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October 12, 2006

ReefPoint's New Universal Convergence Gateway Delivers VoIP over All Major Network Technologies and Standards

By Patrick Barnard, TMCnet Associate Editor

Reef Point Systems - a Gold Sponsor for TMC’s INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo, WEST and show participant - has introduced its Universal Convergence (News - Alert) Gateway (News - Alert) (UCG) for fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) networks. The new gateway is accompanied by ReefPoint’s (News - Alert) new UCG platform.




The new gateway is said to be the first capable of delivering VoIP and multimedia services, via a single platform, over all the major network technologies and standards - including mobile CDMA and GSM, WiFi, WiMAX, DSL and cable - as well as the major FMC architectures as defined by the 3GPP, 3GPP2, ETSI and CableLabs - including IMS, UMA, Picocells and Femtocells, IMS over WiMAX and Wireless LAN.

In addition to adhering to all these carrier standards, the gateway is endowed with intelligence and policy enforcement features which help ensure that the network is delivering the personalized, high quality services that subscribers have purchased - as well as network security. Among its session aware control functions are: per-user and/or per-device secure authentication; security and denial of service protection (DoS) for Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP); security and DoS protection for IP and media traffic; per-flow, per-call quality-of-services; traffic shaping and policing; in-band and out-of-band policy enforcement.

The gateway sports ReefPoint’s patented Flow Application Streaming Technology (FAST) architecture with customized hardware-assist (i.e., ASICs and FPGAs) and deep packet inspection capabilities. According to a company press release, it can “simultaneously support 500,000 subscribers and deliver up to 1,000,000 concurrent stateful multimedia sessions at wire speed while applying quality of service, security and other flow and policy treatments in any combination.”

“Based on consumer behavior and the way industry standards are evolving, it is clear that high value telecomm services from now on will be FMC-based: mobile, IP and personalized for each subscriber,” said Woody Ritchey, CEO at Reef Point Systems, in the release. “The service providers who will win market share are those who can deliver any application, to any user’s device over any network. Reef Point is leading the industry by delivering a practical solution that enables service providers to capitalize on these trends now. The UCG is the only platform with the flexibility, intelligence, power and scalability to handle the full range, complexity and dimensions of FMC network services. It simplifies and economizes service providers' FMC infrastructure and service roll-outs.”

Because the gateway is capable of supporting all the major FMC standards on a single platform, it can be used to consolidate all major networks for accessing a service provider’s core infrastructure. This, combined with its high scalability, means the UCG offers a whole new level of flexibility for service providers seeking to roll out multiple FMC solutions, whether simultaneously or “a little at a time.” As such, it enables service providers to add new solutions and remove old ones as their deployment strategies evolve. (Hence, it delivers OPEX and CAPEX efficiencies previously not delivered through other carrier-grade FMC-capable gateways.)

“The concept of fixed-mobile convergence has up to now missed the critical need to converge all the services of both the fixed and mobile networks onto a common infrastructure,” said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corporation, a leading independent telecommunications industry consulting firm. “Reef Point has addressed that need with its truly unique UCG, a platform that offers deep inspection and custom handling of packets that's appropriate to everything from security to QoS, from voice to legacy data services. This is the kind of offering that is needed to address the issues that every provider with an FMC mission will surely face.”

The UCG platform is based on Reef Point’s iQ family of FMC gateways. Currently it is available in two form factors: the iQ8500 Universal Convergence Gateway, which supports up to 500,000 users and up to 1 million concurrent IP multimedia sessions and 5 Gigabit per second aggregate throughput; and the iQ4500 Universal Convergence Gateway, which, in a smaller form factor, also supports up to 500,000 users and up to 1 million concurrent IP Multimedia sessions and 2.5 Gigabit per second aggregate throughput. Both deliver the same set of convergence functions for network termination, privacy, infrastructure security, personalized services and assured quality, plus predictable high performance at scale and carrier-class high-availability.

Coinciding with the introduction of the new gateway (which is now available to ship) Reef Point has also introduced a range of FMC solutions which run on the new platform. These include the IMS Border Gateway (IBG) Solution for IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) (IMS), which deliver IMS services to users via WiFi access networks; the IMS Border Gateway (IBG) for IMS WiMAX Solution, which lets carriers use WiMAX to provide high-bandwidth IMS-based services to wireless users indoors and outdoors, equivalent to TISPAN fixed-line implementations; the Security Gateway (SeGW) Solution for Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), which enables the new generation of dual-mode (cellular-WiFi) phones to access FMC services on UMA architecture; the Security Gateway (SeGW) Solution for Picocells and Femtocells; and the PDG/PDIF Solution for Wireless LAN Access.

“By creating and deploying the technology specified by new industry standards like IMS and Integrated Wireless LAN services, service providers worldwide have already cast their vote in favor of Fixed Mobile Convergence as the next delivery mechanism for subscriber services,” said Cam Cullen, Reef Point vice president of product management. “But the jury is out regarding which FMC architectures will win. And because some service providers will employ multiple FMC standards and others will evolve among them, all are best served by a single platform that can support them all. Our broad range of solutions gives service providers the utmost freedom and flexibility to build compelling service packages for their customers.”

“Fixed mobile convergence is on the roadmap of all major carriers in developed countries,” said, Jean-Charles Doineau, service infrastructure practice leader at Ovum, a leading international telecommunication consulting, research and analyst firm. “Planned introduction can be made using different techniques, or using a combination of them. For example, carriers can start deploying with technologies like UMA, that move to IMS voice call continuity (VCC) for better cost efficiency when traffic will ramp-up. These different steps in introducing fixed mobile convergence offerings can all be deployed using Reef Point’s convergence gateway solution.”

For more details, visit www.reefpoint.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/comsol/articles/3079-reefpoints-new-universal-convergence-gateway-delivers-voip-over.htm)

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