UfiSpace, a leading provider of open disaggregated networking solutions and ourselves at EPS Global, who are worldwide distributors of open networking solutions from industry-pioneering manufacturers, announced this week a partnership to provide the next generation of open and disaggregation solutions for Service Providers. This partnership means that EPS Global will distribute UfiSpace’s disaggregated cell site gateways for aggregating current and next gen. equipment at cell sites, and UfiSpace’s disaggregated open routers to enable a pay-as-you-grow network capacity upgrades in the IP/MPLS core and IP edge networks.
With this in mind I have invited one of Ufi’s excellent engineers, Will Chang, to write a short high-level overview of some of the products on offer which you will find below.
Mobile Backhaul TCO
As more and more 5G services are launched, the next challenge would be maximizing revenue from these services. While there is a lot of exploration looking for potential applications to monetize with 5G, a more practical approach would be to lower the total cost of ownership. And with many, that starts with disaggregating the mobile backhaul.
The mobile backhaul is an essential part of the network that connects the radio access network to the core network, allowing various types of traffic (voice, video, text, and data) to be transmitted in between as part of a telecommunication service.
Disaggregation improves a network’s TCO
Disaggregation allows service providers to have choice in adopting various NOS (Network Operating System) and applications on bare metal switches and enable versatile services with the same hardware platform. UfiSpace’s S9500-22XST is such a platform. It is a disaggregated cell site gateway with many use cases to lower TCO.
For example, a wireless transport network could utilize the S9500-22XST as the radio aware indoor unit and build a wireless backhaul solution. With the same platform, they can provide an application like customer edge or provider edge to aggregate traffic from enterprise or residential broadband just by running another NOS.
Convergence is another way improve a network’s TCO
The cell site gateway is a highly geographic, and application dependent box. On one end, it faces multiple generations of RAN technologies and on the other end, it must deal with all kinds of BBU interfaces. Additionally, enterprise and residential broadband could also pass through the same point on the service provider’s backbone network. With a single UfiSpace S9500-22XST disaggregated cell site gateway, a service provider can converge all that traffic into the 5G mobile backhaul.
Another use case for the S9500-22XST would be in the 5G private network. A 5G private network is a miniature RAN solution to provide regional service. Like the public RAN, an aggregation router would be needed in front of or behind the BBU, but the scale would be smaller. With the versatility of private 5G configurations, a lightweight, but full featured router is needed to offer cost effective solutions to play different roles such as BBU aggregation (backhaul), RRU aggregation (fronthaul), or even act as T-GM or T-BC to synchronize devices across the network.
So, whether TCO is lowered by disaggregation or converging networks, the UfiSpace S9500-22XST can do it all. Service providers have choices between rich solutions in the eco-system and can adopt the right solution with the right price for the infrastructure. They can also converge wired and wireless access networks to better utilize network infrastructure and provide a more unified service to their customers.
What is the difference between S9500-22XST and S9500-30XS?
The UfiSpace S9500-22XST is based on the same platform as the S9500-30XS, the industry’s first live deployment of a disaggregated cell site gateway. We can say S9500-22XST is a lite version of S9500-30XS that can further reduce TCO as well as power consumption. All the key features are identical including the Intel Broadwell 4-core 1.5GHz CPU, Broadcom Qumran-AX switching ASIC, 100GE uplink and full timing features support. Therefore, NOS vendors could easily integrate two boxes without extra effort and be able to offer versatile services to their customers.
The major difference between the S9500-22XST and the S9500-30XS is that our S9500-22XST supports 1GE RJ45 interfaces which makes it the best solution to converge multiple access networks from legacy RAN to 5G RAN as well as fixed broadband service.
Thank you to Will for the well-written and informative writings on what Ufi can offer service providers when it comes to TCO of their hardware, specifically at the cell site. As usual, I would be more than happy to share additional resources with you or for more technical information on products or SDN give me a shout also you can browse our Open Networking products here.