Aricent’s Femtocell Solution

Recent data from ABI Research forecasts that by 2011, there will be 32 million Femtocell access points worldwide supporting 102 million users. Femtocells are now considered the more practical and less expensive enhancement to macro-cellular networks. They enjoy several advantages, including lower backhaul OPEX, preservation of macro (3G) bandwidth, enhanced in-building voice coverage, and the capability to deliver high speed data services.

Aricent offers a standards-compliant Femtocell Software Suite which includes protocol stacks and integrated frameworks to help equipment manufacturers quickly develop Femtocell and Femto Gateway products while reducing implementation complexity and investment risk.

Network Architecture for Femtocell Deployment

Customer Challenges

Some of the key challenges faced by equipment manufacturers include:

• Balancing costs and differentiation features – Manufacturers are under constant pressure from operators to reduce costs while at the same time provide a differentiated solution.
• Reducing testing and integration complexity – Manufacturers need pre-tested and pre-optimized solutions that are easily integrated with existing configurations and can help reduce integration complexity and testing costs.

	Aricent has co-created the world’s first Femtocell solution

Aricent’s Femtocell Software Suite

Aricent’s Femtocell Software Suite provides comprehensive and standards-based protocol stack support with optimized data and control plane performance to meet the unique requirements of equipment manufacturers. Additionally it offers a fully portable Femtocell Application Framework (FAP) and integrated protocol stacks, helping manufacturers to take advantage of new, higher speed and lower cost processors.

Aricent’s Femtocell Software Suite has been licensed by several Tier-1, Tier-2 and Tier-3 Femtocell manufacturers for 3G Femtocell and 3G Femto Gateway node developments and has been deployed in several networks across the globe.

	“ip.access is pleased with the results of our partnership with Aricent. We selected Aricent as our software development partner for the ambitious Oyster 3G development program because of Aricent's deep domain expertise in communications software and its proven track record in delivering software for leading edge solutions. Being shortlisted for the Best Radio Access Product category of the prestigious GSM Awards is testament to the quality of the product that has come out of the partnership." – Nick Johnson, CTO, ip.access

Key Features of the Femtocell Software Suite

• HSPA support – Offers fast packet scheduling and quick retransmission to help achieve high data rates on uplink and downlink paths
• Support for multiple hardware platforms – Aricent’s Femtocell Software Suite has been ported and optimized for performance on several industry leading Femtocell chipsets and platforms. This offers equipment manufacturers flexibility in choice of platforms
• High throughput – High throughput is enabled on Aricent’s solutions by effective memory management, optimized data structures, and efficient search algorithms
• Uniform management interface – The Aricent solution offers a uniform management interface for initialization, provisioning, and timer management
• Support for all traffic types – Aricent’s Femtocell Software suite supports both Circuit Switched (CS) and Packet Switched (PS) traffic and can be deployed in all 3G Femtocell configurations
• Transport flexibility – Both ATM and IP transport options are supported in Aricent’s Femtocell solution
• Comprehensive technical support – Aricent’s comprehensive technical support includes plug-in libraries for reference platforms, manuals, protocol conformance documents, warrant information, etc

Key Benefits

Accelerated time-to-market – Aricent’s complete reference framework and pre-optimized solution architecture help equipment manufacturers quickly develop differentiated solutions that can be seamlessly integrated with customer and third party applications.

	Aricent’s Femtocell Software Suite has been optimized for performance on several industry leading platforms

Reduced development expense and complexity – Aricent’s Femtocell Software Suite provides an easy-to-use API supported by comprehensive documentation and sample applications to help customers develop solutions with lower investments. Additionally, Aricent’s software frameworks offer flexibility to OEMs developing Iu, SIP and IuH interfaces.

Contemporary engagement models – Aricent offers flexible volume based pricing bundled with strong post-sales support. Additionally, Aricent’s strong services portfolio helps providers with product customizations and porting services which can enable them to quickly deploy resources and equipment based on specific requirements.

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