Alcatel-Lucent 9500 M icrowave Packet Rad io North Amer ican Markets4
Thegrowingdemandfornew
broadbandservicesrequiresmore
connectivityandadditionalports
atcellsites.Packettrafcgrowth
drivesbandwidthrequirements
higher(20Mb/sto30Mb/spercell
site);italsohasdifferentcapacityand
qualityconstraintsthanvoicetrafc
Asmobilenetworkinfrastructure
evolves,IP-nativebasestationswill
haveEthernetinterfacesratherthan
T1.Thischangeinphysicalinterface
bringsnewchallengestobackhaul
networks.Becausethetra nsition
willnothappenovernight,backhaul
networksmustmigrategracefullywhile
supportingamixedpayloadoflegacy
TDMandgrowingpackettrafc.
The need for IP transformation
Figure 2. Traffic and revenue evolution with a massive introduction
of broadband services
Traffic and
Revenue
Divergence
Time
Revenues
Voice Era Data Era
Packet
Traffic
IP TransForMaTIon DrIvers
•Theneedforadditional
connectivitytointroduce
newbroadbandtechnologies
andservices,suchasHSDPA,
EVDO,WirelessFidelity(WiFi)
hotspots,andWorldwide
InteroperabilityforMicrowave
Access(WiMAX)
•Increasedbandwidth
requirementsfornewpacket-
basedservices(20Mb/s
to30Mb/spercellsite)
•Ethernetinterfacestoeliminate
theneedforseparateoverlay
networkstosupportEthernet
connectivityandbackhaul
Theevolutionof microwaveradiof romTDMtopa cket
technologiesenablesdata-awaretransport,whichcan
supportnewhigh-bandwidthserviceswhileleveraging
existingtechnologies.IPtransformationtypicallyseeks
toachievefourmajorgoals:
•Gradualtransformationofthenetwork,focusingonareas
wherecompellingeventsforceinvestmentinasolution
•Returnoninvestmentinlessthantwoyears(asaresult
ofOPEXsavings)
•MinimizedOPEXdespitecapacityincreases;requires
optimizingtheuseofscarceresourcesandaggregating
allservicesoverasinglepipe,withnooverlays
•Useofamulti-vendormodelwithstandardprotocols
andnoproprietaryequipment
Datatrafcisgrowingfast,butrevenuesarenotincreas-
ingatthesamepace;thiscreatesaneedtondmore
efcientwaystotransporttheadditionalpackettrafc
Figure2showstheevolutionoftrafcandrevenue.