RAD’s ACE-3100 cell site gateway is specifically designed to accommodate the rapid expansion in mobile backhaul traffic resulting from the widespread deployment of new cellular services such as 3G mobile broadband and rich-media communications. It simplifies service provisioning and control by supporting 2G/3G colocation and enabling simultaneous delivery of GSM, UMTS and next-generation 3GPP services over the same transport network. Working opposite the ACE-340x and ACE-3600 aggregation site gateways, the ACE-3100 minimizes capital investments and shortens service roll-out times by leveraging available ATM and SDH/SONET infrastructure. Additionally, it optimizes RAN efficiency, thereby offsetting the cost of increased bandwidth capacity, reduce operating expenses and protect operator revenues.
The ACE-3100 connects one or several base stations (BTSs) and node Bs to ATM, SDH/SONET or PSN backbones, over shared access lines. Featuring “any service any port” functionality, it incorporates flexible port configuration to allow aggregation of circuit-emulated (CES) TDM E1/T1s, fractional E1/T1 UNIs or several IMA links into a single IMA, STM-1/OC-3 or Fast Ethernet network interface.
This minimizes the number of overall network links and facilitates the use of lower-priced, higher bit-rate STM-1/OC-3 ports in network edge switches, instead of costly E1/T1 links or deployment of additional switches. Mobile operators can therefore allocate their backhaul resources more effectively and reduce the number of leased services required to support their networks, consequently lowering their backhaul capital expenditures (CapEx).
Furthermore, by supporting inherent ATM QoS attributes, the ACE-3100 RAN backhaul solution enables service differentiation and traffic engineering, including prioritization, shaping and scheduling. Together with ATM’s statistical multiplexing nature, this allows operators to optimize network utilization by implementing overbooking strategies, thereby reducing service costs and operating expenditures (OpEx).
Packet transport offers great savings in backhaul costs and enables scalable adaptation to required bandwidth capacity. The ACE-3100 supports operators in carrying out a step-by-step transition to PSNs, for example by separating real-time GSM/TDMA and UMTS voice/video traffic from delay-tolerant HSDPA traffic, using a hybrid of PSN and deterministic TDM or ATM transport networks. Alternatively, operators can converge multi-generation traffic over an all-IP RAN, using ATMoPSN, CESoPSN or SAToP pseudowires, with accurate synchronization and clock distribution mechanisms, as well as with various encapsulation and QoS schemes for delivering ATM and TDM traffic over L2 and L3 networks.
The ACE-3100 receives timing data from either an E1/STM-1 link or adaptively recovers it from the PSN, using a dedicated pseudowire. The adaptive clock recovery mechanism enables robust traffic synchronization over packet transport and meets the strict timing requirements of mobile networks. Complying with 3GPP and GSM specifications for cellular transport, the ACE-3100 ensures better than 16ppb (parts per billion) clocking accuracy.
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