BARCELONA, Spain--AirHop Communications aims to help mobile operators lay out their small cell deployments with vSON, its new virtualization software platform for self-organized networks (SONs).
The software lets carriers virtually overlay SON-enabled small cells atop an existing mobile network and simulate network operations so they can quantify SON-generated improvements in network capacity and throughput, said AirHop.
The vSON platform simulates real-network elements, such as base stations (eNodeBs), mobile terminals and network management systems, to model a heterogeneous network (HetNet) comprised of comprised of a variety of cells featuring different transmit powers. The software also enables real base stations or other network elements to interact with other simulated elements.
Airhop said vSON also can be used in evaluating distributed or centralized SON architectures by, for example, conducting direct comparisons of each architecture to compare processing latencies, MIPS consumption and backhaul throughputs. "This allows carriers not only to decide which SON features to deploy, but also the architecture in which to deploy them," said the vendor.
AirHop designed the vSON platform to work with its eSON software suite, which optimizes available radio resources via multi-cell coordination. However, vSON also features a plug-in ready platform architecture with APIs to allow evaluation and comparison of SON implementations and features from different equipment vendors.
For more:
- see this Airhop release
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