer advanced, high-speed broadband services to their customers, or will they instead deploy a future-proof access platform today that can support voice, data and upcoming high-speed services? Since NG-DLC systems evolved from legacy DLC, vendors are already struggling to add higher bandwidth broadband capabilities to it. A multi-service access node (MSAN) approach makes more sense as this equipment was inherently designed for high bandwidth NGN access. By deploying MSANs, operators are able to start with the most advanced foundation network fully confident that it will be able to efficiently upgrade smoothly to handle the kinds of applications that will be in demand in the future once the market is ready. For most operators, total cost of ownership – that is the cost of the equipment plus the cost of operating this equipment over time – is the main factor in making their decision. For operators in emerging economies, the choice of a MSAN is clear, since it provides both capital and operational efficiencies not present when deploying and maintaining legacy networks over time. An MSAN provides access support for today’s copper-based voice and broadband services, and is the cornerstone of a smooth transition to tomorrow’s next-generation VoIP-oriented networks and fibre access technologies, all based upon the same platform. In a typical emerging market scenario, an operator can deploy an MSAN-based network. Initially, almost all line cards used will be voice and xDSL (digital subscriber line data) cards – to offer voice and basic broadband services to local communities. Then, as community needs evolve over time and increasingly call for high-speed broadband services, operators can upgrade voice and data cards as necessary. The MSAN device, however, remains in place, thereby saving the carrier significant capital and operational costs. At its core, the greenfield market dilemma is no different from that faced by operators in developed markets struggling with the cost-effective migration of their networks, while maintaining support for today’s needs. Scalability and flexibility during this migration is crucial. This is where a MSAN-based solution really stands out, as it provides efficient scalability, through an open framework that allows for cost-effective and straightforward network expansion and supports any network or telephony core equipment. In addition, by definition, MSANs are multi-service platforms, and provide future-proof flexibility to operators in the network architecture design and deployment. The MSAN also provides the flexibility to cater to upscale neighborhoods or business customers in the same emerging markets that are already demanding broadband and other services common to more established markets. The lessons learned from the PSTN days must also be applied here. PSTN networks were designed as end-to-end networks using monolithic switching elements and supported by a single vendor. Once a carrier chose its provider it was strongly linked to that vendor. In the move to next-generation networks, it is important to maintain modularity in the network so that the carrier can choose best-of-breed vendors for different network segments, while keeping open and standard interfaces among the different segments. This provides the carrier with optimized flexibility and service quality while maintaining operational efficiencies. Selecting MSAN vendors Besides looking at the equipment itself, it is important to consider the vendor when choosing a suitable MSAN for your network. The main questions to ask are: 1. Is the vendor you are working with responsive, and reactive, to your needs during complex core service migration? In other words, does the vendor answer your requirements today and anticipate your needs tomorrow? Is the vendor able and willing to make proper adjustments in a timely manner? 2. Is your vendor a true partner, who works with you to design and deploy the architecture that makes the most sense for your needs? Is this vendor open to working and interoperating with your choice of additional vendors (call control, management, etc.)? Vendors who collaborate with the operators, who work with them to design and deploy the right network, even customizing certain aspects along the way to ensure operational efficiency, are the kind of partners that will serve operators best. Operators in different countries and regions face their own unique set of challenges, difficulties and opportunities. By choosing a future-proof, versatile, multi-service access node and a trusted partner in the path toward next-generation network migration, operators can minimize the growing pains, risks and total cost of ownership associated with modernizing their networks.
