Tewksbury-based Altiostar Networks—whose CEO is Ashraf Dahod, formerly the founder of Starent Networks—emerged from stealth mode on Thursday.
The networking technology company had raised at least $70 million in funding since 2012, according to SEC filings, making the firm one of the best-funded tech companies in Boston.
Investors in the company include Cisco Systems, Excelestar Ventures and the company's founders.
Previously, Dahod founded Tewksbury-based Starent in 2000 and was its CEO through its IPO in 2007 and its acquisition by Cisco in 2009 for $2.9 billion.
Here’s the full news release:
Altiostar unveiled its complete portfolio of carrier-grade, cloud-based, software-intensive radio access network (C-RAN) solution with Ethernet fronthaul that is designed to improve the quality of experience, enhance spectral efficiency, and significantly reduce Total Cost of Ownership of LTE access networks. This is a first-ever solution that does not require expensive and hard-to-deploy dark fiber or wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), and instead can be deployed using readily-available standard Ethernet links.
Today’s dynamic mobile environment is experiencing explosive growth in mobile data consumption driven by the unprecedented spread of smartphones and data-intensive applications with billions of subscribers worldwide. In addition, the Internet of Things and growth in machine-to-machine data traffic are challenging operators to rapidly expand their access networks in order to keep pace with demand.
The projected rate of data consumption will far outpace the operators’ ability to economically deploy coverage and capacity solutions with today’s approach. It is also clear that, to handle future mobile traffic growth and to improve quality of experience, operators will have to deploy a C-RAN with intelligent eNodeBs that are capable of supporting LTE-Advanced features and provide scalable, on-demand compute, memory, and I/O bandwidth.
“To build such networks, today’s base station architecture relies on expensive and hard-to-deploy fiber or WDM,” said Ashraf M. Dahod, President and CEO of Altiostar. “However, we have eliminated the need for fiber or WDM by designing an architecture that uses standard Ethernet to build the cloud RAN. Consequently, our solution enables rapid addition of coverage and capacity with a combination of macro and micro networks, while driving down the total cost of ownership.”
Altiostar’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) C-RAN solution includes macro and micro cellular eNodeBs. The solution consists of intelligent Remote Radio Head (iRRH) and intelligent virtualized Base Band Unit (vBBU) running as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that are implemented on Common Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and carrier-grade OpenStack and Linux software platforms. The iRRHs are connected to the vBBU on standard Ethernet over any available medium, including LoS and NLoS Microwave, mmWave, Carrier Ethernet, FTTx, and fiber or WDM, if available. This solution allows operators to build high-density clusters of up to 1,440 macro and micro radio heads, resulting in significantly improved network performance and reduced capital expenditure and operating expenses, such as power, rent, and personnel costs.
Altiostar’s solution also offers integrated Application Intelligence features that analyze and adapt user traffic to real-time radio conditions to improve the utilization of the valuable radio bandwidth and to enhance user’s Quality of Experience. These features include TCP traffic optimization to eliminate radio channel bandwidth wastage; application-aware scheduling for differentiated flow treatment based on application type; optimization of video traffic with radio-aware content adaptation; radio-channel-aware content caching and streaming; backhaul optimization with intelligent offload and reduction in TCP retransmissions caused by fluctuating radio conditions. These value-added features are tightly integrated into the scheduler to maximize the benefits.
“Major RAN vendors have been talking about C-RAN and even vRAN for some time now, but none have gone as far as Altiostar has in creating an entire portfolio that is designed to maximize the advantages of these architectures on a large scale. Altiostar’s potentially disruptive approach could impact networks in multiple ways, from deployment and transport economics to network efficiency and optimization. And the credibility of the company’s founding team, combined with the power of its partnership with investor Cisco, make this company a serious contender to watch.” stated Edward Gubbins, Senior Analyst at Current Analysis.
Altiostar has received funding from its founders, as well as from Cisco Systems and Excelestar Ventures.
About Altiostar
Altiostar is the mobile telecommunication industry’s first provider of NFV C-RAN with Ethernet fronthaul, for software-intensive LTE radio access node (eNodeB). Altiostar is led by industry veterans who understand the mobile network operators’ requirements for expanding their LTE networks quickly and efficiently, in the most feature-rich and cost-effective way.
