Hope always seems to spring eternal among the wireless devotees, but last week’s Carrier Ethernet mobile backhaul demonstration at the CTIA Wireless 2008 show in Las Vegas showed that some of these wireless concepts are reaching fruition.

The mobile backhaul interoperability test event at CTIA demonstrated a representative next-generation backhaul network – including customer access, heterogeneous aggregation and edge networks, as well as a core network – using such diverse technologies as MPLS, T-MPLS and PBB-TE, according to the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), which helped showcase the multi-vendor demo.

The various technology clouds were interconnected via standard interfaces, enabling interoperable end-to-end communication spanning multiple network architectures. The demonstrations included phone calls via multiple technologies, mobile TV and video-on-demand (VOD), high-speed data services and voice prioritizing using MEF bandwidth profiles, CDMA2000 applications, circuit emulation, and uninterrupted voice calls demonstrating MEF service resiliency in both core and aggregation networks.

The complete test network had already been showcased at the MPLS and Ethernet World Congress in Paris and at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The focus of the demonstration, according to the MEF, was to show that Carrier Ethernet can meet the delay and delay variation requirements, and it was held in conjunction with the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) and the IP/MPS Forum. 

Optimum Lightpath serves up Carrier Ethernet mobile backhaul service
With several service providers in the U.S. deploying Carrier Ethernet for backhaul, the technology isn’t just a pipe dream.

“Carrier Ethernet presented us with the ideal combination of lower capital costs and lower OPEX, so Optimum Lightpath embraced it as our primary delivery technology in 2005,” said Kevin Curran, Optimum Lightpath’s SVP of marketing. “Today we use Carrier Ethernet services to deliver mobile backhaul services to cellular operators with guaranteed [service level agreements], high-capacity and unprecedented rates.”

Optimum Lightpath was the first cable operator to join MEF in 2006 and has won several awards from the organization.

Optimum Lightpath, a division of Cablevision, first implemented its Carrier Ethernet mobile backhaul services with a customer last summer. The service is currently being used by several top wireless providers.

“We were able to implement it, and the service worked the way it was advertised so there was no disappointment there,” said Glenn Calafati, Optimum Lightpath’s director of product development for optical IP-based services. “What was really interesting about our implementation was we didn’t leverage any legacy infrastructure. Ours is all Ethernet, from the mobile switching center to the cell tower, so we fulfilled our promise on delivering on a core network that was converged over IP.”

Carrier Ethernet backhaul can emulate a high volume of circuit emulation over Ethernet traffic and position wireless carriers for next-generation services.

“The mobile backhaul part of [Carrier Ethernet] is that it’s a complimentary architecture designed directly for wireless providers, and it’s moving them to be ready to put high-speed Ethernet in their antenna locations,” Calafati said.

MEF refining Carrier Ethernet mobile backhaul
The MEF’s preliminary work on Carrier Ethernet mobile backhaul involved independent research within the mobile community, which led to MEF’s draft – “Service Implementation Agreement (IA) for Carrier Ethernet services in mobile operators’ backhaul networks.”

The MEF said the final specification will serve as the industry reference document for the purchase and sale of backhaul services over Ethernet, encompassing a wide range of access technologies.

The IA also complements the MEF 18 specification defining circuit emulation services (CES) – the technology that allows TDM services to be offered over Ethernet so that low-capacity legacy TDM networks can make the transition to highly scalable networks, supporting increased bandwidth demand at lower costs.

For more information on Carrier Ethernet for mobile backhaul, access the MEF whitepaper here.