March 30, 2010, Plano, TX – GENBAND Inc., a leading developer of next-generation media, session and security gateway solutions, today announced the company has completed comprehensive interoperability tests in the world’s first femtocell plugfest. Initiated by the Femto Forum and organized in cooperation with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the plugfest enjoyed broad vendor participation with more than 20 leading manufacturers of network equipment and femtocells as well as software and hardware components. During the event, GENBAND executed interoperability testing of its S2™ Security Gateway and G9™ Converged Gateway with multiple femtocell access point vendors.
“Bringing together the interoperability working group behind this initiative has been extremely beneficial for the Femto industry, as all the participating companies have demonstrated laser focus on resolving ambiguities in the interpretation of standards, reducing integration and customer support costs and fostering market and consumer confidence,” said Dr. Natasha Tamaskar, Chair of the Femto Forum’s IOT Initiative and GENBAND’s Vice President of Product Marketing. “These industry-wide efforts are vital to verifying the standard, creating a mechanism of feedback for ongoing improvements and ultimately driving mass market adoption. GENBAND’s leadership role in these efforts is representative of the company’s commitment to open ecosystems and to driving full end-to-end industry interoperability.”
The plugfest interoperability tests were conducted between femtocell network gateways, security gateways, femtocell access points and chipsets to verify 3GPP’s Iuh interface as defined in the Release 8 series of specifications. The IPsec/IKEv2 security protocols that allow femtocells to communicate over the public Internet to operators’ core networks in a highly secure manner were also tested. 3GPP’s Release 8 femtocell standard was published in April 2009, and defines the secure interface between femtocell access points and femtocell gateways in the core network.
GENBAND’s market leading femtocell gateway components, the G9 Converged Gateway and the S2 Security Gateway, provide the essential media and signaling adaptation required to bridge femtocell traffic into the mobile core and the vital IP Security tunnels necessary to protect the network. Through its complete product portfolio, GENBAND plays a key role in the majority of all femtocell trials and several live Femtocell deployments around the world.
About GENBAND
GENBAND is a global leader and innovator of next generation IP media, session border and fixed mobile convergence security solutions deployed in over two-thirds of the world’s 100 largest service providers. These high-performance gateway solutions are at the core of fixed and mobile networks around the world – evolving, securing and enhancing communications networks. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, GENBAND has Centers of Excellence around the world and serves customers and partners in more than 80 countries. Additional information is available at www.genband.com.
About The Femto Forum
Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operator’s network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections. The Femto Forum has been set up to promote the wide-scale adoption of femtocells. It has over 120 members including over 55 operators representing 1.4 billion mobile subscribers – 27% of the global total. The Forum supports and drives the adoption of industry wide standards and common architectures to enable the widespread adoption & deployment of femtocells by operators around the world. It also directs and implements a multi-faceted marketing campaign to raise the profile, drives technology development & deployment and promotes the potential of femto solutions among industry stakeholders, journalists, analysts, regulators, special interest groups, standards bodies and consumers.
Contacts:
Kim Lee
GENBAND Inc.
+1.972.265.3766
kim.lee@genband.com
Frank Puglia
GENBAND Inc.
+1.972.265.3612
frank.puglia@genband.com