Unstrung Insider Analyzes AdvancedTCA for 3G Wireless Networks

Unstrung Insider Analyzes AdvancedTCA for 3G Wireless Networks

Wireless Equipment Manufacturers Will Look to ATCA to Cut Costs and Accelerate Product Development in 2005, but it's the Long-Term Advantages That Really Count

NEW YORK, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Major wireless equipment manufacturers are poised to adopt the emerging Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture standard, as they work to capture the benefits of modular, off-the-shelf hardware platforms, finds a new report from the subscription research service Unstrung Insider (http://www.unstrung.com/insider).

The report -- ATCA for 3G Wireless Networks - provides an overview of ATCA technology and discusses its suitability and potential for carrier-grade mobile network applications, including radio network controllers, packet gateways, softswitch MSCs, IMS, and media servers. The second part of the report analyzes key ATCA platform and board vendor strategies for the wireless sector and reports on equipment provider plans to adopt ATCA.

"Equipment manufacturers will port products to ATCA at varying rates, with attention initially focused on control-plane applications," says the report's author, Unstrung Insider analyst Gabriel Brown. "In the short term, there are concerns over the maturity of the ATCA standards and over the ecosystem that will supply boards, platforms, and software modules into the market."

"The largest vendors don't see any cost advantage to ATCA today," Brown adds. "The real interest is in the long-term migration to open platforms across product lines."

Among the report's key findings:

* NEC leads the market with its ATCA-based xGSN product, which has
shipped over 100 units this year.
* We expect at least two major vendors to ship ATCA-based core and edge
network elements in 2005; look for news from Siemens, Alcatel, and
Huawei.
* The service/application layer and IMS control layer will migrate to
ATCA relatively quickly due to synchronicity of product development
cycles, but several leading vendors will retain other blade server
architectures for these applications.
* Very early adopters of ATCA tend to fall into two camps: startups
lacking legacy baggage or established vendors lacking a competitive
platform on which they can maintain a competitive rate of product
development.
* The ATCA ecosystem is not yet sufficiently developed at the board,
platform, or software level.
* We see broad market adoption from 2007 onwards but believe the market
will take longer than that to fully mature.
* Network operators are aware of the potential benefits of ATCA in terms
of operational expenditures, upgradeability, and vendor flexibility,
but their enthusiasm is tempered by caution over the reliability and
lifespan of commercial hardware.



Network equipment manufacturers featured in this report: Alcatel SA (NYSE: ALA; Paris: CGEP:PA); Ericsson AB (NASDAQ:ERICY); Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.; Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU); Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT); NEC Corp. (Nasdaq: NIPNY; Tokyo: 6701); Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK); Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT); and Siemens AG (NYSE: SI; Frankfurt: SIE).

ATCA platform suppliers featured in this report: Artesyn Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSN); Continuous Computing Corp. (CCPU); Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC); Kontron AG (TecDAX 30: KBC); and RadiSys Corp. (NASDAQ:RSYS).

ATCA for 3G Wireless Networks is available as part of an annual subscription (12 monthly issues) to Unstrung Insider, priced at $1,350. Individual reports are available for $900. To subscribe, please visit: http://www.unstrung.com/insider.

For additional information, to request a free executive summary of the report, or for details of multi-user licensing options, please contact:

Jeff Claudino
Sales Manager
Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
claudino@lightreading.com

Members of the media may request review copies from:

Gabriel Brown
Chief Analyst
Insider Research Services
44-20-7701-9330
brown@unstrung.com


Source: Unstrung Insider

CONTACT: Jeff Claudino, Sales Manager, +1-619-229-9940,
claudino@lightreading.com, or Gabriel Brown, Chief Analyst, +44-20-7701-9330,
brown@unstrung.com, both of Insider Research Services, for Unstrung Insider

Web site: http://www.lightreading.com/
http://www.unstrung.com/insider


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