Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture

Jussi Mki
Helsinki University of Technology
Telecommunications Software and Multimedia Laboratory
P.O. Box 5400, FIN-02015 TKK
FINLAND

Abstract
The telecom infrastructure equipment manufacturer
business is an oligopoly because entry barriers to
telecom infrastructure equipment market are high. Entry
to market requires significant investments to telecom
platform. The telecom infrastructure business is facing
increasing cost pressure. Advanced Telecom Computing
Platform (ATCA) is the first industry standard that
specifies basis for an open standards based modular
platform, on which Telecommunications Carrier Grade
applications can be based on. The effects of ATCA to
telecom infrastructure business are studied in this paper
by analyzing ATCA implications to telecom
infrastructure equipment vendors cost structure, market
entry barriers, and network operators capital and
operational expenditures.

Key Words
ATCA, PICMG, Entry Barriers, R&D costs, CAPEX,
OPEX.

1. Introduction
Telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in
1876. Since the invention of telephone the
manufacturing of telephone exchanges has been done
by specialized telephone manufacturing companies.
Telephony technology has changed many times after the
invention of telephone to this day but the fact that
specialized telephone manufacturers produce the
telephone exchanges has not changed.
The characteristics of the market that the specialized
telephone network infrastructure manufacturers produce
the telephone network equipment has caused that the
industry is an oligopoly with few telecom equipment
vendors ruling the industry. One of the main reasons for
the oligopoly is that the entry barriers to the market
have been high. The main contributor to high entry
barriers are the large capital investments required to
build a telecom platform. Even a company had the
capital to build the telecom platform building of
telecom platform is not a trivial because it requires a set
of specialized skills. There is also high risk associated
to decision to begin to build a telecom platform because
if it fails there is low salvage value in half built telecom
platform.
Advanced Telecom Computing Platform (ATCA) is the
first industry standard that specifies basis for an open
standards based modular platform, on which many
applications can be built. ATCA is primarily focused on
Telecommunications Carrier Grade applications based

on standard fabric solutions. ATCA is completely based

on commercial off the shelf components. The
specifications of ATCA are available for any company.
(PICMG 2004)
ATCA is appealing alternative because the telecom
infrastructure market is facing increasing price
sensitivity. The telecom equipment vendors are seeking
ways to lower their R&D to sales ratio. Network
operators are seeking ways to lower their capital and
operation expenditures. ATCA shows the potential to
break the oligopoly of few telecom vendors and
increase competition. Furthermore it has the potential to
lower the development and production costs of telecom
network element thus the whole telecom network.
Potentially ATCA decreases also the operational costs of
telecom network.
The scope of this paper is to analyze implications of
ATCA to telecom infrastructure business mainly from
telecom vendor and partly from network operator
perspective. First brief overview of ATCA is given.
Next the effects on cost structure of telecom
infrastructure are analyzed from telecom vendors
perspective. Then effects on entry barriers to telecom
infrastructure market are analyzed from telecom
vendors perspective. In the next chapter vendor
strategies are discussed. In chapter 6 an ATCA based
telecom infrastructure product is presented. In chapter 7
network operator view of ATCA is discussed. Finally
the conclusions are given.

2. Overview of ATCA standards

Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) is
a series of industry standard specifications for the next
generation of carrier grade telecommunications network
infrastructure equipment. The base ATCA specification,
PICMG 3.0, was ratified in December 2002. ATCA
standards are developed by PCI Industrial Computer
Manufacturers Group (PICMG) that is a consortium of
over 450 companies who collaboratively develop open
specifications for high performance telecommunications
and industrial computing applications. ATCA is targeted
to be a common hardware platform for ordinary
computing and telecommunications equipment. (Alcatel
2005) (What is PICMG? )

2.5. PICMG 3.4

PICMG 3.4 specification defines how PCI Express and
PCI Express Advanced Switching transport is mapped
onto the generic backplane fabric interconnect. (PICMG
2006) (Unstrung Insider 2004)

2.6. PICMG 3.5

PICMG 3.5 specification defines how Serial RapidIO
transport is mapped onto the generic backplane fabric
interconnect. (PICMG 2006) (Unstrung Insider 2004)

2.7. PICMG 3.6

Figure 1. ATCA System Components. (Intel 2004)

