Athonet and Alea successful demonstration of MCx over 5G

Press

Bolzano Vicentino – Pordenone, Italy, 23 December 2022 – During the 7th MCX Plugtests event, held in Malaga in November ‘22, Athonet and Alea succesfully demonstrated the management of Quality of Service (QoS) parameters of MCx voice calls over 5G.

The interaction between Alea’s MCX services and Athonet’s 5G core network is established via N5 interface, standardized by the 3GPP. Athonet and Alea demonstrated the interworking for the management of the QoS over N5 interface to a group of Observers during the event hosted by the University of Malaga.

During an emergency or disaster, cellular networks may become congested due to the high volume of calls and data traffic. In such situations, coordinating first responders and emergency personnel could prove difficult or even impossible. QoS management is a key feature for the success of MCX services as it allows an MCX server to efficiently request the cellular network to prioritize bearers with a higher QoS profile, thus enabling MCX voice calls in situations where the network is overloaded.

“The standard of Mission Critical communication is continuously evolving, following, and sometime anticipating, the needs of the end users, who are more and more demanding in terms of performances and use cases. – said Francesco Forti, PTT Project Manager at Athonet – Athonet and Alea have made significant steps forward by addressing the demand of porting the Mission Critical communication over the 5G network. The QoS is a crucial element when we speak about Mission Critical communication. The N5 interface exposed by Athonet’s 5GC enables the MCX server to use a rich and flexible toolbox for QoS management. As a result, the media flows to/from the MCX server is served with higher quality and priority with respect to the rest of the traffic: when the network is congested the MCX traffic will find its way. It’s a significant result, achieved with a trusted cooperation between the two companies, which differentiates our solution in the MCX arena.”

“The evolution towards 5G is a great opportunity for the Mission Critical Community as it enables the delivery of more reliable and effective Mission Critical services – said Giuseppe Merlino, CEO at Alea -. The successful integration of Alea’s MCX, part of Leonardo Hybrid Network Solution, with Athonet’s 5G core network through the N5 interface paves the way for a full exploitation of 5G high speed, low latency and ultra-reliable connectivity at Mission Critical Service layer. It also demonstrates the commitment of Alea, to bring innovative and future proof solutions to its customers.
The effective cooperation between Alea and Athonet will bring more and more opportunities for all the mission critical users paving the way for future MCX integrations in 5G networks”.

About Athonet
Athonet is a leader in private cellular network technology delivering a mobile core to enterprises and communication service providers to connect applications, devices and radios. With more than 15 years of experience in delivering 4G/5G mobile core solutions to customers and partners in every region of the world, Athonet supports key industries where network control, mobility, security, performance, and cost are important for business outcomes. Find out more www.athonet.com.

About Alea
Alea – a Leonardo Company is a leading provider of state-of-the-art Mission Critical Services for government and enterprise customers. Alea’s Mission Critical Solutions help mission critical users worldwide communicate reliably, safely and securely with our 3GPP compliant platform. With over twenty years of proven success in the Push-To-Talk over cellular market, we bring the highest level of user experience to meet the requirements of First Responders, Public Safety and Business users. To learn more about Alea, visit us at www.aleasrl.com.