An IP Backhaul Solution for Today and Tomorrow - Tellabs

AN IP BACKHAUL
SOLUTION FOR TODAY
AND TOMORROW How Tellabs® ® 8600 Smart Routers
are helping German operator E-Plus
build its new mobile backhaul network
By M.J. Richter
Insight Q1 2013 11

MOBILE BACKHAUL
Delivering what customers want has been the E-Plus Group’s driving philosophy
ever since the German mobile operator entered the market nearly two decades
ago.
For many years, E-Plus differentiated itself successfully with voice service innovations
in the German market. Customers were attracted by flexible tariff models or even
flat rates—but smartphones, tablets and dongles make today’s consumers much
more bandwidth hungry and demanding of data services enabled with mobile
Internet access.
To meet these challenges, E-Plus is rebuilding its nationwide mobile backhaul
network.
“Updating our mobile backhaul infrastructure is critical for delivering the faster
access that customers want,” says Gerhard Lüdtke, Director of Access and
Transport Networks at E-Plus.
Opting for an IP radio access network (IP-RAN) architecture, E-Plus has selected
a combination of packet nodes using Tellabs ® 8600 Smart Routers and Ericsson
MINI-LINK microwave solutions for first- and second-mile segments.
“In addition to enabling E-Plus to provide faster access to the mobile Internet,
this investment will future-proof our network and make it a more cost-effective
foundation for our mobile broadband business,” Mr. Lüdtke says.
“E-Plus required a
transition from our
ATM technology
foundation toward IP
routing and the
Tellabs 8600 packet
nodes were the most
economic enabler.”
—Gerhard Lüdtke,
Director of Access and
Transport Networks at
E-Plus
Powering a new backhaul strategy
When measured by the size of its customer base, E-Plus, with 24 million subscribers,
is the third-largest German mobile operator, behind T-Mobile and Vodafone. A subsidiary
of KPN International, E-Plus is headquartered in Düsseldorf and has more than
4,000 employees throughout the country.
In 2008, when E-Plus began to map out a new backhaul strategy, most operators were
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IP: Internet Protocol
RAN: Radio Access Network
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MOBILE BACKHAUL
“The major differentiator
in the Tellabs
solution was that
Tellabs ® 8000
Intelligent Network
Manager hides
complexity when
operating a countrywide
IP network.”
—Gerhard Lüdtke,
Director of Access and
Transport Networks at
E-Plus
relying on Layer-2 Pseudowire solutions. In essence, these point-to-point circuits are
typically TDM/ATM traffic encapsulations and transported over Ethernet connections.
However, as LTE technology gained traction, a shift toward more flexible backhaul
topology implementations found rapid acceptance in the industry. Consequently, E-Plus
decided to adopt an innovative IP-routed RAN strategy for its backhaul renewal.
Within wireless networks around the world, RAN evolution is accelerating various migration
strategies toward IP-centric networks. While the near-term goal is to provide
faster access for its mobile-Internet customers, E-Plus also wanted a technologyagnostic
RAN transport solution. Choosing MPLS decouples bearer formats from
the underlying transport mechanisms. MPLS also enables the coexistence of multiple
technology generations with the most flexible network consolidation at the right point
in time.
“E-Plus has an ATM-based network, and ATM switches are quite constrained in the
amount of traffic they can handle,” Mr. Lüdtke says. “So we were limited in our offering
of higher-capacity data services, which become increasingly interesting for consumers.
Therefore, a transition from our ATM technology foundation toward IP routing was required
and the Tellabs 8600 packet nodes were the most economic enabler.”
To handle such a huge network initiative, E-Plus wanted a system integrator with
expertise and experience for all the required infrastructure components. Ultimately,
E-Plus awarded Ericsson Germany GmbH the contract to build the new IP-RAN endto-end.
Tellabs designed its modular IP/MPLS-based Tellabs 8600 Smart Routers to help
operators like E-Plus deploy economic pay-as-you-grow networks. The Tellabs 8600
series is an extensive portfolio of right-sized network elements that cover any traffic
requirements, from small cell sites through various aggregation layers up to the RNC
and gateway locations for traffic termination with handoff to the core.
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ATM: Asynchronous Transfer
Mode
LTE: Long-term Evolution
MPLS: Multi-Protocol Label
Switching
RNC: Radio Network Controller
TDM: Time Division
Multiplexing
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MOBILE BACKHAUL
E-Plus is currently using Tellabs ® 8630 and 8660 Smart Routers for the higher parts
of the network (high radio access network, or HRAN) and the small 1RU-high Tellabs ®
8609 Smart Router in the lower backhaul areas (low radio access network, or LRAN).
While the HRAN packet nodes always connect to a fiber entry point using either SDH
or Ethernet interfaces of the underlying transmission infrastructure, the LRAN packet
nodes are typically attached to the microwave systems, serving a mix of PDH/SDH and
Ethernet technologies.
A large backhaul transition project inevitably leads to a temporary co-existence of
parallel infrastructures. One is using TDM/ATM protocols transported via SDH for 2G
and 3G endpoints. The other leverages Ethernet/IP over DWDM for HSPA and LTE
connectivity. The entire packet-based network anchored by the Tellabs 8600 platform
is readily prepared to converge into a single IP-RAN over time.
Unified protection and operation is crucial
Topologies in mobile access and aggregation networks are complex. Everything from
daisy chain, tree, ring or even partial mesh needs to be supported in the LRAN. That
situation challenges protection and a protocol-dependent mix of different concepts
introduces further complexities.
“To satisfy E-Plus’ requirement of a unified operation and protection scheme, we decided
to leverage MPLS technology already in LRAN aggregation points,” Robert
Bschorr, senior systems sales engineer at Tellabs, explains. “As soon as the traffic gets
to the Tellabs 8609 router, acting as demarcation point of the MPLS layer, E-Plus can
leverage the same protection—and quality of service—mechanisms consistently
throughout the entire network.”
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2G: Second Generation
3G: Third Generation
DWDM: Dense Wavelength
Division Multiplexing
HRAN: High Radio Access
Network
HSPA: High-Speed Packet
Access
LRAN: Low Radio Access
Network
PDH: Plesiochronous Digital
Hierarchy
SDH: Synchronous Digital
Hierarchy
Insight Q1 2013 14

