about carrier access

About Carrier Access

A Decade of Helping Customers by Consolidating Services and Technologies

Carrier Access' founders chose an apt name at its founding in 1992. For more than a decade, the company has remained committed to the consolidation of services and technologies for the service provider needing to save space and money.

Founding chief executive Roger Koenig and corporate development officer Nancy Pierce initially served as consultants, helping enterprises discover new ways to integrate broadband access and lower communications expenses. Koenig and Pierce turned their business into a value-added reseller operation in 1989, after realizing consultancy alone could not deliver the full package of design, equipment and service desired by their customers.

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Carrier Access produces consolidated access technology designed to streamline your network operations so you can do more with less.

Carrier Access evolved from the reseller business four years later, based on its founders experience and frustration with piecing together third-party T1 access equipment that lacked cost and space efficiencies, and serviceability. Koenig and Pierce realized that serving carriers communication networks with optimized, consolidated access technology often meant designing a smaller, more efficient network access box unlike anything offered by the existing telecommunications equipment companies. Many companies had attempted to bring together the old world of analog phone lines and the emerging Internet packet world in a common architecture, but they still thought in terms of large, cumbersome systems that filled a wiring closet - systems too unwieldy to be aligned with corporate budgets or small-office space constraints.

Carrier Access first signature product, the Access Bank, set new levels of performance in the mid-1990s for a small, compact T1 access system capable of consolidating many channels of copper-based phone networks in a system as small as a pizza box. The popularity of this system allowed Carrier Access to grow its product line by adding a range of data, wireless and fiber access products while maintaining its original focus on adding more access bandwidth integration at lower costs. The acquisition of Paragon Networks in November 2003, added the BROADway, MASTERseries and FREEway to further expand its product and solutions offering.

While the companys 21st century product catalog has grown significantly from its 1995 roots, every access technology produced by Carrier Access shares a common theme. All product architectures serve the customer goals of consolidation of access and consolidation of services which has expanded to include media-rich and personalization services. In recent years, consolidation has moved from being nice-to-have to being critical in the

21st century, as carriers look to reduce both capital and operating expenses as a means of sheer survival. Carrier Access sits positioned at this intersection responding to the demands of both the carriers and their customers.

Since becoming a publicly traded company in 1998, the company has evolved and changed, but its customers still find Carrier Access to be responsive by holding true to its promise of reducing equipment size and lowering cost while consolidating more services in a smaller space. And through the people of Carrier Access, who apply their ability and industry savvy to adapt designs to customers changing needs. Additionally, Carrier Access partners have been a key to new account wins across the spectrum of carriers and markets. Partners work with Carrier Access to integrate end-to-end networking software and service delivery with the reliability and simplicity network users expect.

Before the telecommunication downturn of 2001, Carrier Access had been primarily identified with the consolidation of traditional analog voice and digital leased-line service. Yet, long before the growing post-recession interest in sending voice calls over Internet packet-based technology, Carrier Access was a player in Voice-over-IP with its Adit 600 platform. VoIP is central to the next generation of Carrier Access products. The Adit 3000 series brings together large numbers of communication channels with tight control of IP voice calls and Internet messages, delivered in a device that continues to challenge the boundaries of size reduction and increased efficiency. By embracing the emerging world of advanced chips known as network processors, and combining the system design with unique, ergonomically-designed packages, Carrier Access has once again defined an architecture that raises the bar for service provider savings in space and money. Carrier Access believes the advantages of new architectures like the second-generation Adit are not just utilitarian; they are critical to carrier profitability. Wireless and wireline carriers alike will experience ever-shrinking margins as IP services become ubiquitous. Consolidated access technology from Carrier Access can help to ensure a continued profitability model for carriers who need to find new revenue sources as older phone networks are replaced by fat IP pipes.

The environment for managing complex services may have gotten a lot tougher since 1992, but Carrier Access has stayed committed to the beliefs and practices with which it began. Employees work hard to give this public company the feel of a more flexible and responsive startup, displaying through their innovation and initiative an ability to work with any customer, large or small. As the customers of carriers begin to expect more and more services from platforms as small as a cell phone, carriers will face continuing challenges in consolidating those services to enable them to make money over their broadband pipes. Carrier Access decade of experience, continued promise of consolidation and technology providing more services with less equipment in the network is the answer. In both ideal and action, Carrier Access helps its customers do more with less.