Figure 1 illustrates the components needed for ATCA
chassis, power supplies, Chassis Management Modules,
cooling, backplane and rear transition modules. The
modularity of the platform is achieved by selection of
the plug-in boards based on application requirements.
The ATCA backplane and the management interfaces
are standardized and open thus any vendor has
possibility to produce ATCA compatible boards. The
boards may be tailored to Compute, Network
Processing & I/O, Fabric Switch, Storage, Digital
Signal
Processor
and
Radio/Wireless
Controller/Receiver. There exist various vendors of
ATCA chassis components and specific boards. (Intel
2004) (PICMG 2003)

2.1. PICMG 3.0

PICMG 3.0 is the overall general specification that
defines mechanics, board dimensions, power
distribution, power and data connectors, and system
management for ATCA. The specification does not
specify the type of switching fabric instead specific
fabric definitions will be undertaken on subsidiary
specifications from PICMG 3.1 to PICMG 3.6. The
component interoperability will be defined by the
combined PICMG 3.0 core specification and a
subsidiary fabric specification. (PICMG 2006)

PICMG 3.6 defines how Packet Routing Switch (PRS)

is mapped onto the generic backplane fabric
interconnect. The specification is still under
development. (PICMG 2006) (Unstrung Insider 2004)

3. Implications of ATCA to the cost

structures of telecom infrastructure
Traditionally telecom vendors have differentiated their
products through the functions of proprietary telecom
platform. The Research and Development spending to
telecom platform development of telecom vendors have
reflected this characteristic of telecom market. When
ATCA is introduced the telecom platform is standard so
no differentiation is achieved by telecom platform. The
overall R&D spending will decrease because of use
standard telecom platform. A special report made by
RHK (RHK 2003) assumed a cost model where the
target cost per board could be reduced by up to 60% in
four
years
compared
to
the
proprietary
boards/equipment model.
Figure 2 shows the change in costs structure of telecom
infrastructure. The R&D spending for proprietary
hardware and software platform decreases because
commercial processors and building blocks are used
thus less testing and in house development is needed.
The costs saved in platform development leave room for
innovativeness in application software and features.

2.2. PICMG 3.1

PICMG 3.1 specification defines an Ethernet and Fibre
Channel switch fabric over the generic backplane fabric
interconnect. It provides data rates up to 10 Gbit/sec.
per link. (PICMG 2006) (Unstrung Insider 2004)

2.3. PICMG 3.2

PICMG 3.2 specification defines how InfiniBand
systems are built within the architecture and will specify
link physical layers, protocols, and protocol mappings.
(PICMG 2006) (Unstrung Insider 2004)

2.4. PICMG 3.3

PICMG 3.3 specification defines a StarFabric
implementation over the backplane providing TDM,
cell, control, and packet connectivity over the same
fabric. (PICMG 2006) (Unstrung Insider 2004)

Figure 2. Benefits of standard based platform (Intel

2006)
ATCA pushes the telecom industry from traditional
vertical production model, in which telecom vendors
makes everything in house, to vertical production
model, in which telecom vendor buys the standard
components from another company. The move from

proprietary in house design to purchase standard

hardware and components leads to greater
rationalization of the telecommunications market, as the
same R&D spending from one ATCA hardware vendor
can be capitalized by several telecommunications
vendors. This results in increase of manufacturing
volumes and results in lower prices. Figure 3 illustrates
the move form vertical to horizontal production model.
(Alcatel 2005)

because the economy of scale is not limited to a single

vendor but economies of scale will be industry wide.

4.2 Product Differentiation

Today telecom network element products are not
differentiated by the set of features because they are
mainly based on standards but proprietary platform
functions like sophisticated Operation and Maintenance
interface. However the need for feature differentiation
i.e. introduction of add on proprietary features is
increasing because network operators are demanding for
proprietary extensions to help their task to build
differentiated services.
The ATCA platform will be standard component thus
the differentiation of telecom network element must be
achieved by rich set of application features. The
modularity of ATCA gives possibility to plug-in
application specific boards into ATCA chassis. This is
an enabler for product differentiation.

