New Challenges for Carrier Ethernet Backhaul

Realizing the advantages of Carrier Ethernet backhaul requires proactive network performance management capabilities

Mobile networks initially were built primarily for voice traffic, but today they must support the increasingly large volumes of data and video traffic.  In the past, the cost of upgrading the backhaul network — the network connecting cell sites to the wired core network — was offset by revenue generated from new voice subscribers.  But the revenue per bit for today's growing mobile data traffic is much lower than in the past, and this revenue increase does not match the cost of upgrading TDM-based backhaul to keep up with the traffic growth.  Mobile operators, and their whoelsale network infrastructure providers, have turned to the more cost-effective and scalable Carrier Ethernet for backhaul to future-proof  for explosive data  growth and 4G mobile networks while, at the same time, driving down per-bit costs for transporting data traffic.