Product Brochures and Detail Below

http://www.carrieraccess.com/products/brochures/index.cfm#adit%20600

Product Brochures and Detail Below


http://www.carrieraccess.com/products/brochures/index.cfm#axxius%20800



http://www.carrieraccess.com/products/brochures/index.cfm#masterseries

DC

E

AB

A: Manages IP Devices or RS232 control parts at the remote sites

B: Extend IP network to the remote sites

C: Terminal Server and Router functions to provide low cost solution to help service providers to remotely manage RS232 or 10/100 BaseT devices

D: Manage locations over a single DS0

E: Low cost connectivity to the remote cell sites to provide virtual 24 x 7 for alarm notifications via SNMP, alarm traps and remote site management



FLEXengine Technology

FLEXengine is a new high-capacity circuit and packet processing technology for cell site access, switching center, and transport hub locations. This technology is based on advanced network processing software and custom logic developed by Carrier Access Corporation for the Axxius 800 and MASTERseries platforms. FLEXengine integrates all critical functions required to optimize the transport of 2.5G, 3G and 4G broadband data over existing and new packet-based broadband wireline or microwave wireless access networks.

Software-definable FLEXengine technology enables wireless operators to use downloadable software libraries, rather than expensive hardware replacements, to make network access technology upgrades. Software-definable functions are provided to implement progressive levels of voice and data bandwidth upgrades and packet access technologies, based on network readiness and service needs. The levels of FLEXengine software implementation are overlay, converge, and compress.

Overlay This is the simplest means of adding 3G and IP data services to existing GSM access circuits. FLEXengine provides T1/E1 and DS0 level circuit management to consolidate voice, IP management and broadband data traffic into the fewest number of circuits from cell sites to switching centers.

Converge Voice, cell site management, and EDGE or 3G data are converged over a common packet or ATM access pipe. The pipe can be constructed from a group from 2 to 16 T1/E1 circuits, or equipped over a DS3 or high-capacity optical connection. Multiple radio sectors and multiple services can statistically share the same access pipe with a managed Quality of Service (QoS) for each traffic type. Efficiency is gained from combining services into a single re-usable data access infrastructure from cell sites to switching centers. Circuit bonding techniques, such as ATM IMA are implemented to pool bandwidth and maintain traffic around failed transmission links.

Compress GSM Abis traffic is compressed to remove idle, silence, and overhead framing information that is transported from Base Station to Base Station Controller. The result reclaims over 50% of available T1/E1 circuit bandwidth for additional voice and data transport. Web or video traffic can occupy additional bandwidth during pauses in speech or when voice channels are not all occupied. Framing overhead inefficiencies are reclaimed at all times. Additional bandwidth gains are made by statistically combining transport from multiple radio sectors. EDGE or 3G UMTS data can be added to existing access circuits for free, without upgrading network transport capacities and costs.

FLEXengine technology from Carrier Access is disruptive in that it enables unprecedented performance in Radio Access Network transport from cell sites to hub sites and switching centers. By providing overlay, converge, and compress in a consolidated platform, wireless operators can expand capacity and deploy new 2.5G, 3G, and 4G services without the previously anticipated transport equipment and operational cost to support these networks. Once again, Carrier Access is revolutionizing the wireless Radio Access Network transport.

AD

B CF

E

A: Converge

B: Compress

C: Optimise

D: 35% ~ 50% savings in the required backhaul bandwidth between the 2 Axxius 800

E: Axxius 800 uses FlexEngine technology at the GSM BTS or UMTS Node B to provide Intelligent Network Optimisation

F: Axxius 800 uses FlexEngine technology at BSC and Radio Network Controller to provide Intelligent Access Optimisation



C

A: Upgrade to FlexEngine Technology with MasterSeries and its Flexmaster 8 module to provide Intelligent Access Optimisation for the GSM and EDGE traffic

B: Upgrade to FlexEngine Technology with Axxius 800 and its QuadFlex module to provide Intelligent Access Optimisation for the GSM and EDGE traffic

C: Flexengine at BSC works with MasterSeries and Axxius 800 to provide Intelligent Access Optimisation for the GSM and EDGE traffic



