Aricent’s Long Term Evolution Practice
Overview
LTE is the next evolution for most 3G and 3.5G technologies. It is essential
for device manufacturers and infrastructure vendors to be ready with
differentiated and cost competitive LTE products so they can gain market share
and compete effectively in the wireless ecosystem of the future.
Aricent’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) practice offers equipment manufacturers
comprehensive end-to-end solutions including pre-packaged software and
frameworks along with a comprehensive set of product lifecycle services to
develop feature-rich and differentiated products while gaining significant
time-to-market advantage at lower R&D costs.
Select Customer Engagements
Pre-packaged Software and Frameworks
- LTE User Equipment (UE)
Software Suite – Aricent’s LTE UE Software Suite is a complete
software package for device and semi-conductor vendors including fully
optimized Layer 1, Layer 2 protocol software with support for high uplink
and downlink data rates.
-
eNodeB Protocol Stacks
and Framework – Aricent’s solutions for radio access equipment
(eNodeB) range from pluggable stack software to pre-integrated and optimized
product frameworks that have been benchmarked on multiple industry leading
hardware platforms.
- EPC Protocol
Stacks and Frameworks – Aricent offers a comprehensive suite
of products and services for the Evolved Packet Core(EPC). We offer
pre-packaged solutions for both the eSAE gateways (the SGW and the PGW), as
well as the MME.
- IP Backhaul
– Aricent offers a turnkey solution to build complete
networking equipment systems for IP-based Mobile Backhaul solutions,
including IP RAN Aggregation Devices, Data Offload Switches and Gateways,
Metro Ethernet Switches and Carrier Ethernet Switch Routers.
Product Lifecycle Services
- Product Strategy and Design – With technology leadership
and proficiency on LTE protocols and software frameworks, Aricent’s services
in the areas of product strategy and architecture, system design, and
hardware engineering help vendors ensure a smooth transition of products
from proof-of-concepts to carrier grade solutions. Additionally, our UI
Innovation services can help device manufacturers develop elegant and
effective user interfaces for their LTE devices.
- Product Development – Aricent’s highly skilled consultants
have completed numerous projects in LTE, from developing system
requirements, to individual features, and complete products. Our teams have
executed multiple LTE development programs for both OEMs as well as platform
vendors.
- Testing and Certification – Aricent’s competence in
testing domains such as product validation, interoperability, managed
testing and certification has been defined by our rich history of customer
engagements in the wireless space involving 2G, 2.5, 3G and now 4G
technologies.
Key Benefits
Development Jumpstart – Much of the challenge with LTE lies
in timing development investments to stay ahead of competitors, and being ready
when the market sees volume purchases by carriers. Aricent’s LTE pre-packaged
software and frameworks provide a development jumpstart to OEMs. Combined with
complementary lifecycle management services, these enable real-time adjustments
of development schedules and investments to ensure competitive readiness and
mitigate market-timing risk.
Balance R&D resources between LTE and Existing products –
Despite the imperative to invest in LTE today, vendors need to simultaneously
continue investing in their current products that are considered to be “cash
cows”. Aricent delivers continuous engineering services – including complete
product ownership – for the world’s largest telecommunications manufacturers,
helping them free up internal resources to focus investment on LTE development.
Seamless Interoperability – While interoperability between
network elements is critical for successful LTE deployments, the availability of
equipment to perform end-to-end testing remains limited. Aricent’s in-house
network simulator tools help vendors overcome equipment availability-related
testing challenges. Additionally, Aricent’s comprehensive 3G lab infrastructure
and a broad array of testing and certification services assure equipment
manufacturers of seamless interoperability in real world deployments.
Platform Evolution and New Platform Development – The
radical change in LTE’s architecture towards a flatter network and packet-only
paradigm introduces challenges associated with both migrating current platforms
and building new ones. Aricent’s proven expertise in helping customers develop
new products and upgrading existing products, coupled with its deep domain
expertise on LTE as well as legacy technologies and products, helps vendors
deliver high quality products in a cost-effective manner.
Voice over LTE Support – As LTE does not natively support
circuit voice or SMS, equipment vendors need to be prepared to support these
critical services using either IMS, circuit-fallback, or circuit-switch over
packet options such as VOLGA. Aricent’s extensive technology and domain
experience can help vendors formulate a flexible LTE Voice strategy to
accommodate all alternatives. Additionally, Aricent’s IMS, VoIP and VCC products
help vendors deploy any chosen approach efficiently and cost-effectively.