News Tuesday: small cells, NFV, TD-LTE, enterprise services and more

News from SpiderCloud, Aircom, Virgin, RAD, Radisys, Dell and Qualcomm

SpiderCloud gets buy-in from Vodafone Netherlands
SpiderCloud, the company that provides its E-RAN radio-node-plus-controller architecture for in-building and campus coverage has been selected by Vodafone Netherlands to provide services to its large business customers.

The company’s E-RAN system consists of a Services Node (SCSN) that is connected to the operator’s core network, and in turn controls multi-access small cells installed through a building or site. SpiderCloud says the architecture is the cheapest and quickest way for operators to be able to provide enterprise services to their large business customers, as well as providing high capacity coverage.

SpiderCloud has been in testing and trials with the operator, so will be pleased to see it gain buy-in from group entities.

“Vodafone is taking a leadership role in solving in-building connectivity problems for business customers in the Netherlands,” said Ron Pelley, SpiderCloud’s Vice President and Managing Director, EMEA. “With SpiderCloud’s scalable small cell system, Vodafone can meet the demands of enterprise customers of all sizes.”

AirCom lands LTE planning deal from Orange France
Aircom, one of the last independent optimisation and network software companies left unattached, has announced that existing 3G customer Orange France has been using the company’s ASSET network planning solution to plan its LTE network.

“Aircom has proven to be a very reliable partner to Orange France. The company’s detailed and accurate LTE modelling made it the perfect choice for our LTE planning needs,” Fadi Abou Karam, Radio Planning Tools Project Manager at Orange France, said. “The integration of ASSET with our existing software and systems will ensure the benefits we enjoy across our GSM and UMTS networks can be easily applied to our LTE infrastructure.”

Radisys wins LTE-TDD small cell design deal
Radisys announced that Chinese developer Z-Com has selected Radisys’ TOTALeNodeB small cell software solution for its small cell LTE-TDD (Time Division Duplex) network deployments in China.

“We selected Radisys’ TOTALeNodeB small cell software because of its expansive features set and clear roadmap for TDD support,” said Jim Gao, CEO, Nanjing Z-Com. “Radisys’ TDD solution supports integration on next-generation small cell silicon, providing us with a time-to-market advantage.”

Z-Com will roll out LTE-TDD trial deployments in the first half of 2014 for Chinese mobile operator, CMCC. The initial focus will be on the Enterprise small cell market, supporting 32-64 users.

The notion of NFV architecture being just a centripetal force that relocates functionality from a customer site to the network is not the complete picture

Virgin launches “business class LTE” service
Virgin Media Business has launched what it calls a “business-grade 4G service”, piggy-backing on and wrapped around EE’s 4G network.

Business Mobile from Virgin Media Business provides mobile voice and data connectivity and is also available in 3G on EE’s network.

Duncan Higgins, director of products and marketing at Virgin Media Business, said, “We’re simplifying things for our customers by being the single supplier for all their telecoms needs. EE’s 4G experience over the past ten months clearly illustrates the benefits of the technology and their 4G network coverage is unrivalled in the UK.”

SIM-inside: Dell, Qualcomm and Telefonica announce expanded NetReady integrated SIM
Dell, in collaboration with Telefonica and http://www.qualcomm.com/Qualcomm Technologies announced its expanded Dell NetReady solution, a pay-as-you-go bundle providing mobile connectivity with a single integrated SIM. The expanded offering means that Dell NetReady can be pre-installed in select products across the XPS, Latitude, Dell Precision and Inspiron ranges available in the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Dell’s laptops and tablets are fitted with the Sierra Wireless MC8805 module, based on Qualcomm Gobi 3G 42Mbps technology, giving users internet access in 29 European countries covered by Telefonica. The free hardware assigned SIM-card offers the enhanced security, ideal for enterprise-wide deployment.

Once registered, a range of pay-as-you-go bundles are available starting from just 30 minutes and ranging up to one month. Two tariff structures offer long-term access and short-term data charges. Bundles also move with the user from country to country with bundles sold in 10 different currencies.

“Telefonica is proud to launch this service which provides users across Europe immediate access to the Internet on their devices in a fast and reliable way. Customers will benefit from our excellent network coverage and a simple and intuitive application giving access to the Internet anytime and anywhere.” said Surya Mendonca, Global m2m Director at Telefonica Digital.

Distributed NFV will broaden the scope of service assured access for Ethernet
At Ethernet & SDN Expo 2013 in New York, at Ethernet World 2013 in Prague and at Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam, RAD will share with industry leaders its vision of how virtualised functions at the customer premises along with Service Assured Access based on dedicated Layer 2/3 demarcation capabilities will accelerate service deployments and network upgrades, leading to increased revenue opportunities and lower TCO.

“Distributed NFV’s capabilities will broaden the scope of Service Assured Access for Ethernet and IP networks, and, therefore, is the next logical step in its evolution,” Dr. Yuri Gittik, head of strategic marketing at RAD, states. “The notion of NFV architecture being just a centripetal force that relocates functionality from a customer site to the network is not the complete picture,” he continues.

“Ideally, virtualised functions should be located where they will be both most effective and least expensive, which means NFV should have the option to return to the customer site,” he explains. “These two virtualization trends should be complementary and not be the networking equivalent of two ships passing in the night.”

Dr. Gittik will be speaking at the Ethernet & SDN Expo, New York, and at Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam.