Quortus
In-building 4G LTE Wireless Solutions for the Enterprise

With the rising operating costs and dwindling user experiences, communication channels in the enterprise ecosystems are losing their digital luster. Implementing new technologies to improve these channels is an overwhelming task for the CIOs due to their sheer complexity. “You cannot scale a mobile core network by just making the big box in the middle even bigger. Scaling has to be accomplished without compromising the network responsiveness,” notes Andy Odgers, CEO of Quortus. Headquartered in Guildford, UK, Quortus has designed its wireless solutions based on 4G and 3G cellular technology, to help CIOs ensure flexibility over coverage and deployment costs.

Quortus’ solutions are tuned to ‘mobile edge computing’ that offloads cellular network-traffic locally to improve the end-user ‘quality of experience’. It helps the clients easily incorporate cellular networks into a buildings’ existing network. “Our technology delivers standalone or fully integrated 4G, 3G, and GSM mobile core network functionality to enterprise architectures,” says Odgers. These cells have been designed to be in compliance with the ‘Release 2: Enterprise’ by the Small Cell Forum (SCF), which help operators unlock the potential of small cell deployments in enterprise systems. They aid in blending multiple connections like the cell phone, Wi-Fi-based VoIP phones, and the desk phone into a single device. By transferring traffic from the operator’s mobile core to the cells without removing the control and ‘ownership’ from the operator, it allows CIOs to reduce the burden on the operator and integrates the cellular network with the existing in-house network. This also improves the network reach within the building in addition to simplifying user-experience.

The Quortus ECX Enterprise is a solution based on the Quortus EdgeCentrix software technology.

ECX Connect enhances packet-data handling capabilities from the ‘access network’ level up to the 4G network levels. Lower backhaul, lesser infrastructure costs, and access to new revenue streams are some of the features of this offering. In addition, end-users benefit from improved quality of experience, and access to localized Internet Protocol Services.

This aids in delivery of services irrespective of the device and the mechanics of accessing that service to promote service continuity. This scalable-distributed architecture integrates well with existing packet-based networks and enterprise IP-PBX systems to deliver voice, data, and SMS service to more users than ever before. With such solutions, Quortus has improved the landscape of network operation and have helped CIOs gain more control over their wireless budgets. “Our solutions allow service integration across a wide range of devices,” beams Odgers.

An example of the prowess of Quortus can be seen in a project they undertook for the municipality of Zaanstad, the Netherlands. The municipality was aiming to combine its IT services housed in three differed locations into a single unit. When this task proved to be too challenging, they approached Quortus. With Quortus’ Soft Core Connect architecture solution, the municipality got a scalable method to deploy an in-building cellular radio network within the existing enterprise network frame. This gave Zaanstad the benefit of having a direct access from mobile devices to local LAN data services and easy integration with enterprise IP Private Bank exchange (IP-PBX) systems.

The roadmap of Quortus delves into virtualization of cellular core network functionality and use of IT server farms and the cloud for a range of applications. “Earlier these applications relied on proprietary cellular hardware—a trend that is rapidly disappearing. “We have implemented an innovative and feature-rich virtual cellular core network that can be run on a server,” concludes Odgers.