SAN JOSE, Calif.: A10 Networks says UK Broadband has deployed A10 Networks technology to provide advanced Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGNAT) to help consumers avoid inconvenient IP device connection issues for its new LTE mobile broadband service.
Under its new Relish brand, UK Broadband is offering a wireless broadband service that aims to disrupt the internet connectivity market in London with a combination of instant connection, unlimited data, and transparent pricing. Relish uses the UK Broadband LTE network, which is an evolution of the UK’s first 4G commercial system that launched in February of 2012.
Although UK Broadband already has network devices from Cisco and Juniper capable of delivering Carrier Grade NAT, based on growing demand it was felt that neither existing platform could deal with the sheer volume of connections in a cost-effective manner. As Leigh Porter, Network Systems Architect at UK Broadband explains, “There are not many suppliers of true Carrier Grade NAT and in our tests, A10 offered better performance with an 8x smaller physical footprint for a much lower total cost of ownership than any other viable solution.”
UK Broadband worked closely with Flow Communications, a trusted IT supplier and A10 Networks partner, before selecting the A10 appliances, which are part of a family of application networking solutions that include Thunder ADC (application delivery controller) solutions; Thunder CGN (carrier grade networking) IPv4 extension and IPv6 migration solutions; and Thunder TPS (threat protection system) DDoS mitigation solutions.
However, before the 1RU units were deployed in an active standby configuration across two data centers, the technical team at Relish ran an exhaustive device testing process to ensure the address translation system worked as planned. “We went to our local games store and bought every console we could find, a selection of popular VoIP applications and a number of media streaming devices, which we tested extensively with the service to ensure IP devices were connecting as expected,” says Porter. Across the tests, “…the A10 Thunder appliances were flawless, and when we put them into the live network there were no issues. They have just delivered ever since,” he adds.
The A10 CGN product line of Carrier Grade Networking gateways provides high-performance, highly transparent address and protocol translation services for service providers to extend their IPv4 network connectivity, while simultaneously making the transition to IPv6. The CGN product line delivers performance scalability up to 150 Gbps with integrated distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection and is built upon on the A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS®) platform using Symmetric Scalable Multi-Core Processing (SSMP) software architecture to deliver high performance for enterprise and carrier networks.