Aricent claims to be the largest privately owned communication software business. Headquartered in California, with a large development centre in India and offices worldwide, the company employs around 8,000 staff.The company supplies software development services to many communications vendors, including Cellular, WiMax and fixed line. Their software powers mobile phones, mobile and fixed networks and associated test equipment. Their customers include 9 out of the top 10 telecommunications equipment suppliers and 8 out of the top 10 mobile phone manufacturers.
In the femtocell arena, Aricent provide software stacks and development services to vendors.
Unlike other software vendors, they do not promote a "reference design", which they can demonstrate out of the box with other standard femtocell components.
They also supply software stacks for femtocell gateways, and are involved in projects to develop a femtocell gateway with a leading gateway vendor.
The company also sells its services to network operators, providing the capabilities for PoC (Proof of Concept) lab testing and the technical aspects of field trials. Typically, the operators have been shortlisting three or four vendors and testing their products. Aricent evaluate the products against defined parameters, testing them in their own labs or onsite as required.
Several femtocell technical challenges they have identified include:
- Architecture - avoiding impact on the core network
- Synchronisation - to ensure good handover performance
- Security
- Localisation/Roaming Bypass
- Camping/Access Restriction
- Handovers
- Quality of Service
- Backhaul Limits
- Interface
- Operation and Management, including remote diagnostics
Aricent originated in 1991 as Hughes Software Systems, which specialised in telecommunications software services. In 2004, it became Flextronics Software Systems having been acquired by Flextronics, the large Asian white-label manufacturer. In 2006 the firm was sold to KKR and Sequoia Capital, the private equity investors, whereupon it took on its new name.
Read our interview with Sudhir Tangri of Aricent
