AlcaLu's IP Router Sales Soar
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Publié par
Anouar L
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Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen has a number of reasons to be cheerful these days: His soccer team of choice has just beaten the best in the world; his company is showing growth momentum; he arguably had the most talked-about radio access network (RAN) development at MWC, the lightRadio (that 'light' nomenclature is catchy, no?); and, at last, AlcaLu's share price is heading north, as it has gained more than 57 percent since Jan. 1 and currently stands at €3.54 on the Paris exchange.
And now, more good news for the energetic CEO: His IP division has just established itself as the clear number-two player in the important IP routing sector.
Clarification of AlcaLu's IP sector bragging rights came early Tuesday when Infonetics Research Inc. announced its Service Provider Routers and Switches vendor market-share report for the fourth quarter and full year 2010. According to the firm, the global market for IP routers and Carrier Ethernet switches in 2010 grew by 20.5 percent to US$12.8 billion.
Infonetics reported that, even though AlcaLu only has products in the edge router market (while its main rivals have core IP platforms too), it has been growing its market share for the past three years and was the number-two vendor in the overall IP edge and core router sector in the fourth quarter of 2010 with a market share of 20.5 percent. Infonetics principal analyst Michael Howard also notes that AlcaLu was the number two player for the whole of 2010 in the EMEA region.
The research firm noted that AlcaLu's stellar fourth-quarter IP product revenues, its best ever, pushed it ahead of Juniper Networks Inc. , which also recorded "solid growth." Cisco Systems Inc. is still the market leader, of course: It grew its router and switch sales by 21.6 percent last year for a market share of 42.5 percent, according to Infonetics.
AlcaLu has been challenging Juniper for second place for a while now, but seems to have upped its game in 2010, driven by sales related to ongoing IP transformation projects, the migration to packet backhaul, and its first sales of 100Gbit/s Ethernet cards (deployed by eight operators).
In fact, AlcaLu's IP division increased its annual revenues by more than 24 percent to €1.46 billion ($2 billion) in 2010, making it the best performer (in terms of annual growth) in the vendor giant's Networks operating segment. As the table below shows, the IP team's sales grew steadily through the year, reaching €508 million ($695 million) in the fourth quarter alone.
Table 1: Alcatel-Lucent Networks Operating Segment Revenues in 2010
| In millions of euros | Q1 2010 | Q2 2010 | Q3 2010 | Q4 2010 | Full year 2010 | Full year 2009 | YoY growth |
| Networks | 1,928 | 2,304 | 2,459 | 2,952 | 9,643 | 9,076 | 6.25% |
| -- of which IP | 272 | 318 | 366 | 508 | 1,464 | 1,177 | 24.38% |
| -- of which optics | 567 | 622 | 651 | 815 | 2,655 | 2,854 | -6.97% |
| -- of which wireless | 819 | 1,021 | 1,068 | 1,156 | 4,064 | 3,547 | 14.58% |
| -- of which wireline | 298 | 366 | 396 | 488 | 1,548 | 1,619 | -4.39% |
| -- of which others and eliminations | -28 | -23 | -22 | -15 | -88 | -121 | 27.27% |
| Source: Alcatel-Lucent | |||||||
The wireless division also managed annual growth, but as the numbers show, the optical and wireline (broadband access) lines of business saw their annual revenues decline year-on-year in 2010. As a result, the IP division generated a greater share of AlcaLu's overall Networks sales -- 15.2 percent in 2010, compared with 13 percent in 2009.
If those trends continue, Verwaayen and others in the senior AlcaLu team will no doubt be looking for even greater things from Basil Alwan and his IP team this year, in terms of overall sales and revenue contribution to the Networks line of business.
What AlcaLu's full-year numbers don't reveal is how the IP division fared in terms of operating margins. Overall, though, Networks fared much better in 2010, with an adjusted operating income (after one-time items) of €187 million ($256 million) compared with an adjusted operating loss of €297 million ($406 million) in 2009.
Infrastructure: Smarter and Better Bandwidth
6 mars 2011 |
Publié par
Anouar L
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Il y a un certain nombre d'études récentes citant la possibilité de dépasser toute la bande passante du sans fil disponible d'ici le milieu de cette décennie en raison de la forte croissance des appareils mobiles connectés. Bien que la situation ne peut pas être aussi grave que certains le prédisent, il y a une forte poussée de l'industrie à utiliser les réseaux actuels et la conception de futurs réseaux de manière plus efficace.