BA

BC

AD

A: EVDO is now easily added to the existing transport network, reducing or eliminating the new number of new circuits required

B: Axxius 800 provides aggregation and grooming of cell site traffic as well as intelligent access optimization for significantly improved transport

C: Wireless voice and data are efficiently compressed and optimized to provide optimized transport and limit the cost of adding EVDO to the network

D: Management of Axxius 800 at the cell site is integrated at the MTSO located host



Intelligent Access

Carrier Access is revolutionizing the industry with its latest innovation - Intelligent Access

The Challenge Facing Wireless Operators Wireless operators throughout the world are experiencing unprecedented growth. Mobile penetration is as high as 70% in some markets and new value added services are promising to attract even higher traffic volumes. As cell sites are expanded to accommodate more mobile traffic and new services like EDGE and UMTS, so too must the transmission bandwidth, linking these sites. More bandwidth means an increase in annual operating costs and capital investment. In addition, AMPS, TDMA, and GSM sites remain inefficient and expensive to provision.

Consequently, wireless operators are demanding a more intelligent solution to compliment their DCS, a solution that will not only recover unused capacity, but will also compress the overall bandwidth demands of a cell site.

Problem: Until now, the only way to increase the Access network efficiency was to utilize a DCS system to recover unused or stranded E1 or T1 bandwidth at hub site, however this has a limited benefit.

The Carrier Access Intelligent Access Solution Intelligent Access is a state-of-the-art, high-speed processing technology developed as an upgrade option for the already very versatile and successful Carrier Access suite of RAN transmission products Axxius 800 and MASTERseries platforms. This allows cutomers to leverage significant gains on existing infrastructure for minimal investment.

Intelligent Access allows operators to:

Overlay provides multiple RAN aggregation and transport. Converge improves efficiency of transport over a common protocol. Compress provides the maximum gain with the most complexity to optimize transport

Solution: Intelligent Access utilizes the Carrier Access Axxius 800 or MASTERseries at the cell site to achieve a true end-to-end process. Solution: Intelligent Access utilizes the Axxius 800 and Tellabs CCPM at the BSC to achieve a true end-to-end process. Solution: Intelligent Access dramatically reduces AMPS, TDMA, and GSM cell site transmission bandwidth requirements. Intelligent Access constantly optimizes and compresses cell traffic in real time, ensuring efficient use of transmission bandwidth throughout the life cycle of the cell site. It also re-formats the traffic into packets that can be carried on the same Access links as UMTS traffic. This allows the UMTS and other traffic to efficiently share bandwidth and avoid the additional expense of providing separate UMTS links. Compress provides the maximum gain with the most complexity to optimize transport

How Does Intelligent Access Work? The Intelligent Access functionality of the FLEXmaster and QuadFLEX Service Modules is made possible by Carrier Access new FLEXengine technology. A powerful network-processing platform that performs transport optimization and complex protocol inter-working functions, FLEXengine delivers 3 crucial benefits:

Efficiency FLEXengine supports overlay, converged, and compression techniques to deliver efficient transport.

Scalability FLEXengine scales to meet diverse market needs ranging from small cell sites to large cell sites and hub sites, and mobile switching centers.

Programmability FLEXengine can be custom configured and remotely programmed to meet diverse and changing RAN transport requirements. This eliminates the need to send technicians to the site to change the RAN transport configurations. By doing dramatically reducing AMPS, TDMA, and GSM cell site transmission bandwidth requirements, Intelligent Access doubles the capacity of the Radio Access Network links links that represent more than 30% of a wireless operators annual operating expense.

These savings also lead to cost reductions in other areas:

Total annual costs for E1/ T1s installations substantially reduced. Reduced number of DCS ports used, resulting in reduced forecast equipment costs Reduced effort requirement by design and operations teams to deploy UMTS Reduced incremental microwave link operational costs

Intelligent Access has a dramatic affect on bottom line revenues and the return on investment is extremely short, as Intelligent Access can pay for itself in as little as six months. And with increased profits, lower leased line and maintenance costs due to fewer E1/T1s, and increase subscribers with more value-added, UMTS-based services.

About Carrier AccessFLEXengine TechnologyIntelligent Access

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