DPI Deployment (16): SoftBank Mobile (Japan) Uses Ericsson to Optimize Utilization

 

Ericsson announced today that SoftBank Mobile selected "Ericsson's Service Aware Support Node (SASN) solution .. to provide expanded capabilities to its increasing number of smartphone subscribers .. SASN [see - "[Update11 - Ericsson SAPC] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix" - here] provides efficient usage of telecom infrastructure through sophisticated traffic inspection functionality, and ensures that SoftBank Mobile's subscribers enjoy consistent quality of service"

See "Japan's SOFTBANK MOBILE chooses Ericsson mobile broadband solution" - here. On June 2010, Softbank had 22.5M subscribers, with more than 17.6M with Internet access. It offers Apple's iPhone since June 2008.

Ericsson says that "The solution also enables truly flexible charging options and paves the way for the operator to develop differentiated service offerings based on individual subscriber needs and the service or application used."

  

We see more and more operators publically announcing their intention to go to usage-based billing, subscriber-based and application aware charging as well as differentiated (or tiered) services. It seems that the concerns operators had from the public reaction for DPI and traffic management as well as Net Neutrality regulation is fading out in many countries - mainly for mobile broadband.

Junichi Miyakawa, Executive Vice President & CTO of SoftBank Mobile, says: "We always aim to give our customers our full attention and stay one step ahead by continuously improving our network. Our customers are advanced users of mobile broadband and it is important that we deploy the latest technology to support them."

SoftBank joins TelKomSel, a ecent Ericsson DPI/QoS implementation, see - "DPI/QoS Deployments (14): Telkomsel (Indonesia) Uses Ericsson for Service Differentiation and Traffic Control" - here.