Un concept populaire est le offloading - déchargement - de trafic à des ressources non-cellulaires, telles que le Wi-Fi et de l'inspection et la priorisation des paquets au niveau de tous les points du réseau. Un nouveau groupe industriel appelé le groupe High Quality Mobile Experience (HQME), qui comprend SanDisk, SoftBank Mobile, Sony Pictures Entertainment, et Orange, est entrain d'élaborer une nouvelle norme IEEE pour recevoir sur les appareils mobiles du contenu qui est transmis sur des réseaux cellulaires en dehors des heures de pointe ou sur des réseaux non-cellulaires. Cisco a présenté un concept similaire, appelé la plateforme Monetization Optimization Videoscape Experience (MOVE) qui offre également inspection plus profonde des paquets.
Un autre effort est d'utiliser les canaux du spectre non contigus de manière contiguë afin d'accroître l'efficacité d'utilisation du spectre. Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) a démontré le channel-bonding (collage de canaux) d'un canal à 800 MHz et un canal de 2,6 GHz en utilisant la station de base Flexi Multiradio. Le résultat a été une augmentation de 90% des taux de données et les caractéristiques de propagation du canal le plus souhaitable de 800MHz.
D'autres travaillent pour séparer la bande de base des autres fonctions électroniques, tout le contraire de ce qui se passe dans les appareils mobiles. Alcatel-Lucent a présenté lightRadio, un petit cube (environ la taille d'un cube de Rubik) qui a un budget de faible puissance et peut facilement être combiné avec d'autres cubes pour augmenter la capacité. Nokia Siemens fait valoir que cela peut prendre un peu plus loin de faire les fonctions bande de base de la BTS dans le nuage.
MWC 2011 Photos: Cisco Booth Tour
4 mars 2011 |
Publié par
Anouar L
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BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- As everyone knows, Cisco Systems Inc. is not a traditional mobile technology company, but as the mobile operators migrate their networks toward all-IP architectures, and look to wireless LAN technologies (amongst others) for their data offload strategies, so Cisco is becoming more relevant.
Not only that, Cisco also now owns a leading mobile packet core platform following the acquisition of Starent.
So we invited the router giant to be one of seven vendors we visited this year with our resident photographer. We gave them all just 10 minutes to talk about, and show off, the three products they felt were the most important/cutting-edge/game-changing, etc.
We turned up at the Cisco stand just as it suffered a power cut -- one of the stand staff quipped that it was a deliberate move as part of the company's environmentally friendly efforts -- but we had enough time to wait, and the lights came back on with plenty of time to still do the 10-minute tour.
Then we found that the prearranged Cisco guide was no longer available, and that another team member would be giving the Cisco case. Again, no problem for the Light Reading team -- the brief about our mission and the rules had been agreed in advance with the vendor's team (10 minutes, any three products of magnitude), so everything should be straightforward, right?
Well, you can find out in the picture captions below -- the final one shows how we (totally subjectively) graded Cisco's overall effort. This was Cisco's first year as part of our annual MWC vendor stand photo tours, so unlike the other participants there's no year-on-year comparison to make.
The 1550 outdoor Service Provider Wi-Fi 802.11n access point has been designed for extreme conditions, says Cisco, so it's one tough son-of-a-gun. There's also a Docsis version for cable operators. And it's shiny. What's not to like?
Not Just Tough, But Clever Too
Not only that, Cisco also now owns a leading mobile packet core platform following the acquisition of Starent.
So we invited the router giant to be one of seven vendors we visited this year with our resident photographer. We gave them all just 10 minutes to talk about, and show off, the three products they felt were the most important/cutting-edge/game-changing, etc.
We turned up at the Cisco stand just as it suffered a power cut -- one of the stand staff quipped that it was a deliberate move as part of the company's environmentally friendly efforts -- but we had enough time to wait, and the lights came back on with plenty of time to still do the 10-minute tour.
Then we found that the prearranged Cisco guide was no longer available, and that another team member would be giving the Cisco case. Again, no problem for the Light Reading team -- the brief about our mission and the rules had been agreed in advance with the vendor's team (10 minutes, any three products of magnitude), so everything should be straightforward, right?
