Backhaul leasing costs represent about 30 percent of wireless service providers operational expenses. Coupled with a projected threefold increase in average bandwidth per cell site over the next few years, there is an urgency to look at alternative ways of delivering new services. Service providers are looking at next-generation technologies, especially Ethernet, to help them meet the bandwidth needs of new services with a cost structure that allows them to offer these services at a profit.

Ethernet offers a number of advantages to service providers as they move to address the challenge of more bandwidth at less cost. In addition, Ethernet brings benefits of rapid provisioning and fiber-based architectures that allow for more reliable service delivery.

This session considers range of alternatives available to service providers as they look at evolving their existing networks to support these new services. Topics to be covered in this presentation include the following:

• RAN differences in CDMA and GSM/UMTS environments
• Evolution to Ethernet and SLA considerations
• Ethernet over optical networks
• Evolution of multiservice solutions to scalable Ethernet architectures
• Synergy of backhaul and backbone and role of Ethernet and MPLS
• Economics and reliability considerations in Ethernet networks

Ken Wirth President and General Manager, Multimedia Network Solutions Lucent Technologies

Mr. Wirth is responsible for all aspects of his division, including the complete financial and business performance, strategy, product marketing, product management, and development across the access, data, and optical networking segments. Mr. Wirth is also responsible for other key functions such as business and partnership development, standards, and providing the MNS linkage to Lucent Technologies for marketing, public and industry relations, and other corporate functions.

Pierre Combescure Director Corporate Architecture and Security, IP France Telecom Group

Mr. Combescure has been involved in speech processing research at France Telecom Group R&D for more than 20 years. Mr. Combescure is also in charge of the road map studies of the France Telecom Group IP networks evolutions for the NC&IT Architecture and Security Department. He is one of the inventors of several standards, including wideband, GSM, and voice over IP speech coding algorithms. In 2003 he was appointed head of the Engineering, Planning, and Architecture Department of the IP and Transmission Long-Distance Networks. In 2000 he joined the Networks & Carriers Division as chief technology officer of the IP and ATM long-distance networks.

Patrick Donegan Senior Analyst Heavy Reading

Mr. Donegan has been a telecom market journalist, analyst, and strategist for 15 years. He joins Heavy Reading from Nortel, having spent five years as a senior manager of strategic planning for the company's wireless business, spanning GSM, CDMA, UMTS, WiMAX, and other wireless technologies. Prior to Nortel, Donegan spent two years in business research for Motorola's Corporate Strategy Office in EMEA.

Andy Jones Head of Transmission Vodafone Group

Mr. Jones has 17 years of experience with Vodafone. During his career at Vodafone, he has held a number of technical leadership roles and delivered a range of network development projects in signaling, enterprise customer access, mobile data services, mobile multiservice backbone, and optical backbone. Mr. Jones championed the introduction of MPLS into Vodafone's mobile core network with one of the earliest deployments in the sector in 1999 and 2000. Mr. Jones led the architecture group in Vodafone UK and defined the 3 Year Network Evolution plan, including Vodafone's NGN R4 VoIP deployment program.

Jon Ranger Director, Next Generation Networks Competence Centre Lucent Technologies

Mr. Ranger is one of the industry's foremost experts on carrier Ethernet, responsible for the deployment of Europe's first national MPLS Ethernet network as well as some of the earliest carrier deployments of Ethernet as a business service. Prior to joining Lucent, he was the vice president of Systems Engineering at Riverstone Networks, where he was responsible for all aspects of carrier Ethernet network infrastructure for the world's leading operator deployments. Before Riverstone, he led the Mobile Data Networking Systems Engineering group at Ericsson in the United Kingdom, where he oversaw the development of MPLS-based GPRS and 3G network infrastructures.