Stoke's Latest Mobile Broadband Gateway Software Helps Solve Operators' Quest for Immediate Solutions to Surging Mobile Data Demand

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - March 17, 2009) - Stoke, Inc. has introduced new software for its Stoke Session Exchange (SSX) 3000 mobile broadband gateway, offering exponential improvements in session density and cost per bit for carriers together with enhanced resilience for critical deployments. As a result, operators are armed with an immediate means of adapting and scaling their mobile broadband infrastructure to meet the surging demand for data, within the constraints of sharply reduced capital expenditure budgets.

With StokeOS 4.3, the Stoke SSX-3000 gateway is capable of aggregating from 8,000 up to 240,000 IPSec sessions and up to 16Gbps of secure, sustained traffic within the same compact 5 Rack Unit (RU) form factor, an approximate 4X increase in session density at approximately one-tenth the cost per bit of current solutions. StokeOS 4.3 also provides service redundancy, ensuring continual service availability without requiring duplicate standby systems. A key new feature is the DIAMETER application programming interface (API), providing a 3GPP standard interface to operator charging and billing systems.

Mobile data operators are experiencing an increasing urgency to employ traffic offload strategies. While Femto technology is perceived as a low cost method for improving coverage in buildings, it also represents a significant Radio Access Network and backhaul off-load opportunity for operators. However, each Femto access point must be secured to the carrier's home network through an IPSec encrypted tunnel. IPSec is becoming the preferred security tunneling mechanism for many leading-edge operators, but legacy security gateways are not designed to provide this level of IPSec density at an acceptable cost.

There is also concern that as the mobile broadband experience reaches a similar quality to fixed-line networks, femtocell usage will increase. This will place undue bandwidth pressure on mobile network core elements like the GGSN/PDSN. To protect or extend the life of their current infrastructure investments, carriers will need to implement architectural changes and breakout Internet traffic as close to the user as possible through smart inspection and detection, and protect these elements from non-revenue generating Internet bound traffic.

Stoke's unique architecture collapses IP session management, routing, deep packet inspection (DPI), security gateway functions, and Quality of Service enforcement into a single mobile broadband gateway appliance that offers massive economies of scale in terms of energy usage and rack space, and serves hundreds of thousands of users per device. The result is a robust and highly scalable solution for network gateway applications.

"Stoke has re-engineered the physics of the entire mobile broadband gateway concept to address the very pressing current needs of mobile data carriers as they struggle to cope with massive increments in traffic," said Vikash Varma, president and chief executive officer at Stoke. "Our solution is in deployment today, and providing immediate benefits for carriers who see high capacity and low cost as a key to sustaining momentum in this market."

With a dearth of telecommunications investment and innovation marking the first half of this decade, Stoke stands out as a vendor of forward-looking systems that focus on emerging requirements using contemporary technologies. Stoke was the only telecommunications infrastructure equipment company named a winner in the recent Red Herring Top 100 Global awards.

About Stoke

Stoke develops carrier-class mobile broadband gateways specifically engineered to enable mobile and converged network operators to maximize the economic returns of their 3G mobile networks. For more information, visit http://www.stoke.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Mary McEvoy Carroll Email: tel: 408 691 4283