Log2Space Broadband Network Gateway – An Overview
Arvinder Singh Sahni
Founder / MD · July 22, 2024
Introduction:
ISP’s provide internet to their customers through various transport medium like fiber, wireless or sometimes a combination of fiber, copper and wireless. Whatever the medium of transport they use, one very important part of their network design is the Broadband Network Gateway – the device which connects the end customer to the ISP’s core network. This important appliance is called by various names viz NAS (Network Access Server), BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Server) or BNG (Broadband Network Gateway).
Whether we call it a NAS or BNG or BRAS the function remains more or less the same – to provide IP services including internet bandwidth to customers with desired QoS (Quality of Service), content filtering and to connect to the AAA (Authentication, Accounting and Authorization) system of the service provider. The BNG plays a very important role of managing the connection, content and bandwidth that is delivered to the end user.
We shall consider pure broadband companies (and not Telecom / mobile companies) in the purview of this article.
Overview:
The larger ISP’s in India often use hardware based BNG’s from Multinational Companies like Cisco, Juniper, Nokia and Huawei amongst some others. The mid-size and smaller ISP’s generally use software based BNG / NAS. Interestingly a reasonably large share of the Indian market is controlled software based Router NAS which supports about 1000 to 4000 concurrent users when installed on a good server. As the number of customers of the ISP’s grow they need to keep adding more and more BNG / NAS servers. An ISP having about 25000 users may end up having 10 or more Router / NAS appliances. Moreover as the operations grow ISP often realize that the service and technical requirements have outgrown and the Router based NAS is not as suitable for their growing operations.
Log2Space BNG / NAS:
Log2Space has introduced a software based BNG / NAS which supports up to 10000 concurrent users when installed on an appropriate Server hardware. The software NAS solution launched in 2023 is getting deployed at more and more locations with ISP’s every passing month.
The L2S NAS offers web based administration for most of its functionality thus making it much easier to manage and monitor it’s working.
The main functions of the L2S Broadband Network Gateway are:
1. To establish a connection with the internet user on layer 2 (datalink layer) using PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet) or by using IPoE (Internet Protocol over Ethernet).
2. To help in the authentication of the internet user with the AAA Radius Server before connecting the user to the internet.
3. To help manage IP Pools and to dynamically allocate an IP to the internet user
4. To provide internet bandwidth or any other IP services to the user with the desired Quality of Service (QoS).
5. To provide data usage / session logs of each user to the OSS Billing software of the ISP.
6. To do content filtering or blocking of any undesired IP traffic to the internet user
7. To save IPDR Logs of each user on the Log Server as required by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
8. To provide Carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) functionality, which enables the efficient use of limited public IPv4 addresses by allowing multiple private IP addresses to share a single public IP address.
9. To enable VLAN’s in the network. VLAN’s help in the ease of administration of the network, confinement of broadcast domains, and the segregation of the common network in a virtual way. VLAN’s help manage and secure traffic of different users on a common physical network in a virtual manner.
L2S NAS supports Border Gateway Protocol Version 4 (BGP 4) which is the standard inter-domain routing protocol deployed on the internet currently.
The fact that the L2S NAS supports almost 3 to 4 times the users on a single server as compared to the currently popular software router solution has many advantages:
1) Less number of Server means less investment in hardware
2) Less number of management interfaces as the number of servers are reduced
3) Less space required for the installation of servers
4) Less power consumption because of less number of servers
5) Less AC requirements as heat generation is less for lesser servers
6) Lesser failure points as the number of servers are less
The Log2Space NAS works in tandem with the Log2Space Central Server and helps ISP’s increase the number of subscribers by using less hardware and by increasing the efficiency of their operations.
The Spacecom team is working closely with some ISP’s to add more and more features and to enhance the functionality of the L2S NAS. As a team we are absolutely committed to help the ISP’s grow their business and upgrade their service offerings.
Conclusion:
There are a number of advantages of moving to L2S BNG / NAS with higher capacity of about 10k users, than 1k to 4k users per NAS which is the current way of working of most small to mid- size ISP’s.
In an ever changing competitive environment, it is important that the ISP’s reduce their hardware requirements and build their infrastructure more smartly. They need to offer services and solutions which are more stable, highly scalable and easy on the pocket as well as the environment.
Enhancing their service offerings while keeping the cost in check is key to their survival and long term sustainable growth.