4.3 Capital Requirements

Today capital requirements for market entry are high
because large initial investment for the development of
proprietary platform for network elements is needed.
Furthermore there is low salvage value in half built
telecom platform.
Figure 3. From Vertical to Horizontal production model
(Alcatel 2005)
Telecom vendors should not concentrate their R&D
spending on parts that do not add differentiation, the
standard ATCA components, because they can be
bought from any of the multiple hardware vendors.
There are numerous ATCA component vendors thus low
cost can achieved by competition. Telecom vendors
should concentrate their R&D only to the parts that add
differentiation to their products e.g. specific I/O boards
or user plane processing hardware. (Alcatel 2005)

4. Implications to entry barriers of telecom

infra markets
The implications to entry barriers of telecom
infrastructure market are analyzed using Threat of Entry
force from the Michael Porters five competitive forces
framework. The analysis is made from telecom vendor
perspective.

4.1 Economies of Scale

Economies of scale are required for development and
production of telecom infrastructure network elements
to achieve competitive cost structure. Telecom platform
constitutes large fraction of the development and
production costs of a network element.
The development costs of ATCA platform will be shared
by many of the manufacturers of telecom network
elements thus limited investments in development are
required to obtain a telecom platform. The production
costs for the telecom platform will also decrease

The initial high capital investment will no longer exist

because the ATCA telecom platform is available for
everyone.

4.4 Switching Costs

Customer switching costs are high because switch to
another supplier requires not only replacement of the
equipment but also extensive training operators
personnel. The training is required because the
hardware and operation & maintenance of proprietary
platform are vendor specific.
ATCA will lower the customer switching costs because
same hardware and management interfaces are used
among all vendors. Thus it is easier to switch from one
supplier to another.

4.5 Access to Distribution Channels

Incumbent players have established relationships
between the customers, network operators, thus they
have advantage over new entrants. However the effect
of long term relationships between suppliers and
customers is decreasing because the shareholders are
expecting to get more and more profit. This causes that
the telecom network elements are more often purchased
based on lowest bid. This entry barrier is already today
low and ATCA should not have significant impact on it.

4.6 Cost Advantages Independent on Scale

Telecom industry has a long history with Intellectual
Property Rights. The large vendors have agreements
between each other to share Intellectual Property
Rights. However in telecom platform area the number
of protected assets is low.

ATCA is an open standard and the technologies used in

technical realization of it are open thus there should be
no barriers with Intellectual Property Rights.

4.7 Government Policy

In high penetration markets e.g. Europe governments
are not regulating the market and competition is open
thus government policy does increase the entry barriers.
In some low penetration countries the governments are
by legislation regulating the entry to market. By
requiring extensive tests on network elements until
license to market is granted. Or by requiring the
network element production is done in the market it is
sold otherwise high protection toll must be paid. ATCA
should not have significant impact on this entry barrier.

5. Vendors' strategies
In the recent years Research and Development spending
has been high and continuously increasing in many
telecommunication manufacturing companies that has
affected negatively to profitability of the companies.
One of the main reasons for this has been development
of many telecommunication node platforms [Nokia
Corporation 2005]. ATCA has the potential to decrease
R&D spending for the telecom platform. However not
all telecom vendors see ATCA as potential but threat.
This is because two main factors:
1. They have made significant investments to their
proprietary telecom platform. ATCA might cause them
to loose the capital investments.
2. They have substantial market share and are making
profit from the sales of proprietary platform based
network elements. ATCA might decrease their market
share and profit.
Because of the two above factor vendors have selected
different strategies.
Market leaders e.g. Nokia, Ericsson are continuing
investments to proprietary platform because ATCA has
not affected so far to their sales. They are actively
following up the market, customers and participating in
ATCA standardization but have not launched products
based on ATCA. The market leaders are most probably
looking into possibilities to evolve into ATCA in order
to be ready when/if ATCA start to affect their sales but
are doing this in secret.
The telecom vendors that do not have as large market
share as the market leaders e.g. NEC, Alcatel are
interested on ATCA and see ATCA as possibility to
challenge the market leaders by means of
differentiation. They have launched ATCA based
products [NEC 2003] or have announced that they will
release ATCA base products in near future [Alcatel
Press Release 2005].
ATCA will enable new vendors, even small ones, to
enter the market e.g. Ulticom [Ulticom 2006] and
Iskratel [Iskratel 2006]. New entrants will probably
select low cost strategy utilizing the increasing price
pressure in the telecom market because they have more
competitive cost structure.

