Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile will demonstrate a voice over LTE (VoLTE) implementation using a virtualized proof of concept LTE RAN Baseband Unit (BBU) and virtualized evolved packet core solutions.
The demo, which will be held at China Mobile’s booth at Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, will allow visitors to make voice and video calls with VoLTE capable handsets.
These services are enabled by a multi-vendor cloud network including:
- Alcatel-Lucent’s virtualized proof of concept LTE RAN BBU uses COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) parts including hardware components, software components and commercial LTE protocols. The solution was developed as part of the Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) program initiated by China Mobile. Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop C-RAN in 2011.
- Alcatel-Lucent’s vEPC operating with other virtualized core network functions in a multi-vendor environment. This will be onboarded, managed and orchestrated within the virtual environment by the latest version of Alcatel-Lucent’s NFV platform – CloudBand 2.0.
China Mobile has more than 700 million subscribers and operates a large scale TD-LTE overlay network in which Alcatel-Lucent is a prime vendor.
Dr. Chihlin I, Chief Scientist of CMCC Research Institute, said “China Mobile and Alcatel-Lucent have a long history of working together to deliver innovative solutions that push the boundaries of telecoms and our work on NFV is no exception. Here we are demonstrating how a cloud network environment can help us deliver services faster and better to even greater numbers of people. This will help us meet the explosion in demand for mobile data and allow us to innovate even further with new service offerings.”
Dave Geary, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless business: “As IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access specialists, we are delivering carrier grade solutions to some of the largest LTE networks in the world, helping customers such as China Mobile manage the unprecedented demand being placed on their networks today. Having started work on our own virtualization plans before the NFV initiative was founded we are heavily investing in delivering open carrier-grade virtualized solutions and have a real understanding of what is needed in a cloud environment. We are very pleased to have this opportunity to work with China Mobile at Mobile World Congress to show the benefits of this type of solution working in a complete multi-vendor cloud network environment.”
