Telkomsel’s HSDPA services in the Indonesian market has received very positive response from customers. While the wireless broadband service enabled by HSDPA came as a new revenue stream for Telkomsel, the wireless broadband Internet service put significant pressure on the operator’s network as bandwidth usage dramatically expanded within a short period of time.

Nokia Siemens Networks helped Telkomsel to increase its HSDPA throughput by moving toward a flat architecture with Direct Tunnel, an innovative software upgrade to the packet core network that simplifies the network and the data flow between the end-user and the Internet. It enables operators to take the first step towards the all-IP foundation of LTE (Long Term Evolution), which mandates flat architecture with a dedicated node for data traffic control. 

With Direct Tunnel, users’ 3G/HSDPA data traffic bypasses the packet core control node en route to the IP backbone, reducing the number of costly transmission links needed. Telkomsel is now one of the world’s leading operators to take this necessary step towards flat architecture, answering its subscribers’ growing needs for increased packet traffic capacity in order to enjoy Telkomsel’s mobile data services for business and as an enhancement to their current lifestyle.

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“We have one of the largest 3G/HSDPA subscriber bases in the world, making us a global Top Ten 3G operator. To provide a growing number of 3G/HSDPA customers with the best quality of data access, we needed a solution that helps expand network capacity rapidly without spending much on new infrastructure development,” said M. Mustaghfirin, VP Service Layer Engineering, Telkomsel.

To that end, the Telkomsel and Nokia Siemens Networks engineering teams jointly collaborated to enhance the operator’s existing network with Direct Tunnel. “The Direct Tunnel solution from Nokia Siemens Networks enables us to streamline 3G/HSDPA data flow and remove bottlenecks while scaling up our network capacity flexibly and cost-effectively,” added Ivan C Purnama, GM VAS & Datacomm Engineering, Telkomsel.

Telkomsel has implemented Direct Tunnel in the greater Jakarta area and it has successfully gone live. The high speed network wide rollout is underway, so that very soon it will also cover the whole island of Java.

“The implementation of Direct Tunnel by Telkomsel underscores Nokia Siemens Networks’ leadership in wide scale Direct Tunnel implementations,” said Arjun Trivedi, Head of Sub-Region Indonesia, Nokia Siemens Networks. “Successful implementation of our Direct Tunnel solution means much better 3G/HSDPA connectivity for Telkomsel’s customers.”

Nokia Siemens Networks is the innovation leader in packet core solutions with its industry-leading Direct Tunnel, an important step towards the flat architecture of LTE. As part of its Mobile Broadband Internet Access offering, the company has driven the development of Direct Tunnel technology from standardization right up to the delivery of the industry\'s first commercial solution in 2007. In fact, today Nokia Siemens Networks has over 45 3GPP compliant Direct Tunnel deployments underway, with more than 15 of these in commercial use.