Poll of LTE Operators Indicates Strong Support for Distributed Grandmaster Strategy

TEL AVIV, Israel - Sept. 9, 2013 - PRLog -- A poll of mobile operators conducted at the LTE World Summit in Amsterdam by RAD, the global vendor of Service Assured Access backhaul solutions, reveals that the majority are seeking a new alternative for ensuring accurate timing distribution in their 4G networks.

The most popular existing approach is to co-locate a GPS antenna (and receiver) at each base station. “Indeed, GPS is a proven technology that provides excellent timing accuracy,” said Ilan Tevet, head of RAD’s Service Provider Line of Business. “But the feedback we received from 4G operators is that installing a GPS antenna at every LTE base station is far from their preferred option.”

Asked if they plan to adopt GPS on every cell-site as a timing solution, most LTE operators who responded noted that installing a GPS antenna at every base station is expensive. The technology also poses immunity issues, like jamming and spoofing. Moreover, there are installation limitations as well, since a clear line of sight to satellites cannot be guaranteed at every base station.

The second existing approach is installing a centralized Grandmaster clock in the mobile core, which could service hundreds or even thousands of base stations across the entire backhaul network. When asked about that option, most 4G operators acknowledged that while a centralized Grandmaster solution works nicely for frequency distribution, a forklift upgrade would be necessary because time distribution mandates that every network element along the way offer PTP (Precision Time Protocol or IEEE 1588-2008) on-path support.

Furthermore, in order to meet the required level of accuracy, the asymmetry introduced by the physical links would also require compensation. “The bottom line is that a majority of 4G operators are convinced that a centralized Grandmaster solution would still be quite expensive from the standpoint of CapEx,” Tevet explained.

Finally, the respondents were asked to identify the ideal way to reconcile the need to lower CapEx with the demand for a high level of time accuracy across the entire LTE network. Virtually all of them agreed that it would be preferable to bring Grandmaster capability to the first aggregation point, as close as possible to the cell site or a cluster of small cells.

“This is precisely where RAD’s recently-unveiled Distributed GM solution is deployed,” noted Tevet.  Incorporated into an advanced Carrier Ethernet 2.0 certified device that supports 1588-2008 and equipped with a built-in GPS receiver, RAD’s Distributed GM provides an accurate reference clock for base stations with no network upgrade.

“The RAD advantage is that its LTE backhaul solution combines support for both Ethernet-assured services and accurate synchronization for LTE in a single small form-factor device,” Tevet said. “This eliminates the need for two separate boxes that otherwise would be needed to provide the same functions, reducing both CapEx and OpEx and speeding up ROI in the process.”

“The poll results confirm that our Distributed GM strategy responds perfectly to the needs of 4G operators,” Tevet concluded. “Distributed GM promises to be the preferred Service Assured Access solution for the challenges presented by LTE backhaul.”

RAD customers include operators and service providers such as Bharti Airtel, British Telecom, CenturyLink, China Mobile, China Telecom, Claro, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, Embratel, France Telecom/Orange, Hutchison, KDDI, KPN, SingTel, SoftBank, Telefónica, Telekom Austria, TeliaSonera, Telstra, Telus, Verizon, and Vodafone.

About RAD

RAD Data Communications provides Service Assured Access solutions that reduce operational complexity and improve service profitability for retail, wholesale and mobile service providers, as well as evolutional migration solutions for service providers and power and transportation utilities, facilitating a smooth, secure and cost-effective transition to packet-based networks. RAD’s multi-faceted in-house technology embraces OAM and performance management; service assurance; traffic management; fault management; synchronization and timing over packet; TDM pseudowire; ASIC and FPGA development; hardware miniaturization; and SFP form-factor solutions. The company's installed base exceeds 12,000,000 units and encompasses more than 150 service providers around the world, as well as scores of power utilities, transportation systems and government institutions. RAD is active in industry standardization bodies such as the IETF, Broadband Forum, ITU, and MEF. RAD is a member of the $1.2 billion RAD Group of companies, a world leader in networking and internetworking product solutions. RAD Data Communications site: www.rad.com   Twitter: http://twitter.com/RADdatacomms

Press Contact

Bob Eliaz, Media Relations Manager, RAD Data Communications

Tel: +972-3-6458134

Fax: +972-3-6498250

E-mail: bob@rad.com