The introduction of HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) has enabled mobile operators to offer mobile broadband services at competitive rates. With a maximum theoretical throughput of 14.4 Mbps per user, HSDPA presents significant savings in air time when downloading rich-media files to an HSDPA handset. As an example, downloading one minute of audio from an MP3 music file is calculated to take 132 seconds with GPRS, 22.4 seconds with UMTS and only 4.1 seconds with HSDPA. Such high capacity performance enables operators to serve more mobile subscribers using the same infrastructure.
However, the exponential increase in the bandwidth required to backhaul HSDPA traffic from ATM-based Node Bs to the RNC (radio network controller) can no longer be cost-effectively served by traditional E1/T1 access lines and ATM or SDH/SONET networks. These cost pressures, coupled with declining ARPU (average revenue per user) figures in the highly competitive cellular market, are the primary reasons for the steady migration to packet-based RANs (radio access networks) and broadband DSL access by operators and transport providers .
RAD’s ACE-3xxx multiservice cell-site and aggregation site gateways enable mobile operators to speedily deploy mobile broadband services while keeping HSDPA operating costs to a minimum. Leveraging any available infrastructure to access packet switched networks, the ACE-3xxx multiservice gateways provide several alternatives to deliver cellular traffic over Ethernet transport. Operators opting for a gradual migration to an IP-RAN can use the hybrid “HSDPA Offload” approach, whereby real-time R.99 traffic is transported over ATM or SDH/SONET networks and the HSDPA traffic is encapsulated in ATM pseudowires and offloaded to economical xDSL links and the packet network. Alternatively, these feature-rich devices can converge BTS, Node B and IP Node B traffic over a unified, packet switched backhaul end-to-end.
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