Tatara Systems Announces Major Product Portfolio Expansion for Femtocell.

Introduces Tatara Convergence Server - Industry's First FMC Application Server Focused on Femtocell

ACTON, Mass. -- Tatara Systems today announced a significant expansion of its Tatara Mobile Services Convergence Portfolio[TM] in order to address the rapidly emerging femtocell market. Included in this announcement is the introduction of a new fixed mobile convergence (FMC) application server product, the Tatara Convergence Server, as well as enhancements to the Tatara Subscriber Gateway, a market leading 3GPP/3GPP2 AAA server.

The Tatara Convergence Server is the industry's first SIP-based FMC application server to focus on an all-IP approach to core network integration for femtocells. While there are several legacy architectural approaches for deploying femtocell-based solutions, the all-IP architecture utilizes standard communication protocols (i.e. VoIP and SIP) and interfaces directly with the IP-based core network. This allows mobile operators to immediately achieve the end-to-end cost and service advantages that only an all-IP approach can deliver rather than being constrained by the historical limitations of traditional RAN based solutions. According to ABI Research, there will be 102 million users of femtocell products on 32 million access points worldwide by 2011. The majority of these deployments will be based on the all-IP architecture.

The Tatara Convergence Server integrates a SIP-based femtocell access point into the mobile operator's core network delivering key capabilities of the service, including: updating the user's location to the femtocell in order to enable voice services, providing full messaging services such as SMS, ensuring end-users have access to the same set of top priority supplementary services (e.g. call forwarding and USSD services) on the femtocell network that they have on the macro cellular network, and handoff between the femtocell and the macro cellular networks. In addition, the Tatara Convergence Server will play a key role in enabling enhanced IP services through a femtocell, such as SIP-based access to personal home network content.

The Tatara Convergence Server is designed to be deployable in today's networks with a graceful evolution to IMS. Within a pre-IMS SIP/IP network, the Tatara Convergence Server appears as a MSC/VLR and implements SIP to mobile interworking (SIP-MSC/IWF) providing, for example, the SS7 messages necessary to interface to key elements such as the HLR, MSC, and SMSC in 3G networks. Within an IMS network, the Tatara Convergence Server interfaces to the Serving Call Session Control function (S-CSCF) over the IMS Service Control (ISC) interface and to the Home Subscriber Server (HSS) over the 3GPP/2 defined Sh interface.

In addition to introducing the Tatara Convergence Server, Tatara is also adding several key features for femtocell solutions to its 3GPP/3GPP2 AAA server, the Tatara Subscriber Gateway. The fact that a femtocell access point will be deployed in mass volume as customer premise equipment raises some critical security and authentication concerns. The Tatara Subscriber Gateway supports the widest variety of standard authentication protocols using patented methods guaranteeing end user and service provider credential security. For femtocells, the Tatara Subscriber Gateway guarantees secure access at a number of levels, including: authenticating the femtocell access point as a trusted element of the mobile network (via PDG/PDIF IPSec tunnel authentication), authenticating the end user's mobile phone that is attached to the femtocell (via SIM/AKA authentication), and service-level authorization (via interaction with both an HLR and an IMS based HSS).

"Femtocells hold enormous promise for extending the wireless operator's capabilities in indoor coverage and convergence. They also offer a step towards all-IP that carries low risk," stated Caroline Gabriel, Research Director of Rethink Research Associates. "Since all these factors are critical to operator strategies in 2007-2010, we would expect femtocells to become a very real part of the mobile landscape this year, with some major rollouts around the world. However, this will only happen if operators can be absolutely confident that the solution will be secure, and will work effortlessly with their core networks, in which they have invested so much. For these reasons, we see the Tatara Convergence Server and the Tatara Subscriber Gateway as important contributions to moving femtocells into the carrier mainstream."

Tatara has established partnerships with some of the industry's leading femtocell access point and packet data gateway vendors in order to ensure proper interworking of their products with the Tatara femtocell network integration products.

"The all-IP approach to femtocell integration requires close collaboration with core convergence platforms that tie the existing mobile core to the IP/IMS infrastructure," said Will Franks, CTO of Ubiquisys. "The Tatara Convergence Server provides a complementary platform that enables service provides to deploy all-IP femtocell solutions today."

"Femtocell has emerged as an effective and very attractive FMC strategy for the mobile industry," stated Steve Nicolle, President and CEO of Tatara Systems. "Tatara is committed to ensuring that an all-IP approach to femtocell network integration is a day-one option."

About Tatara Systems:

Tatara Systems invents, develops, and deploys convergence products for service providers allowing them to offer converged mobile services to their subscribers across the widest base of available end-user devices (i.e. PCs and current mobile phones). Tatara's fixed-mobile convergence strategy is focused on femtocell convergence as a powerful FMC approach for service providers that takes advantage of current cellular handsets to provide improved coverage and IP-based voice and data services via an economical in-home cellular access point. Tatara's products also enable the industry's broadest set of PC convergence solutions, from a mobile broadband service to advanced services, like a PC mobile softphone or intelligent content delivery. Tatara is proud to count some of the industry's largest operators as customers of its award-winning Tatara Mobile Services Convergence Portfolio[TM] of products. For more information, visit www.tatarasystems.com

About Femtocell Technology:

A femtocell, also known as a 3G access point, is a low-cost, low-power cellular base station that provides improved indoor coverage while backhauling the cellular traffic over a broadband connection. Femtocells are designed to work with existing mobile handsets and can support multiple users in a home environment. Over the long-term, femtocells also present an opportunity to develop new mobile services for the home that take advantage of low-cost, high-speed internet access.