The Cisco ASR 5500 is a high-capacity platform, specifically designed to satisfy the high performance, subscriber counts, and transaction rates of third-generation (3G) and 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) services plus the emergence of small cells. The Cisco ASR 5500 supports an elastic architecture for mobile functions, in which these functions are based on software, not coupled to hardware. The ASR 5500 harvests system resources and applies them across the entire platform to optimize performance and maximize capital efficiency. This approach allows operators to deploy more efficient mobile networks that can support a greater number of concurrent calls, optimize resource usage, and deliver enhanced services, while also providing easy scalability. The Cisco ASR 5500 uses the same software and operating system, StarOS, as the Cisco ASR 5000, supporting a consistent set of services across platforms, which results in a significantly lower impact on operations team