As we delve deeper into the shortlist for this year's Broadband InfoVision Awards (announced here), we come to Category 2: Broadband Access Network Technologies and Services.  The winner will be announced during a gala dinner awards presentation evening held in Paris this October, on the evening of Day 1 of the Broadband World Forum 2010.

The award for Category 2 is a hotly-contested one which recognises an excellent product or innovation in the area of access networks by a telecom solutions vendor or a broadband operator/service provider (mobile, wireless, ISP) which offered significant new prospects for increased revenue, managing costs, improving quality or increasing customer satisfaction.

The shortlisted winners include: a 10G symmetrical GPON trial from Alcatel-Lucent; a software product from ASSIA which enables DSL operators to extend the rate and reach of their DSL systems while maximising service quality and minimising maintenance costs; a miniature remotely powered, passively cooled Multi-Service Access Node (MSAN) from Slovenia's IPS and Vedas; single Radio Access Network (RAN) solutions from Motorola and Huawei; a 10G PON system from Huawei; Smart Networks for Smart Devices from Nokia Siemens Networks; and ADSL2+ and VDSL2 bonding for broadband mobile backhauling from Telecom Italia.

Alcatel-Lucent's 10G symmetrical GPON technology delivers 10 Gbps speeds both upstream and downstream, in preparation for a future which will bring more and more applications such as cloud computing, multiplayer video gaming, networked Personal Video Recording (PVR), increased use of videoconferencing technologies, large file sharing etc.

"Alcatel-Lucent's 10G symmetrical GPON technology provides high bandwidth in both directions and opens endless possibilities to other market players to create applications that will make an even bigger impact on the economical and social development of society, changing the way we work, communicate and live," said Andrea Afkhami, VP Marketing, Wireline Division (IMS & Fixed Access Marketing) at Alcatel-Lucent.  "For service providers it delivers further opportunity to save on CAPEX and OPEX by converging business and residential services on the same access platform."

ASSIA's DSL Expresse Software is designed to enable DSL operators to extend the rate and reach of their DSL systems while maximising service quality and minimising maintenance costs.  The solution optimises the operating parameters ("profile") of each DSL line and produces detailed line-level and network-level diagnostics for both the copper plant and DSL service.

"Service providers face many challenges in effectively managing their DSL networks," said Steve Timmerman, Senior Vice-President of Marketing at ASSIA.  "Physical defects in the copper plant, and noise and interference along the loop, can all hamper speed, reach, and stability.  Service providers often spend substantial sums handling customer complaints, diagnosing problems, and dispatching technicians.  Poor customer satisfaction can lead to increased churn.  In addition, the lack of network diagnostic and optimisation tools prevent the service provider from upselling customers to higher service levels and bandwidth-intensive applications, such as IPTV.  ASSIA's DSL Expresse has proven results in the field and offers a rich set of unique features to address these challenges."

The MiniMSAN from IPS and Vedas is a miniature, remotely-powered and passively cooled MSAN, intended as an intermediate step on the way to implementation of a Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) solution, and is designed to solve broadband bottlenecks in the copper access network and shorten the local loop for providing triple-play services.

"Our product attracted the attention of the judges as it addresses the right problem in a totally new way," said Uroš Lozar, General Manager of IPS.  "MiniMSAN allows operators to shorten the local loop without the need to set up street cabinets, and thus does away with many administrative and economical barriers for a faster deployment of broadband and triple-play services."

Huawei and Motorola are both shortlisted for their single RAN solutions: Huawei's SingleRAN@Broad solution is designed to enable operators to meet various combinations of global challenges, and resolves three key challenges for mobile broadband operators - enhancing Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), increasing network capacity, and reducing costs in the construction, operation and maintenance of networks.

Motorola's WiMAX Evolution - Single RAN Solution meanwhile is intended to make operators' 4G choice easy by reusing most of a base station for various migration scenarios, and reusing up to 100% of the other major network components such as IP/MPLS core, backhaul and device management.  The solution is billed as enabling operators to safely increase network capacity, allowing them to offer services with more data usage per month at a lower price compared to other existing technologies.

"No matter where operators are in their 4G deployment or expansion phase, increasing network capacity and offering new services with more data usage per month at a lower price compared to other existing technologies will give them a competitive advantage, and the opportunity to protect their investment," commented Bruce Brda, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Motorola Networks.

Huawei's 10G PON System is intended to enable operators to upgrade their existing PON system smoothly, without incurring the need to change the optical distribution network (ODN), and provides operators with four times the bandwidth upgrade and full-service carrying capability.  Furthermore, Huawei's 10G PON system can coexist with the already-installed PON network, helping operators protect their existing investment.


Nokia Siemens Networks' Smart Networks for Smart Devices are designed to avoid signalling jams on mobile networks and fully utilise a part of the 3GPP specification that other vendors have not focused on - the Paging Channel, or Cell_PCH.  By using Cell_PCH as the default dormancy state of handsets on the network, it takes fewer signals to activate a data connection (as few as three in contrast to 30 when Cell_PCH is not used - in practice, a reduction of up to 50% of signalling in live networks), and reduces the amount of battery that the handset uses by up to 50% as well.

"Smartphone growth has shown signs of being able to rescue our industry from flat or declining revenue trends – but this promise can only develop fully if the network challenges that smartphones bring are fully understood, managed, and solved," said Kai Sahala, Head of Mobile Broadband Marketing at Nokia Siemens Networks.  "Our Cell_PCH solution does just this - while our Smart Labs are the basis for the development of more network-sensitive handset software and third-party applications in the future."

The final entrant in this category is a solution from Telecom Italia for ADSL2+ and VDSL2 bonding for broadband mobile backhauling, which the telco is itself successfully using to cost-effectively increase the bandwidth capacity of its mobile backhauling network in order to cope with dramatic mobile data traffic growth.  The solution is also intended to guarantee CAPEX optimisation for network upgrades, leveraging the existing copper infrastructure in those instances where it could be too expensive or time consuming to use optical fibre or high capacity microwave alternatives to increase backhauling bandwidth.