Well, you can find out in the picture captions below -- the final one shows how we (totally subjectively) graded Cisco's overall effort. This was Cisco's first year as part of our annual MWC vendor stand photo tours, so unlike the other participants there's no year-on-year comparison to make.
The Lights Are on at Cisco
After a short power cut that left Cisco's modest Hall 8 stand in the shadows, the lights were on again and we were ready for a 10-minute blitz.
Carrier-Grade Wi-Fi
With the clock ticking, Cisco introduced us to its Service Provider Wi-Fi Solution, which can be used for mobile data offload (in 2G, 3G and 4G deployments). Cisco believes this is the industry's first carrier-grade architecture because of its reliability and its hardiness.
Tough & Rugged
Not Just Tough, But Clever Too
It was time for Cisco's Subramania to dive a bit deeper and show off the smarts behind the tough new access point, as the 1550's back-office software enables seamless roaming and authentication of mobile users onto the Wi-Fi access point.
Connected to Cisco
Cisco's Subramania showed how mobile users can seamlessly roam onto the Wi-Fi access points using smartphones from Samsung, with which Cisco has been working on this development.
Thirsty Work
Connected to Cisco
Thirsty Work
Cisco's Subramania reaches for the bottle (just water) as she explains how many current Wi-Fi hotspots involve insecure, unencrypted processes. The Cisco system, meanwhile is secure and behaves like a smart mobile network, as it can can track a subscriber's location, enabling a service provider to push appropriate new services.
Packet Core Chasm
Packet Core Chasm
We were well versed in Cisco's carrier-grade Wi-Fi then, but that was it! The 10 minutes were over, and the Cisco team seemed happy that the job was done. Were there no relevant advances in the company's evolved packet core (EPC) unit? It was on the stand, but not in Cisco's briefing.
No Laughing Matter
So Cisco's first effort was somewhat surprising, as we were shown what was essentially one product in the 10 minutes available, and not a mention of any packet core or IP routing developments that mobile service providers might be interested in. There was a brief mention of the company's MOVE (Monetization, Optimization, Videoscape Experience) marketing campaign, of which service provider Wi-Fi is one element, but no further details. Cisco Mobility Solutions Manager Subramania did her bit admirably, but we got the feeling she hadn't been briefed on the mission in hand. Overall, then, a disappointment, with minimal impact. Cisco gets a C- grade. Surely the only way is up from here?
MWC 2011: Deutsche Telekom Ditches VoLGA
3 mars 2011 |
Publié par
Anouar L
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BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- Deutsche Telekom AG has abandoned its pursuit of an alternative technology initiative for delivering voice services over LTE networks, called VoLGA (voice over LTE via generic access).
The German operator was the biggest supporter of the circuit-switch-over-packet technology, which is intended to be used as an interim measure to deliver voice services over LTE networks before the full implementation of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based voice services.
But in an interview with Light Reading Mobile, Deutsche Telekom CTO Olivier Baujard said that there was not enough industry support for VoLGA.
"We have not created with VoLGA the traction we wanted or hoped," said Baujard. "We will implement the IMS-based solution, with CSFB [circuit-switch fallback]."
Instead of VoLGA, Deutsche Telekom will rely on its 3G networks to deliver voice services in the initial phase of its LTE offering, which is what's known as "circuit-switch fallback," before it will deploy IMS-based LTE voice services. But the operator does not see the need for LTE voice services before 2012 or 2013, according to Baujard.
When LR Mobile told the GSM Association (GSMA) director of technology Dan Warren about the comments made by the CTO of Deutsche Telekom, he said, "I could kiss you!"
That's probably because the emergence of VoLGA as an alternative technology to CSFB or potentially IMS-based voice caused a rift in the industry and sparked off worries of fragmentation among mobile operators. The development led the GSMA to spearhead an industry initiative to gather support for IMS-based voice over LTE, called VoLTE.
Deutsche Telekom has long been a lone, yet significant, supporter of VoLGA. But it seems the German giant's size alone was not enough to move VoLGA from a preferred solution to a widely adopted industry standard. The operator's decision not to deploy the technology will be a blow to the Voice over LTE via Generic Access (VoLGA) Forum . Without Deutsche Telekom's support, it is unlikely the technology will be deployed by any other operator.
The German operator was the biggest supporter of the circuit-switch-over-packet technology, which is intended to be used as an interim measure to deliver voice services over LTE networks before the full implementation of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based voice services.
