JUNE 4, 2008 -- Alcatel-Lucent (search for Alcatel-Lucent) today announced several new enhancements to its Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (search for TPSDA) that pave the way for new, sophisticated, and innovative multimedia services, says the company. Going beyond the initial mass-market requirements for IPTV, voice, and Internet services, the new architecture enhancements now enable consumers and business partners to choose the quality of experience they want, for the content they care about, at a price they are prepared to pay.Â
As service providers evolve their network architectures to support triple-play consumer broadband services, their focus is shifting to maximizing the return on investment. The new features being introduced today--including new hardware and software enhancements for Alcatel-Lucent's Service Router portfolio--will enable service providers to offer their subscribers a high quality of experience for an expanded portfolio of broadband content and applications.
"Our successful IPTV service depends on the scale, stability, and quality of our TPSDA-based network," contends Helmut Leopold, head of platform and technology management at Telekom Austria TA AG. "We like Alcatel-Lucent's direction because it allows us to expand the service revenues generated by our strategic investment."
Alcatel-Lucent says its Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture represents a significant upgrade from first-generation broadband network options--that tunnel "best effort" Internet traffic across the network--by providing distributed, fine-grain policy enforcement with centralized policy control to deliver multiple services to subscribers, including managed services such as IPTV and voice as well as unmanaged services such as High Speed Internet (HSI). TPSDA is unique in utilizing all parts of the network to deliver and enforce policy end-to-end, note company representatives.
"The rise of a broad array of rich online services and applications delivered over triple-play networks is changing how service providers must architect the network," explains David Vorhaus, associate analyst with the Yankee Group. "By taking a high-touch approach to managing subscriber preferences and application requirements such as with Alcatel-Lucent's TPSDA, triple-play providers can deliver a superior online experience and provide additional value to subscribers, content owners, application providers, advertisers, and other key actors in the value chain."
With its recent announcement of terabit performance upgrades for the 7450 Ethernet Service Switch and 7750 Service Router, Alcatel-Lucent says it extends the revenue-generating capabilities of TPSDA by supporting 2.5x the capacity in the same compact footprint without any change to the existing common control modules. In addition, an expanded portfolio of managed on-line broadband content services can be enabled by fine-grain application assurance, based on Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology and fully integrated within the TPSDA subscriber management system. Finally, targeted software enhancements, including support for Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) termination, provide a smooth, staged migration of legacy HSI services and revenue onto a carrier's strategic triple-play consumer broadband network, thereby enabling operators to cap investment in their legacy Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS), contends the company.
"Alcatel-Lucent has already announced the deployment of more than 50 TPSDA networks and recently announced the world's first terabit service router, which provides the massive capacity required for ubiquitous high-definition video content and services," reports Basil Alwan, president of Alcatel-Lucent's IP activities. "With today's product enhancements, we are providing the technological innovation that is the foundation for the next phase of carrier network, service and business transformation."
The hardware and software enhancements to the Alcatel-Lucent Service Router Portfolio include:
•Â IOM3-XP, which provides a 2.5 increase in capacity and density;
•Â Application Assurance-Integrated Services Adaptor (AA-ISA), which enables fine-grain application policy enforcement with per-subscriber resolution;
•Â High-Scale Media Dependent Adaptor (HS-MDA), which sets a new industry benchmark in granular queuing and traffic management--the equivalent of 19.2 million queues per telecom rack, enabling specific policy and control for each service delivered to a subscriber. More granular queuing enables more fine-grain service control to ensure each service is delivered with the appropriate quality of experience and uses network resources in the most efficient manner;
•Â Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) tunnel termination, which facilitates the smooth migration of legacy HSI transport networks and their present mode of operation to next-generation TPSDA networks; and
•Â 5670 Reporting and Analysis Manager (RAM), which provides extensive tools and capabilities to warehouse, aggregate, and process detailed, application-level statistics per-subscriber.
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