Acme Packet has launched a suite of solutions aimed at helping operators achieve the promise of IMS – the ability to support SIP services across fixed and mobile environments at scale – without dealing with the mammoth task that a full deployment would require.
The new portfolio can serve up to 2 million subscribers, for between $2 and $3 per subscriber, and they together address the bulk of IMS functionality, in an integrated platform.
“Our goal is to transform the delivery of SIP-based multimedia by providing a session border controller and core IMS functions in one system,” said Kevin Mitchell, director of solutions marketing at the SBC vendor.
IMS, of course, is the IP architecture for a next-gen approach to service delivery that abstracts applications from the physical layer. SIP-based services can thus run end-to-end, regardless of the access or core network involved. The blueprint is considered the core of a future that ties all networks together, where applications can be delivered anytime, anywhere, to any device, cost-effectively.
“IMS is a wonderful vision, but it takes tens of systems to enable,” Mitchell said. “That complexity is slowing the migration to IMS. It’s a fairly large undertaking and many carriers feel it’s overkill for their subscriber population.”
Acme Packet’s new suite addresses the main goals of IMS without all the integration, he said. “Liberating access networks, getting away from siloed network investments, enabling a centralized subscriber identity and wrapping in mobility are all things we can do, only in a much simpler fashion,” Mitchell said. “It’s an integrated approach that eliminates a lot of the interoperability issues and certification requirements.”
The new solutions are: the Net-Net SIP Multimedia-xpress; the Net-Net 4500 Session-aware Load Balancer and Net-Net SBC Cluster; and the Net-Net Route Manager Central.
Acme Packet’s Net-Net SIP Multimedia-xpress (SMX) creates a simplified, single system IMS-equivalent or NGN delivery platform at a cost of approximately $2-$3 per subscriber for as few as 100,000 subscribers. The Net-Net 4500 Session-aware Load Balancer (SLB) and Net-Net SBC Cluster enable scaling the Net-Net SMX solution, and any other Acme Packet access SBC deployment, to 2 million subscribers from a single IP address for SIP signaling. Lastly, Acme Packet’s Net-Net Route Manager Central (RMC) consolidates and automates the management and distribution of up to 2 million routes per Acme Packet SBC and session routing proxies (SRPs) within Acme Packet’s Open Session Routing (OSR) architecture.
The company is showcasing the solutions next week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