But in an interview with Light Reading Mobile, Deutsche Telekom CTO Olivier Baujard said that there was not enough industry support for VoLGA.
"We have not created with VoLGA the traction we wanted or hoped," said Baujard. "We will implement the IMS-based solution, with CSFB [circuit-switch fallback]."
Instead of VoLGA, Deutsche Telekom will rely on its 3G networks to deliver voice services in the initial phase of its LTE offering, which is what's known as "circuit-switch fallback," before it will deploy IMS-based LTE voice services. But the operator does not see the need for LTE voice services before 2012 or 2013, according to Baujard.
When LR Mobile told the GSM Association (GSMA) director of technology Dan Warren about the comments made by the CTO of Deutsche Telekom, he said, "I could kiss you!"
That's probably because the emergence of VoLGA as an alternative technology to CSFB or potentially IMS-based voice caused a rift in the industry and sparked off worries of fragmentation among mobile operators. The development led the GSMA to spearhead an industry initiative to gather support for IMS-based voice over LTE, called VoLTE.
Deutsche Telekom has long been a lone, yet significant, supporter of VoLGA. But it seems the German giant's size alone was not enough to move VoLGA from a preferred solution to a widely adopted industry standard. The operator's decision not to deploy the technology will be a blow to the Voice over LTE via Generic Access (VoLGA) Forum . Without Deutsche Telekom's support, it is unlikely the technology will be deployed by any other operator.
MWC 2011: Router Vendors Tackle Video Congestion
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Publié par
Anouar L
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Vendors selling IP gear are focusing on policy and traffic optimization at this week's Mobile World Congress, claiming they've got ways to handle the expected onslaught of video traffic on smartphones.
Naturally, Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc. have answers that involve routers. Alcatel-Lucent 's announcement is from a different angle, stretching the capabilities of the Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) it's already selling.
It's not a bad time to be releasing these products, because operators still aren't certain how they want to handle factors such as video transcoding. "Cisco recognizes this with their MOVE architecture -- that the operator doesn't want to pay to transcode every bit of content that goes through its network," says Gabriel Brown, an analyst with Heavy Reading.
Here's a rundown of the products:
Alcatel-Lucent
AlcaLu calls its offering, which takes a user's location into account when responding to network congestion, Intelligent Traffic Management (ITM). If one user is hogging bandwidth while on the move, ITM can track him from one cell site to the next.
"The primary issue is the way 3G has been designed. The network isn't providing that [information] to the policy engine on a standards level," says Andrew McDonald, vice president of AlcaLu's Network and Service Management Product Unit.
ITM combines AlcaLu's 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) and the company's PCRF, the 5780 Dynamic Services Controller (DSC). The products aren't new, but the two-fisted combo is.
The WNG is a probe, and its job in ITM is to tell the policy engine about radio conditions and network load. The DSC would then throttle the data rates going to voracious users, but do so for just minutes at a time, only as needed.
ITM is in trials with one European carrier and is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2011.
Cisco
Cisco's MOVE, referenced by Brown above, stands for Monetization, Optimization, Videoscape Experience.
It includes a capability called Adaptive Intelligent Routing (AIR), which is first being announced on the ASR 5000 -- the former Starent Networks box. The idea is to offload 3G and 4G traffic onto Wi-Fi networks more efficiently. By distributing AIR around the network, Cisco can make that decision at a point closer to the user. Earlier offload means less traffic for the core network to shuttle.
Cisco also wants to spread the capability to the ASR 1000 and ASR 9000, but that work is still in progress, says Simon Aspinall, Cisco's director of service provider marketing for data center and mobility products.
Cisco has also created a mobile video gateway that sits on the ASR 5000 and taps policy servers to find out what device is requesting a video. The ASR 5000 could then transcode the video and select the appropriate streaming rate. New software for Cisco's Universal Computing System could even do this work speculatively, based on the video requests being received.
Juniper
Juniper introduced a video optimization package called the Service Delivery Gateway, which runs on the MX 3D Universal Edge Router alongside the company's Media Flow Controller. If the gateway sees a particular video going viral, it can tell Media Flow to cache it.
If the network's too busy, the service delivery gateway can trigger software written by Openwave Systems Inc. that can change the download rate of a session. The Openwave software can also pick the appropriate codec for a download.
