NEW YORK-The Multi-Service Networks Division of Ericsson Telecom AB, Stockholm, is poised to deliver on the promise of convergence by enabling Internet service providers, cable TV operators and local exchange carriers to offer seamless connectivity to mobile communications.
The technologies are designed to provide wireless network operators with enhanced delivery and transport to promote efficiencies in provision of voice and data communications. They also are intended to facilitate landline replacement by interconnecting mobile and stationary environments.
“Look at LECs that have mobile and wireline businesses. On the mobile side, they have been focused on growth and getting subscribers. Now the mobile side is coming to the fixed line side and saying, “Let’s get more efficient,’ ” said Johan Lange, strategic business development manager.
In the United States, its largest market, Ericsson’s Multi-Service Networks Division seeks to leverage its wireless relationships because it sees opportunities in the coming convergence of wireline and wireless and fixed and mobile environments, said Magnus Anseklev, vice president of business management for North America.
“For operators, the challenge is to get a return on their 3G investments while protecting today’s good voice revenues. Otherwise, their debt ratings will go down-as has happened in Europe, Latin America and Asia and now in the United States,” said Mitch A. Lewis, general manager and director of marketing.
Driving the progression for Ericsson is its ENGINE, an open platform for provision of multiservice networks. So far this year, Ericsson has announced agreements to supply ENGINE technology to AOL Time Warner, WorldCom Inc. and Telia, which has an Internet protocol backbone network in the United States.
“It’s a common platform to make multimedia services available, regardless of access type. All the protocols to make this possible are being standardized now,” Lange said.
“We have talked to Canadian and American cable TV companies, which have told us this could change their business models and allow them to offer fixed and mobile phone services. It could also allow an AOL Time Warner to get into this.”
The WorldCom agreement, made public in February, is the division’s first to supply ENGINE to a global carrier and to a United States-based carrier, Anseklev said.
“This is an upgrade of WorldCom’s existing network to achieve cost efficiencies by reducing capital expenses and maintenance,” he said.
Ericsson’s Multi-Service Networks Division already has signed similar agreements with Germany’s Callino and Italy’s EdisonTel, both competitive LECs established for the express purpose of transporting 3G wireless traffic on their networks.
“In the longer term, our agreement with WorldCom will let them get into multimedia. The core of the platform is the same for fixed and mobile communications and is 3G-compatible,” he said.
With WorldCom, Ericsson seeks to replicate the success it already has had in an ongoing relationship with British Telecommunications plc, another ENGINE customer, to fine-tune the technology.
“We have a joint development effort with WorldCom looking at the business case for different applications,” Anseklev said.
Expanding outreach of the joint development concept to others, the division also plans to establish four ENGINE Business Labs by year-end, Lewis said. The first is scheduled to open in Dallas in June. Later, another is planned for Sao Paulo, Brazil, with one each targeted for as-yet-undetermined locations in the Asia-Pacific region and in Western Europe, he said.
A salient feature of these labs will be display rooms called “ENGINE @ Creative World.” which demonstrate potential applications as they might be used by consumers.
Ericsson is in various stages of development of a suite of “Solutions for the Broadband Home” that include Bluetooth devices, MP3 tuners, cable modems, HiperLAN2 cards and access points, WebScreens, and an Internet radio with the working product title of “Tina Tuner.”
At the same time, it plans to introduce commercially by late summer a home base station called Mobile@Home that “will offer a convergence solution between fixed and mobile environments,” Lewis said. In its first iteration, Mobile@Home will offer three voice and four data channels.
