Telecommunication

Wavenet has been active in the telecoms sector for over 20 years (European telecoms equipment manufacturers and operators such as Nokia, SFR, Orange France and VOO are long-standing customers).

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To attend to their needs, our team includes engineers specialising in telecommunications. This enables us to offer consultancy and development services for equipment manufacturers and telecoms operators.

We have been involved in the following projects in particular:

• Various entities that make up the 4G and 5G core networks of one of France's two largest mobile operators: PCRF, SPR, PCF, NRF and NSSF;
• Access management solutions based on RADIUS and Diameter protocols for AAA, differentiated @IP allocation, aliasing, custom policing, anti-bill shock ;
• Billing services: differentiated taxation, offer management, etc;
• Remote management and diagnostic solution for TV boxes and modems;
• Provisioning tool of mobile subscriber directories ;
• Mobile network equipment provisioning tool (GGSN, etc.);
• Log management tools: collection, archiving, reformatting, anonymisation, analysis, parsing;
• Solutions for calculating, storing and presenting QoS & marketing KPIs via dedicated BI solutions.
• Mobile Internet access platform: optimisation and personalisation of the subscriber experience according to profile, terminal and service visited;
• SMS & MMS messaging services;

The telecom solutions developed by Wavenet are interoperable and adaptable, making it possible to deal with differences in the interpretation of standards by equipment manufacturers.

4G and 5G core network solutions

Since 2014, Wavenet has been involved in the design and development of various software solutions for the 4G and 5G core networks of a major French mobile operator (20.685 million subscribers by 2023).

A mobile phone network is made up of two parts: a radio part (RAN - Radio Access Network) and a core part (CN - Core Network). The radio access network ensures mobiles connection and radio resources reservation between a mobile and an antenna. The core network interconnects the radio access networks, manages service access authorisations and provides Internet access.

The 5G Core Network (5GCN) is made up of a set of software solutions, known as ‘functions’ and standardised by the 3GPP standardisation body.

In this context, Wavenet designs and develops the following 5G functions:

• PCF – Policy and Charging Control Function ;
• NRF – Network Repository Function ;
• NSSF – Network Slice Selection Function ;
• SPR – Subscriber Profile Repository.

The PCF (Policy and Charging Control Function) is a central element of the 5G core network, which is essential for the continuity of services offered to mobile subscribers. It is responsible for the rules applicable to mobile phones to regulate their access to Data and Voice services (VoLTE, VoNR): QoS management, mobility management, selection of access technology, parental control, etc.

The NRF (Network Repository Function) is a key component of the 5G SBA (Service Based Architecture). The NRF maintains a repository of all the 5G entities available in the operator's network, as well as the services provided by each of these entities. It exposes authentication, entity search and profile management services for 5GC entities to other 5G entities.

The NSSF (Network Slice Selection Function) is responsible for selecting the network slices that the subscriber will be able to use according to his contract (SLA) to provide the desired QoE (Quality of Experience). The choice of network slot is made when the mobilephone is registered. The Network Slicing introduced by 5G enables operators to dedicate virtualised networks to specific uses (e.g. critical applications, IoT, etc.).

The SPR (Subscriber Profile Repository) manages the subscriber data required by the other 5GC entities: data relating to subscriptions (subscriber category, services subscribed to, etc.) and data required for the application of traffic regulation rules by the PCF (throughput limits, volume limits, authorised PLMNs, etc.). These different software solutions meet stringent dimensioning, performance and resilience requirements, tailored to the mobile operator's traffic conditions. For example, the PCF must be able to:

• handle peaks of 18 million messages per 5-minute period during peak hours;
• maintain a message processing time of less than 5 milliseconds;
• store 80 million subscriber profiles, guaranteeing very low read/write times and minimising the risk of data loss in case of hardware failure.

Hybrid Internet access solution

Since 2024, Wavenet has also been providing maintenance and support for the Tessares solution, which enables telecoms operators to offer their customers an innovative solution to improve internet bandwidth by combining fixed and mobile internet.This solution is currently deployed via five European operators: Telia in Lithuania, Proximus in Belgium, KPN in the Netherlands, GO MALTA in Malta and British Telecom in the UK, serving around 150,000 end users.

Based on Multipath TCP (MPTCP) technology, the solution combines fixed connections (such as ADSL, VDSL or fibre) with mobile networks (4G or 5G). This is known as hybrid internet or aggregation and increases the bandwidth available to the end user.

The solution uses two software components which communicate with each other: the HAG (Hybrid Access Gateway) and the HCPE (Hybrid Customer Premises Equipment). The HAG is a hybrid access gateway located in the operator's network, which coordinates the aggregation of fixed and mobile connections. It intelligently manages traffic by distributing data between the two networks according to the capacity and availability of each, ensuring an optimised user experience. On the other hand, the HCPE is the equipment installed on the customer's premises that physically combines the fixed and mobile connections. This device, usually a modem or compatible router containing the hybrid access software agent, is essential so that end users can benefit from bandwidth improvements.

 

This technology is aimed primarily at areas poorly served by traditional fixed internet infrastructures, where users can suffer from slow or unstable connections. By combining fixed and mobile networks, Tessares offers a solution to these problems by maximising the use of existing network resources without the need for costly new infrastructure.