Altobridge partners with leading telecom supplier to address global
demand for Radio Base Station Local Switching
* Agreement enables global mobile operators to drive down
transmission costs
* Huge cost-saving impact on community-centric, low-ARPU /
high-growth markets
Altobridge Ltd., an Irish company specialising in remote wireless communications, today announced that it has licensed its patent pending Local Connectivity Platform(tm) to Ericsson, the leading telecom supplier. This agreement enables Ericsson to provide local switching across its GSM Base Station portfolio.
The Altobridge solution makes it possible for calls, originating and
terminating from the same Base Station or cluster of Base Stations, to
be switched locally in the GSM Radio Network, while the mobile
operator's existing call control architecture remains unaffected. This
meets the critical requirements of mobile operators, i.e. there is no
impact on key areas: Subscriber Services, Subscriber Management, Network
Management and Charging. Coupled with this important breakthrough is an
improvement in voice quality for remote subscriber groups previously
connected via satellite.
Altobridge CEO, Mike Fitzgerald, stated, "This feature cuts transmission
costs on all base stations on any network, but has its most profound
effect on the higher cost transmissions traditionally associated with
emerging markets. Switching calls as close as possible to subscribers
ensures that the ultimate cost of delivering the call is kept to an
absolute minimum. The opportunity for Altobridge is to roll out this
important technology breakthrough to all mobile operators. Our licensing
agreement with the leading telecom supplier, Ericsson, provides a
platform for significant market penetration of this technology."
"Currently, wireless network roll-out is concentrated on low-ARPU /
high-growth emerging markets. Traffic analysis within these
community-centric markets has deduced that the majority of calls remain
local to a particular community. As transmission costs are traditionally
greater in such places, the cost of delivering local calls between
subscribers ends up being disproportionately high, which prohibits
communication roll-out even further. Altobridge's Local Connectivity
Platform(tm) addresses this very cost and removes it. The significant
improvement in voice quality for remote subscriber groups, e.g. when
satellite is used, is also a vital factor in improving the quality of
communication for the hugely important, emerging market segment,"
Fitzgerald concluded.
Dick Spring, Chairman of Altobridge and former Deputy Prime Minister of
Ireland, stated, "At a time when the GSM Association has just announced
an initiative to drive US$50 billion of investment by the telecoms
industry into delivering rural mobile communications to isolated
communities across Africa over the next five years, this partnership
could not have come at a more important time."
