In Turkey’s mobile phone market, speed has become the name of the game in terms of both network and market innovation. Turkey boasts one of Europe’s highest mobile phone usage rates. As a result, Turkey’s operators are in a race to offer the most advanced services. For Avea, Turkey’s third-largest operator, standing out from
the pack means offering the fastest data speeds. Behind the scenes, success also means radically transforming its network architecture to all IP. That makeover gives Avea cost advantages and the ability to offer SLAs that are nearly unprecedented in the mobile industry. Government regulations regarding coverage and service
rollout delayed 3G’s debut until July 2009. Since then, usage has mimicked the trend seen throughout Europe and the United States: Smartphones, tablets and dongles are quickly driving up network traffic. Turkey also has some unique
market conditions. For example, although smartphones were 14% of global device sales in the first 3 quarters of 2010, they were already 16% in Turkey, said research firm GfK Turkey. Also, half of all users are 30 or younger. “Young subscribers are using
1 GB to 4 GB of data per month, and data services are growing at least 15% month to month,” said Coskun Sahin, chief technology officer at Avea, which has about 12 million subscribers. “The more money young users have, the more services they want.” To meet that demand, Avea sought Tellabs to enable its
migration to Ethernet backhaul. That upgrade lets Avea reduce the cost of backhauling 2G TDM traffic and 3G ATM traffic, and it lays the foundation for future LTE services.
Selling SLAs Avea and its majority owner, Türk Telecom, are finding lucrative opportunities in the enterprise market, too. For example, Avea has HSPA+, whose 42 Mbps theoretical peak speeds are ideal for bandwidth-intensive business services. As an added incentive, Avea offers SLAs, a rarity in any mobile market. In the countries where they do exist, SLAs typically are
limited to dropped data sessions and network availability. They rarely include guarantees for speed and quality. That mindset
is slowly changing. Operators realize that flat-rate pricing plans aren’t increasing revenue enough to cover the cost of the additional traffic. Offering premium services with premium QoS is one emerging strategy for shoring up profit margins. “This is one of our focus areas,” Sahin said. “We are
working to establish infrastructures with SLAs for our business customers. The market will see services such as remote office connectivity based on 3G and point-of-sale devices that not only use fixed-line connections but are backhauled by 3G, as well. “We are helping businesses enable more automation in
their operations. We are creating extra value for them and for us.”
Bandwidth and Time Crunch To offer SLAs to businesses and keep up with consumer demand, Avea knew it had to overhaul its core network.
“Young subscribers are using 1 GB to 4 GB of data per month, and data services are growing at least 15% month to month. The more money young users have, the more services they want.”
— Coskun Sahin, Avea CTO
“Being able to reduce our transport costs and increase
transport functionality was a critical point for us,” said Mehmet Erkul, Avea transport network manager. “This is a very competitive market.” Avea chose Tellabs to enable Ethernet backhaul, initially
for 2G and 3G and eventually for LTE. The new architecture has 2 key benefits. Avea now is better able to keep up with bandwidth demands. It also has greatly reduced the cost of backhauling 2G TDM traffic and 3G ATM traffic. Avea is the first Turkish mobile operator to migrate to an
all-IP network core. This upgrade enables Avea to effectively double its RAN capacity with minimal OpEx impact. According to Mehmet Erkul, Avea transport network
manager, the operator is cost-effectively delivering average per-user speeds of 5 Mbps in the downlink and 2 Mbps in the uplink. That amount of bandwidth would nearly bankrupt an operator using E1s/T1s. Just 1 or 2 E1s are
TELLABS INSIGHT Q2 9
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