TELUS makes a smooth transition to IP transport to effectively deal with the growing mobile broadband challenge

Huge customer demand necessitated TELUS’ move to an all-IP based transport network. Nokia Siemens Networks’ standards based Timing over Packet offering was the only solution in the market to facilitate the migration to a packet based network.

“We have had Nokia Siemens Networks’ Timing over Packet solution in place in our live network for months now and are fully satisfied. The company made some enhancements on top of the IEEE 1588-2008 standard, specifically for clock recovery and resiliency that led us to feel comfortable choosing its solution. Since it has been up and running, it has performed flawlessly.”

Said Mokbel,
Head of Wireless Access, Technology Strategy, TELUS

The exponential increase in mobile data traffic convinced Canadian telecommunications carrier, TELUS to deploy its new 3G network completely over an IP-based transport infrastructure. With transmission costs representing 25% of Radio access OPEX, an end-to-end all-IP over Ethernet transport solution would provide higher capacity at a much lower cost than a traditional TDM-based network. The operator decided to deploy a next generation wireless network that delivered Internet data speeds of 21 Mbps to reinforce its leadership in the mobile broadband market.

The 3G+ HSPA wireless network would for all purposes need to complement TELUS’ existing CDMA network. After a comprehensive review, TELUS selected Nokia Siemens Networks to provide its radio access portfolio comprising base stations and controllers, as well as Converged Core including circuit, packet and harmonized subscriber management solutions. One of the deciding factors of the selection was that Nokia Siemens Networks was the only vendor to offer a standardized solution for synchronizing IP/Ethernet base stations, which fulfilled TELUS’ high expectations. 

Challenges

  • Increased growth in mobile data traffic 
  • Costly impact of transition to an all-IP network 
Mobile network synchronization held the key
Synchronization is one of the key functionalities of mobile backhaul networks to ensure that all base stations are running on the same frequency. If this is not the case, handovers don’t take place smoothly with the result that users might face call drops when moving between base station cells.

Solution

  • 100% Nokia Siemens Networks Core Network
  • Flexi WCDMA Base Stations
  • All-IP backhaul, LTE ready network
  • Timing over Packet for synchronization
  • Multi-operator network sharing
The Nokia Siemens Networks Timing over Packet (ToP) solution is based on the industry standard IEEE1588-2008 and comprises three components: 1) A grand master clock deployed at central sites, 2) A slave clock that is fully integrated into Nokia Siemens Networks’ Flexi base stations, microwave radios and Carrier Ethernet transport products, and 3) Tools and services to identify and optimize the transport network’s suitability for synchronization. The result: high quality of service applied at every highly loaded node to avoid timing packets being queued behind other traffic.

Benefits

  • Cost effective, high quality voice and data offerings
  • Reduced costs in building higher capacity
Nokia Siemens Networks’ Timing over Packet implementation allowed building the transport network using more relaxed quality of service requirements compared to what any other vendor’s implementation would have required. It has also had a direct positive impact on the costs for building and maintaining the network. More importantly, end users are assured high quality voice and data.