IS-Wireless

IS-Wireless is a Polish telecommunications company that develops software-defined 4G and 5G mobile networks. The company was founded in 2006 by president and CEO Sławomir Pietrzyk. The company is headquartered in Piaseczno, just outside of Warsaw.

IS-Wireless provides 4G and 5G mobile networks for Poland and across Europe. The company focuses on research and development within the 4G and 5G fields, mainly through EU-funded collaborative research projects. IS-Wireless is also a major advocate for Open RAN, the initiative to establish industry standards in the design of equipment used in the radio-access segment of telecom cellular networks and necessary for widespread adoption of 5G. IS-Wireless offers a variety of network software, including the 4G LTE base station eNodeB, 5G-NR base station gNodeB, RIC+xAPPs architecture, 4G/5G Core, and the management and orchestration software MANO.

IS-Wireless offers a variety of network software, offering network functionalities as a part of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). These are disaggregated at the level of hardware-software separation and are further granularized to make them capable of being used independently. This allows IS-Wireless Network Software to support many possible splits and various uses of computing resources. These software pieces are part of a cloud-native, virtualized network solutions, including the product groups gNodeB, eNodeB, RAN Intelligence Controller (RIC), Core, and MANO.

A visualization of IS-Wireless's software products.

eNodeB 3GPP protocol stack for User Plane.

Offered by IS-Wireless, eNodeB is a 3GPP-compliant implementation of a 4G LTE base station, consisting of independent Network Functions, which implement 3GPP-compliant LTE RAN protocols, namely: PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC, S1AP. These can run together or independently and are able to be deployed on physical or virtual resources. The eNodeB modularization and execution is enabled by a Virtualization Component (VC) that is also responsible for the integration, extension, and upgrades of eNodeB. The Virtualization Component has its own modularity and reusability, as well as an open and well-defined API in order to provide value to services provided by the RAN.

gNodeB 3GPP protocol stack for Control Plane.

IS-Wireless's gNodeB is a 3GPP-compliant implementation of the 5G-NR base station, consisting of network functions and NR RAN protocols, including PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NRAP. These can run together or independently and can be run on either physical or virtual resources. Similar to the eNodeB, the gNodeB can be used with the Virtualization Component (VC) to enable modularization and execution of physical and virtual resources and offer VC's own modularity to the gNodeB operations.

IS-Wireless's 5G offerings include RIC and xApps for the RAN virtualization infrastructure. This includes functionalities and controller applications for mobility management, admission control, interference management, and more. Such applications are available as plug-ins for the SD-RAN controller and allow 5G providers to enforce policies through southbound interfaces toward base stations. Through this architecture, a base station operator can control their radio resources in a comprehensive way. And RIC, given the possibility for control capabilities and operation, can add to the realization of various traffic use cases, including targeting the maximization of capacity important for enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) use cases, maximization or reliability and minimization of latency for networks, and maximization of energy-efficiency for machine-type communications.

The 4G and 5G Core is a basic 3GPP compliant core network functionality covering both 4G and 5G. The 4G Core architecture includes the following:

• Serving Gateway (SGW)—This is a boundary between E-UTRAN and EPC, which transfers data from the eNodeB to the pGW using the S1-U and S5/S8 interfaces. SGW is responsible for routing, forwarding, packet marking and buffering, user mobility management, and support for handover connections.
• Packet Network Data Gateway (PGW)—This is the boundary between the EPC and the external packet network, or the internet. PGW is responsible for assigning IP addresses to terminals, filtering and inspecting packets, supporting selected functionalities in the network, and charging for their use.
• Mobile Management Entity (MME)—This is the boundary between E-UTRAN and EPC and is responsible for the control plane, transmitting the signaling that enables low-level connection management. The MME communicates with the eNodeB and is responsible for the Non-Access Stratum signaling, user authentication and authorization, support for connecting UE to the network, setting and managing bearer, selection of PGW and SGW for a given connection, and a selection of a different MME.
• Home Subscriber Server (HSS)—This is the unit that manages user profiles, subscriptions, and security functions; it is responsible for user authentication and user access to services. The HSS also stores information about users.

Whereas, the 5G Core architecture includes the following:

• User Plane Function (UPF)—This includes the routing and forwarding of packets between the internet and radio access network, packet inspection, and packet flow control in the context of policies.
• Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)—This includes the management of procedures related to registration, mobility, availability, authorization and authentication, SMS, and location.
• Session Management Function (SMF)—The management of procedures related to PDU sessions and their continuations, IP address allocation, roaming, and data collection for charging users.
• Authentication Server Function (AUSF)—This works for 5G network access authentication for end devices.
• Network Repository Function (NRF)—This includes the support for the "service discovery" function and the recognition of the network environment within 5G.
• Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF)—This includes the forming or selecting a slice of virtual network slices for UE needs.
• Policy Control Function (PCF)—This includes the management of "policies" that define the behavior of network elements.
• Unified Data Management (UDM)—This is the part of the core architecture that manages subscriber data, subscriptions, and SMS.

MANO usage concept and virtualization example.

MANO is a management and orchestration software aligned with ETSI Network Function Virtualization (NFV) concept. This includes additional layers, such as service orchestration required for operators to enable NFV services. This includes the use of open-source software to facilitate the implementation of an ETSI-aligned NFV architecture and to provide practical and essential feedback to the ETSI ISG NFV and increase the likelihood of interoperability among NFV implementations.

IS-Wireless also offers network hardware from hardware manufacturers in two domains: Radio Units (RU) and accompanying antennas, and COTS computing resources and accompanying middleware.

The radio units (RUs) offered by IS-Wireless include indoor and outdoor radio units. Indoor RU units are provided for coverage and capacity indoors of considered use cases, including indoor capacity, smart city implementations, and private networks. While the outdoor RU units are built for foreseen operations in different outdoor operations, such as municipal deployments for smart city infrastructure and private outdoor networks.

IS-Wireless also offers COTS Server, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computing hardware used to run network software. The offerings of IS-Wireless include edge servers from 3rd party hardware manufacturers.