Tektronix Communications Enables Continued IP Network Migration

New Product and Protocol Enhancements to Tektronix’ Leading GeoProbe Platform and UACN Suite of Products

Dubai, at Management World Middle East, March 5th, 2009 – Tektronix Communications, a leading worldwide provider of network intelligence solutions, today announced new product enhancements that provide fixed, mobile and converged network operators with the necessary capability required to monitor key protocols in IP signalling and transport networks.

These enhancements to Tektronix Communications’ GeoProbe monitoring system and Unified Assurance for Converged Networks (UACN) suite of products help operators advance their development of converged services and networks towards IP while reducing the cost of ownership.

“Tektronix Communications is committed to helping network operators achieve the vision of convergence and evolution towards an all-IP environment,” said Mark Driedger, Vice President and General Manager, Network Management, Tektronix Communications. “As operators make this transition, there is a clear need to show ROI at every step. They must also address a tremendous amount of complexity with this shift to all IP, and having visibility across the network and over multiple protocols is critical.”

Network operators face a broad array of technology challenges and financial pressures as they deliver complex services that span multiple network technologies into an increasingly competitive market. These enhancements to Tektronix Communications’ scalable portfolio of probes and network, service and customer-assurance software packages, enable operators to address these challenges better - with access to actionable information to monitor network performance and deliver services and applications more effectively to their customers.

Addressing New Protocols for Evolving Networks

The need to address complex protocols across signalling and transport networks is critical to ensuring network and service performance. The three new enhancements address signalling, converged and mobile networks - and will enable operators to monitor across a broader range of technologies as they migrate from legacy to next-generation networks.

• Signalling Networks: As operators migrate their signalling networks from the SS7 family of protocols to SIGTRAN, GeoProbe now supports SCTP, a transport layer protocol that is quickly gaining popularity because of its advantages compared to H.248 over UDP. In addition, operators can take advantage of the general services provided by SCTP – such as reliable delivery, transmission of multiple independent streams, detection and handling of network congestion and redundant path management.

• Converged Networks: Further enabling the migration to converged networks is Tektronix Communication’s Advanced Performance Monitoring (APM) product. This now supports the BICC protocol, considered vital for the advancement of multimedia networks. (BICC provides a seamless migration path from circuit switched TDM networks to broadband multimedia networks.) With APM support of BICC, fixed, mobile and converged network operators will have the ability to monitor all their legacy narrowband ISDN services, with ISUP and next-generation IP signalling and media planes used for VoIP and 3rd generation mobile protocols in the same reports and dashboards in APM.

• Mobile Networks: Mobile network operators need better methods to manage bandwidth-hungry data applications effectively in addition to ensuring a smooth transition towards the all IP mobile network. With enhancements to GeoProbe’s historical and real-time call trace capabilities, mobile operators now have deeper visibility into GTP (GRPS Tunnelling Protocol) User Plane traffic, allowing them to better analyze and troubleshoot performance problems, using User Plane statistics, that impact customers. As network traffic continues to grow, mobile operators are beginning to replace their UTRAN over ATM networks with UTRAN over IP. To assure a smooth transition, GeoProbe now has the ability to monitor UTRAN protocols (NBAP, RLC, MAC, RRC) on the Iub-over-IP interface.

Reducing Cost of Ownership

Tektronix understands the need for network operators to get the most from their network investments, especially in these challenging financial times. As such, the GeoProbe and UACN product suite provide network operators with actionable information that allows them to achieve the highest return on their investments by enabling better network utilization, improved network and service quality and faster resolution of customer-impacting network issues. As a single, integrated probing platform with common dashboards and reporting capabilities, the GeoProbe and UACN product suite provides operators with operational efficiencies that will result in additional cost savings through standardized workflow and access to information that can be leveraged across multiple departments. The GeoProbe and UACN product suite supports all key legacy, fixed, mobile and converged network technologies, thus ensuring a smooth transition for operators if they upgrade their networks, add new services or increase capacity.

The GeoProbe probing platform is available in a high-capacity 14U footprint and a small, energy-efficient 2U footprint, requiring lower DC power consumption. Users can select probes based on the capacity of each monitored link and can upgrade their probes as network capacity increases. In addition, the 2U probe has the capability to self-install, resulting in a lower cost of installation overall.

About Tektronix Communications’ GeoProbe
GeoProbe provides network engineers with the information needed to solve network and service problems across technologies, applications and element vendors. APM enables engineers to address quality performance issues proactively using near real-time alerts and ongoing historical analysis for more focused and effective troubleshooting. More information can be found at: www.tektronixcommunications.com/geoprobe.

About Tektronix Communications’
Tektronix Communications provides network operators and equipment manufacturers around the world an unparalleled suite of network diagnostics and management solutions for fixed, mobile, IP and converged multi-service networks. This comprehensive set of solutions support a range of architectures and applications such as LTE, fixed mobile convergence, IMS, broadband wireless access, WiMAX, VoIP and triple play, including IPTV. Tektronix Communications is headquartered in Richardson, Texas. Learn more about the company’s test, measurement and network monitoring solutions by visiting www.tektronixcommunications.com.