In The Liquid Technology that worlds number two mobile gear maker, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), has unveiled promises to ease telecom network congestion and possibly bring about seminal changes in the market for such equipment. Commenting on the new technology, Phil Twist, head of marketing at NSN's Network Systems unit, said, For operators it offers a better use of capital. You invest in total network load, not in peak levels.
Currently, we have a situation where networks at city centres are crowded, while base stations in suburbs are scarcely used during the daytime. With traditional technology, operators have to buy new base stations for the centres to cope with the growth. According to Nokia Siemens, up to 80 percent of base stations' processing capacity and up to half of core networks' capacity is unused.
The Liquid Technology from NSN works by removing the computing power unit, one of the two key units of traditional station, from the base station. The network becomes enabled to share computing power between all stations. This is the first major step toward using standard servers by telecom equipment makers, which have been historically able to fetch strong margins from dedicated equipment. The need for dedicated equipment is reduced, as the new network software provides most of the required features.
Potentially NSNs new technology could pose as a significant threat to the market leader Ericsson, as well as Chinese players Huawei and ZTE, which have stormed the market with cheap and strong dedicated hardware offerings. During the recent years, Ericsson and the Chinese players have placed lot of pressure on NSN, which has been struggling to make a profit. The prospects for NSN could improve dramatically with the Liquid Technology, whose deliveries have already started.
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