Mobile core wars

The mobile packet core is emerging as the new battleground in wireless, pitting the big mobile vendors against a new generation of specialty core suppliers. The 4G mobile core isn't just an ancillary component to the network anymore. Its role in the wireless network is not only becoming more prominent as networks migrate to all-IP architectures and the sheer volume of network data exponentially multiplies, the 4G core is now becoming a key point of differentiation for wireless vendors. The highly standardized nature of the long-term evolution (LTE) and WiMax architectures makes it hard to distinguish between the major vendors' radio access portfolios, but in the 4G core those differences are becoming quite pronounced. Philosophical camps are emerging, pitting the relative importance of the data plane versus the control plane. Vendors have adopted wildly different development strategies, some focused on evolving existing 3G architectures for 4G, while others start from scratch. Perhaps there no is bigger evidence of the growing importance of the mobile core than the sudden spurt of acquisition activity in recent months.