MOBILE BACKHAUL
With the Tellabs
8000 INM, all node,
network and serviceprovisioning
tasks
are executed solely
through a graphical
user interface.
Intelligent management system hides network complexity
A broad variety of technical and commercial advantages persuaded E-Plus to introduce
the Tellabs 8600 platform as a packet node when evaluating IP-RAN alternatives. Mr.
Lüdtke says, “The major differentiator in the Tellabs solution was that Tellabs ® 8000
Intelligent Network Manager hides complexity when operating a country-wide IP network.”
“There is a huge difference between an IP/MPLS core—which typically consists of a
few dozen routers—and a large-scale IP/MPLS-based aggregation network comprising
several thousand nodes,” Robert says. “The latter greatly elevates scalability problems
and the associated operational complexities. Therefore, we divided the network into
different autonomous systems (AS), and made it extremely scalable by designing a
Multi-AS architecture.”
Robert continues, “This is a very robust and scalable approach, but these smaller
islands, further structured by using different IP VPNs, create additional complexity when
it comes to Inter-AS communications.”
That’s where the Tellabs 8000 INM helps.
For example, operators normally need to provision and maintain the routers with their
built-in command line interfaces (CLI). However, with the Tellabs 8000 INM, all node,
network and service-provisioning tasks are executed solely through a graphical user
interface. The underlying protocol complexities are completely hidden and there is no
need to deal with the CLI to build and maintain the network.
Automation becomes key
With the tightest integration of IP-router functionalities into one holistic network and
service management system, the Tellabs 8000 INM provides a complete set of tools for
network pre-planning, building, provisioning, monitoring and connection testing.
Automation releases the full potential of the system, and offers operators significant
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AS: Autonomous Systems
CLI: Command Line
Interfaces
INM: Intelligent Network
Manager
VPN: Virtual Private Network
Insight Q1 2013 15

MOBILE BACKHAUL
benefits, such as: wizards for the provisioning process; templates for ensuring consistent
parameters network-wide; macros for mass operations and built-in advisors to help
with troubleshooting.
Operators will save on costs when leveraging and combining all network and service
information stored in the Tellabs 8000 INM database with complementary operation
and business support systems.
“E-Plus’ new IP-based backhaul solution not only delivers what our customers expect
today, but also what they’ll need in the future,” Mr. Lüdtke says. ■
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Insight Q1 2013 16