Isocore Internetworking Lab validates Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS mobile backhaul solution

Exhaustive, industry first independent tests confirm a best-in-class solution with superior scalability and resilience

Paris.− Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)today announced that Isocore Internetworking Lab, the leader in validation and interoperability of emerging and next generation technologies, presented a comprehensive report confirming the scalability and resilience of Alcatel-Lucent’s industry leading IP/MPLS portfolio for mobile backhaul. The independent performance verification by Isocore is an industry first and designed to evaluate the ability of Alcatel-Lucent’s solution to meet the needs of mobile service operators for backhauling disparate cellular networks across common IP/MPLS networks under the most demanding conditions.

“The overall results indicate that the tested solution is one of the most comprehensive mobile backhaul solutions available in the industry,” said Dr. Bijan Jabbari, President of Isocore. “Isocore feels comfortable in stating the scalability and feature richness of the Alcatel-Lucent mobile backhaul solution and believes, based on verifiable results, that the solutions evaluated during this testing series deliver comprehensive industry-leading mobile backhaul services.”

The independent performance verification conducted by Isocore was commissioned by Alcatel-Lucent to confirm the scalability and resilience of its end-to-end IP/MPLS RAN aggregation and backhaul solutions within the Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Evolution Transport Architecture (META). Multiple iterations of each test were conducted with special emphasis being placed on resilience mechanisms. Tests confirmed that voice calls can be maintained by the Alcatel-Lucent MBH solution even in catastrophic node failure scenarios because the recovery mechanisms and features were able to successfully preserve the integrity of calls.

“These excellent results confirm our ability to deploy best in class IP mobile backhaul solutions that are now setting new industry standards for better scalability, higher availability, and superior resilience,” said Basil Alwan, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP activities. “As mobile backhaul networks transition to all IP networks, validating the scalability, resilience, and clock synchronization capabilities of an end-to-end all IP MBH solution is essential for wide-scale market adoption. Our willingness to subject our IP MBH solution to rigorous third party testing by Isocore reflects our commitment to bring the most robust and independently validated solutions to the market.”

Isocore’s evaluation focused on the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router and Alcatel-Lucent 7705 Service Aggregation Router as Systems Under Test (SUT) for CDMA/EVDO and GSM/UMTS/HSPA backhaul as well as for transport of Circuit Emulated Services (CES) and timing distribution over IP/MPLS. These tests certify that IP / MPLS solutions to the cell site fully support today’s 2G and 3G technologies and that the solution satisfies and exceeds the requirements for resilient voice services, network timing, and high availability mobile backhaul transport. The tests also verify the readiness of the IP/MPLS mobile backhaul solution to support tomorrow’s 4G, LTE, and enhanced packet core solutions as they move to complete end to end IP.

The rigorous tests were conducted by Isocore with support from Alcatel-Lucent engineers in March 2008 using the Agilent Technologies N2X Multiservice Test Solution to simulate the demanding deployment realities of mobile operators for the foreseeable future. Agilent’s N2X was selected for the test bed because of its capability to provide accurate real-time statistics in a scaled test environment.