Alcatel Lucent will add Internet options to its triple play architecture. The additions address the challenges operators face to deliver better, more economical high-speed Internet services.
The software and hardware additions to the vendor’s Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA) are designed to enable operators to continue providing unmanaged Internet services while rolling out managed Internet offerings.
“We’re not changing the Internet service model,” said Jim Guillet, assistant vice-president of triple play product marketing for Alcatel-Lucent. “We suggest the high-speed Internet model remain net neutral, while letting operators provide managed online services as an option.”
The TPSDA additions are part of a growing effort by infrastructure vendors to help operators keep pace or stay ahead of fast-building demand, broader availability and heavier use of high-speed Internet services.
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“Maintaining the status quo is largely a cost-control exercise that through bandwidth throttling and limiting traffic is a very negative thing that results in public outcry,” said Guillet, perhaps in reference to the reaction to Comcast Corp.’s (http://www.comcast.com) throttling of certain peer-to-peer application traffic. A second option, “throwing bandwidth at the problem,” creates cost recovery challenges, he added, calling his company’s plan “a third option.”
The hardware and software enhancements to the Alcatel-Lucent Service Router Portfolio include:
-A 2.5 fold increase in capacity and density. This is due to new modules and the Application Assurance-Integrated Services Adaptor, which enables application policy enforcement per-subscriber.
-The High-Scale Media Dependent Adaptor handles granular queuing and traffic management with the vendor citing the equivalent of 19.2 million queues per telecom rack, enabling specific policy and control for each service delivered to a subscriber.
-Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet tunnel termination, which facilitates the migration of legacy high-speed Internet transport networks and their present mode of operation to TPSDA-based networks.
-The 5670 Reporting and Analysis Manager, which is the back-office brawn needed to support managed online services, according to Guillet. This is because it provides extensive tools and capabilities to warehouse, aggregate and process detailed, application-level statistics per-subscriber.
Some of the items are in trial now, with all due out by the third quarter, according to the vendor.