The Openwave piece is an example of the open network that Juniper has been preaching -- a network where software vendors can write applications that run on the Junos operating system.
None of the above
Lots of vendors want to have a role in transcoding video. But what if there's a better way?
Brown says some operators are asking why a service like YouTube can't do this transcoding for them. For example, YouTube Inc. could recognize that a mobile handset is requesting a file and then not send a full HD stream at that user. "Longer term, it's going to have to be something like that," Brown says.
Naturally, Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc. have answers that involve routers. Alcatel-Lucent 's announcement is from a different angle, stretching the capabilities of the Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) it's already selling.
It's not a bad time to be releasing these products, because operators still aren't certain how they want to handle factors such as video transcoding. "Cisco recognizes this with their MOVE architecture -- that the operator doesn't want to pay to transcode every bit of content that goes through its network," says Gabriel Brown, an analyst with Heavy Reading.
Here's a rundown of the products:
Alcatel-Lucent
AlcaLu calls its offering, which takes a user's location into account when responding to network congestion, Intelligent Traffic Management (ITM). If one user is hogging bandwidth while on the move, ITM can track him from one cell site to the next.
"The primary issue is the way 3G has been designed. The network isn't providing that [information] to the policy engine on a standards level," says Andrew McDonald, vice president of AlcaLu's Network and Service Management Product Unit.
ITM combines AlcaLu's 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) and the company's PCRF, the 5780 Dynamic Services Controller (DSC). The products aren't new, but the two-fisted combo is.
The WNG is a probe, and its job in ITM is to tell the policy engine about radio conditions and network load. The DSC would then throttle the data rates going to voracious users, but do so for just minutes at a time, only as needed.
ITM is in trials with one European carrier and is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2011.
Cisco
Cisco's MOVE, referenced by Brown above, stands for Monetization, Optimization, Videoscape Experience.
It includes a capability called Adaptive Intelligent Routing (AIR), which is first being announced on the ASR 5000 -- the former Starent Networks box. The idea is to offload 3G and 4G traffic onto Wi-Fi networks more efficiently. By distributing AIR around the network, Cisco can make that decision at a point closer to the user. Earlier offload means less traffic for the core network to shuttle.
Cisco also wants to spread the capability to the ASR 1000 and ASR 9000, but that work is still in progress, says Simon Aspinall, Cisco's director of service provider marketing for data center and mobility products.
Cisco has also created a mobile video gateway that sits on the ASR 5000 and taps policy servers to find out what device is requesting a video. The ASR 5000 could then transcode the video and select the appropriate streaming rate. New software for Cisco's Universal Computing System could even do this work speculatively, based on the video requests being received.
Juniper
Juniper introduced a video optimization package called the Service Delivery Gateway, which runs on the MX 3D Universal Edge Router alongside the company's Media Flow Controller. If the gateway sees a particular video going viral, it can tell Media Flow to cache it.
If the network's too busy, the service delivery gateway can trigger software written by Openwave Systems Inc. that can change the download rate of a session. The Openwave software can also pick the appropriate codec for a download.
The Openwave piece is an example of the open network that Juniper has been preaching -- a network where software vendors can write applications that run on the Junos operating system.
None of the above
Lots of vendors want to have a role in transcoding video. But what if there's a better way?
Brown says some operators are asking why a service like YouTube can't do this transcoding for them. For example, YouTube Inc. could recognize that a mobile handset is requesting a file and then not send a full HD stream at that user. "Longer term, it's going to have to be something like that," Brown says.
SoftBank CEO Bets on the Mobile Web
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Publié par
Anouar L
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BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- SoftBank Corp. 's US$20 billion purchase of Vodafone Japan has cost the company $1 billion per year since 2006, but it's finally paying off as mobile data floods the operator's network, Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son told MWC attendees in a keynote panel Wednesday.
"Sometimes craziness gives a good return," the enthusiastic CEO said, noting that the purchase sent SoftBank's stock plummeting 60 percent in three days and had many critics questioning his sanity.
But Son was thinking long term -- 300 years out actually. He narrowed his 300-year plan for the company to escape what he called wireless operators' "depressing reality" down to 30 years for the purposes of his speech.
"If ARPU is going down, but revenue stays flat, but capex is growing like hell, only John Chambers will be happy," Son said, jibing the Cisco Systems Inc. CEO who'd take the stage next. The reality is that Apple Inc. and Google are taking all the upside, he added, and carriers are becoming dumb pipes.
The only option for operators then is to grow their average revenue per user (ARPU), Son said, which SoftBank was to do even as voice ARPU declined. Data revenues, driven by a 30-fold increase in data traffic on its network over four years, grew to 54 percent of total revenue and increased its overall ARPU.
Softbank has also moved 100 percent of its customers from 2G to 3G, and now has plans to launch a commercial Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) network and services by the end of the year.
That's because Son is anticipating a 1,000 percent increase in data traffic in the next 10 years, continuing the trend of the last 10. And by the time his 30-year forecast expires, there will be a one-million-times improvement in capacity, speed and connection, he said.
"Mobile Internet is the big bet I am making for the next 10, 20 years," Son said. Even with ARPU going down, data traffic is going up, he added. "Market share can also go up if you bet for the future more aggressively than your competitor."
"Sometimes craziness gives a good return," the enthusiastic CEO said, noting that the purchase sent SoftBank's stock plummeting 60 percent in three days and had many critics questioning his sanity.
But Son was thinking long term -- 300 years out actually. He narrowed his 300-year plan for the company to escape what he called wireless operators' "depressing reality" down to 30 years for the purposes of his speech.
"If ARPU is going down, but revenue stays flat, but capex is growing like hell, only John Chambers will be happy," Son said, jibing the Cisco Systems Inc. CEO who'd take the stage next. The reality is that Apple Inc. and Google are taking all the upside, he added, and carriers are becoming dumb pipes.
The only option for operators then is to grow their average revenue per user (ARPU), Son said, which SoftBank was to do even as voice ARPU declined. Data revenues, driven by a 30-fold increase in data traffic on its network over four years, grew to 54 percent of total revenue and increased its overall ARPU.
Softbank has also moved 100 percent of its customers from 2G to 3G, and now has plans to launch a commercial Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) network and services by the end of the year.
That's because Son is anticipating a 1,000 percent increase in data traffic in the next 10 years, continuing the trend of the last 10. And by the time his 30-year forecast expires, there will be a one-million-times improvement in capacity, speed and connection, he said.
"Mobile Internet is the big bet I am making for the next 10, 20 years," Son said. Even with ARPU going down, data traffic is going up, he added. "Market share can also go up if you bet for the future more aggressively than your competitor."
Ericsson, Akamai Get Jiggy
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Publié par
Anouar L
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BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- With the growing demand for video services and increasing interest in cloud services in mind, Ericsson AB today announced a tie-up with content delivery network (CDN) specialist Akamai Technologies Inc.
The partnership will see Akamai software integrated in Ericsson infrastructure to optimize the delivery of content and applications across mobile data connections. The resulting technology fusion, which Ericsson is calling Mobile Cloud Accelerator, will be trialed with network operators in the coming months.
"Akamai has the relationships with the content companies, and Ericsson has the technology to get the content to the end users," stated Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg at a press conference Monday morning here in Barcelona.
Akamai President David Kenny noted that his company had the ability to deliver high-quality content over fixed broadband connections, but that currently the same level of service quality isn't possible over mobile connections. "This partnership gives us the same delivery capability [as fixed] over mobile … We are going to make the mobile cloud a reality."
CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore told Light Reading that this was "a fascinating deal -- a combination of the mobile networks leader with the content delivery leader. It plays to both their strengths, and the timing is right as people [companies and individuals] want content anywhere, at any time and on any device."
The partnership will see Akamai software integrated in Ericsson infrastructure to optimize the delivery of content and applications across mobile data connections. The resulting technology fusion, which Ericsson is calling Mobile Cloud Accelerator, will be trialed with network operators in the coming months.
"Akamai has the relationships with the content companies, and Ericsson has the technology to get the content to the end users," stated Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg at a press conference Monday morning here in Barcelona.
Akamai President David Kenny noted that his company had the ability to deliver high-quality content over fixed broadband connections, but that currently the same level of service quality isn't possible over mobile connections. "This partnership gives us the same delivery capability [as fixed] over mobile … We are going to make the mobile cloud a reality."
CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore told Light Reading that this was "a fascinating deal -- a combination of the mobile networks leader with the content delivery leader. It plays to both their strengths, and the timing is right as people [companies and individuals] want content anywhere, at any time and on any device."
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