6. NECs ATCA based SGSN and GGSN

NEC launched world's first Serving GPRS Support
Node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS Support Node
(GGSN) network elements that are based on ATCA in
September 2003. Today more than 150 of them are
already up and running in different commercial
networks. The NECs ATCA-based platform also
employs carrier-grade Linux and NEC proprietary
middleware. The high carrier-grade reliability and
capabilities are offered by NECs middleware. NEC
launched the ATCA based platform to achieve a shortterm product development period (1/3 of current
systems), and drastically reduce product development
costs by utilizing open software/hardware. The ATCA
based platform realizes rich services for carriers with
carrier-grade reliability, easy operation, and high cost
performance. Figure 4 illustrates the NEC platform
architecture. (NEC 2003) (NEC 2006)

Figure 4. NEC Platform Architecture(NEC 2003)

NEC was the first in the market to launch ATCA based
network element however it has not drastically boosted
its overall sales (NEC 2005). NEC wisely selected
GGSN and SGSN network elements to be the first
network elements to utilize ATCA because they are
quite new network elements compared to some other
elements in the telecom network. Thus there are lower
customer switching costs and less legacy dependencies
associated to SGSN and GGSN that would hinder the
sales.
The NEC product strategy from proprietary platform to
ATCA seems like evolutionary step. ATCA based SGSN
and GGSN is continuation of their traditional SGSN and
GGSN product line. This is because if they would have
made more revolutionary step the product would have
not been ready so early. Also the utilization of
proprietary middleware indicates that an evolutionary
path is selected. By selection of evolutionary path NEC
can benefit from the previous capital investments to the
development of network element.

7. Operators
The incumbent network operators are today highly
focused on how to decrease the Capital Expenditures
(CAPEX) and Operational Expenditures (OPEX) in

their operations because of the price pressure especially

in voice services. ATCA offers the potential to decrease
both CAPEX and OPEX of network operators. ATCA
effects to CAPEX and OPEX of network operators are
listed below
CAPEX:
- Development and production costs of ATCA
based nodes are cheaper this should result
lower purchasing cost per network element. In
(Unstrung Insider 2004) it is stated that
according to Intel executive it is possible to cut
up to 35% of capital expenditures.
- Evaluation of products from different telecom
vendors becomes cheaper and easier. Risk of
making wrong choice decreases.
OPEX:
- Supply chain will be unified that will improve
manageability of supply chain, reduce spare
part inventory, reduce repair costs and improve
on-site maintenance capabilities.
- Reduction in training costs because less
training needed for the network operation and
maintenance personnel and fewer specialists
needed to service a mixture of varying
proprietary hardware architectures.
- Consistency in human interfaces and operation
of systems around the network that enables
greater efficiencies in overall operating
processes
- Uniform network element layouts and
maintenance practices will decrease labor
costs.
- Smaller footprint and reduced power
consumption will decrease rental and
electricity costs.
(Alcatel 2005) (Intel 2004)(Unstrung Insider 2004)
Even ATCA shows the potential to decrease CAPEX
and OPEX the incumbent operators that have recently
made significant investments to network infrastructure
are not rushing to ATCA because they want to utilize the
already made investments to the network infrastructure.
Thus ATCA based nodes will not be common in
incumbent operators network until the next network
modernization phase e.g. (British Telecom 2004) or next
generation mobile system is launched.
However the Greenfield operators are interested on
ATCA based nodes because ATCA offers them
significantly smaller CAPEX and OPEX compared to
incumbent operators, their competitors. They can enter
the market with smaller capital investments and they
can select the cost leadership strategy exploiting lower
OPEX to conquer the market.

8. Conclusion
ATCA enables costs rationalization from both telecom
vendors and network operators and thus is an answer to
increasing market price sensitivity. ATCA enables
telecom vendors to lower their R&D to sales ratio and
it enables network operators to lower the capital
expenditures and operational expenditures. ATCA
substantially lowers the entry barriers to telecom

equipment infrastructure market thus it will break the

traditional
oligopoly
of
network
equipment
infrastructure market. This causes more competition in
the market and lowers price levels.
However the telecom infrastructure market leaders are
still waiting to see will ATCA take off. They are
continuing development of proprietary platforms and
the incumbent network operators are continuing
investment on equipments based on proprietary
platform. If ATCA takes off the market leaders should
introduce the ATCA as a continuation of their existing
product line because they can benefit from the previous
capital investments to the development of network
element. First ATCA based network elements could be
packet core nodes GGSN and SGSN because the
customer switching costs are lower in those nodes.
The new entrants in both equipment vendor and
operator markets have the momentum to attack the
market leaders now by quickly introducing ATCA based
products and networks. They can utilize the substantial
cost benefits as the weapon.

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