Telkomsel boosts mobile broadband via NSN Direct Tunnel

Details: Category: Wireless Networks; 26 February 2009; 12487 views

Indonesia's Telkomsel will enable a growing number of its 3G/HSDPA customers to enjoy the best quality unblocked data access as a result of its commissioning Nokia Siemens Networks' Direct Tunnel, which reduces transmission link requirements...

Telkomsel claims its HSDPA services in the Indonesian market have received a very positive response from customers. While the wireless broadband service enabled by HSDPA came as a new revenue stream for Telkomsel, the same service put significant pressure on the operator's network as bandwidth usage dramatically expanded within a short period of time.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) helped Telkomsel to increase its HSDPA throughput by moving toward a flat architecture with Direct Tunnel, a software upgrade to the packet core network that simplifies the network and the data flow between the end-user and the Internet. It enables operators to take the first step towards the all-IP foundation of LTE (Long Term Evolution), which mandates flat architecture with a dedicated node for data traffic control.

With Direct Tunnel, users' 3G/HSDPA data traffic bypasses the packet core control node en route to the IP backbone, reducing the number of transmission links needed. Telkomsel is now considered by NSN to be one of the world's leading operators to take this necessary step towards flat architecture, answering its subscribers' growing needs for increased packet traffic capacity in order to enjoy Telkomsel's mobile data services for business and as an enhancement to their current lifestyle.

To that end, Telkomsel and NSN engineers collaborated to enhance the operator's existing network with Direct Tunnel. "The Direct Tunnel solution from NSN enables us to streamline 3G/HSDPA data flow and remove bottlenecks while scaling up our network capacity flexibly and cost-effectively," added Ivan C Purnama, GM VAS & Datacomm Engineering, Telkomsel.
Telkomsel has now implemented Direct Tunnel in the Greater Jakarta area and it has successfully gone live. The high speed network wide rollout is underway, so that very soon it will also cover the whole island of Java.

As part of its mobile broadband Internet access offering, NSN has driven the development of Direct Tunnel technology from standardisation right up to delivery of the industry's first commercial solution in 2007. Today NSN has over 45 3GPP compliant Direct Tunnel deployments underway, with more than 15 in commercial use.

* PT Telekomunikasi Selular Tbk (Telkomsel) has 66 million customers or more than 50% market share in Indonesia. Telkomsel provides GSM cellular services through its own nationwide Dual band 900/1800 MHz GSM/GPRS/Wi-Fi/EDGE/3G/HSDPA network, and internationally through 329 international roaming partners.

Telkomsel is the first operator in Indonesia to launch 3G services (September 2006) and has the biggest 3G community with more than 6.2 million subscribers in more than 125 cities. Telkomsel also has the largest network coverage of any cellular operator in Indonesia, providing network coverage to over 95% of her population, and is the only operator to cover all the country's provinces and counties, and all sub-counties ("kecamatan") in Sumatra, Java, and Bali/Nusra Sumatra, Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara and Kalimantan.

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