This
article covers 2 themes. Firstly, Effnet's ROHC agreement with NEC and
secondly an explanation of how operators can save on infrastructure
costs.
Effnet has concluded an agreement with NEC Corporation, one of the world’s leading suppliers of telecom equipment to licence Effnet’s Robust Header Compression (ROHC) technology. NEC intends to incorporate ROHC in the next generation Radio Network Controller, RNC.
ROHC is used to increase the efficiency of transmitting IP traffic over mobile networks. Effnet’s software complies with standards of the international standards organisation IETF, which will apply to the next generation releases of UMTS standards. This is true of both the infrastructure side and terminals.
‘NEC’s choice of Effnet strengthens us in our view that our products are right at the leading edge of technical development. Because of the state of the economy during the last year, particularly in the telecom sector, many suppliers have postponed their plans for the next releases of equipment. We are now seeing more and more of them deciding to implement next generation systems and therefore the interest for ROHC has increased’, says Örjan Grinndal, Effnet’s CEO.
Effnet, which was early to see the need for Header Compression and has been a leading force in the standardisation process, has since last winter had a complete suite of products for Header Compression.
Value for operators: RoHC's impact on ROI
IP Header Compression will save wireless network operators $15 billion in infrastructure costs until 2005. For 2.5G and 3G cellular network operators, new IP based multimedia services such as streaming or interactive audio and video need insurance against IP packets being lost due to the high bit error rates on radio links.
If Robust Header Compression (RoHC) were deployed in all RNCs and handsets, operators world wide would save these accumulated amounts in network infrastructure costs.
Robust Header Compression saves cellular network operators money because without header overhead, fewer transceivers and radio network controllers are needed to handle the expected increase in IP traffic. The model shown here is based on Gartner Inc. forecasts for investment in 3G infrastructure for both W-CDMA and CDMA2000 networks, with conservative allowances made for the mix of IP traffic with other types of traffic over time. For each year the investment in RoHC is postponed, the amount saved will slip by one year, and the difference will be lost. Operators who would like to understand the economic impact of RoHC for their own networks are encouraged to contact Effnet directly for an evaluation.
