Comverse New CEO to Continue with the "Comverse 3.0" Plan

    

Comverse announced that " ..Charles Burdick, the company's current non-executive Chairman of the Board, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, replacing Andre Dahan, who will be resigning as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a director effective March 4, 2011".

See "Comverse Technology Announces CEO Transition" - here.

Mr. Burdick said: ".. I am excited about the next phase of the company's development and, together with the executive management team, look forward to focusing Comverse on leadership in the exciting world of BSS and value-added services while leveraging the growth in mobile data."

In a letter to the employees (here) Mr. Burdick says is a bit differently (VAS pushed into a sustained position) - "I have asked Oded Golan, Senior Vice President of Business Transformation and Operations to continue his work with the operational leaders installing ‘best practices’ as we lead the company to our new destination: Comverse 3.0, a leader in BSS, leveraging the growth in mobile data while sustaining our leadership in Value-Added Services. This strategic focus coupled with product quality and innovation, customer service and importantly financial discipline will be a winning combination",

See - "Comverse CEO: "Comverse 3.0 will focus on billing and mobile internet" - here.

Operators Views on Tiered Pricing

      

Mobile Europe held a round table on tiered pricing during the recent MWC event hosting Tanya Field, Telefonica UK (also in "Telefonica: "Pricing for Optimized Service should be based on QoS" - here), I- wireless (US MVNO), Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer, Informa and Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redknee that hosted the event. Once more, it seems that the trend is into more sophisticated pricing than the simple volume tiers. According to the participants customers like the new ideas!

See "Tiered Pricing Roundtable with Redknee" - here and video below.

Sandvine Partners with DiViNetworks

   

In my recent review of DiViNetworks (see "Vendor Review: DiViNetworks' Bytestream Caching" - here) I mentioned that ".. It can also be implemented in conjunction with DPI devices, that will be used to re-direct relevant traffic for the encoding/decoding process  .. The company says it is about to announce a number of partners that will implement the technology in the above and other network elements, as well as marketing alliances".

Now DiViNetworks and Sandvine include each other in their web partner pages. Sandvine's "Partner Ecosystem" page (here) quotes DiViNetworks CEO, Barak Avitbul - "With DiViNetworks and Sandvine, operators can successfully increase bandwidth by a minimum of 30%. Our joint solution optimizes traffic at the IP-level, rather than that of the application, and keeps up with booming user-demand and ever-changing Internet patterns".

DiViNetworks also includes Sandvine as a partner (here).

GENBAND Explains the New "Mobile Edge Optimization Suite"

  

In my post on Genband's recent announcement ("What's GENBAND "Mobile Edge Optimization Suite"?" - here) I was wondering about the functionality of the s/w, due to the lack of information in the release and in Genband's site.

Niloufar Tayebi (picture), Product Marketing Manager for GENBAND, was ready to answer my questions and provided some information that may help us understand better:

[Q]: How does the Mobile Edge Optimization Suite relief Smartphone Signaling Overload?

[A]: what we refer as Mobile Edge Optimization Suite is a set of solutions developed for managing traffic from smartphones and data-centric mobile devices. Mobile Broadband is showing stellar growth; while this is great news for the mobile communications industry it also places stringent requirements on mobile networks to handle this growth. GENBAND has been actively looking into leveraging its TPM solution by taking its TPM solution into higher levels of functionalities in order to help mobile operators deal with the growth of mobile broadband services. Mobile Edge Optimization Suite consists of following solution sets:

• Signaling overload relief; this solution detects, reports and manages the signaling congestion caused by smartphones and data devices.

• Selective RAN congestion management; this solution is able to monitor traffic across the network, pin-pointing the specific ‘hot’ zones in access or congested RANs. While traffic is growing in all segments of the network, RAN is the highest cost segment due to scarcity of spectrum and cell site deployment costs. Hence, relieving RAN congestion has high economic drivers for mobile operators.

[Q]: is it a new s/w?

[A]: yes, it is building on top of TPM firmware with additional features and functionalities

[Q]: is it part of Procera s/w?

[A]: no, it is GENBAND developed and supplied by GENBAND directly. In terms of exclusivity of the offer, it is early stages in the go-to-market strategy, the reseller and partner agreements are under consideration.

Tolaga Research: "monthly usage restrictions play a considerable role when consumers are choosing between competitive market offers"

 
Philip Marshall (picture), Chief Research Officer, Tolaga Research, provides some analysis on the recent LTE service plans:

"In most cases, with the exception of players like Tele2 and Telenor [here] in Sweden, monthly usage restrictions are being placed on service plans. These restrictions are intended to stem excessive usage that has been seen in the past by a small (single digit) percentage of subscribers, often referred as "bandwidth hogs". The specific usage limits imposed by mobile operators vary dramatically, ranging from 20-30 GBytes/month in many European markets, to 10Gbytes/month or less in the US and 3-5GB/month in other markets like Japan"

See "Adding intelligence to LTE pricing strategies" - here. See also earlier posts on Verizon (here), Vodafone Germany (here)

".. we believe that monthly usage restrictions play a considerable role when consumers are choosing between competitive market offers .. operators will relax monthly usage restrictions in favor of alternative approaches to modulate the usage of "bandwidth hogs", while at the same time improving the overall user experience. These alternative approaches will incorporate network and device intelligence aimed at a variety of approaches, and include performance enhancing capabilities such as:

• Optimizing traffic flows and usage that align with subscriber and service profiles
• Managing the capacity availed to "bandwidth hogs" based on overall traffic demands
• Service distribution strategies that intelligently integrate local area network offload and device caching
• Incorporating advanced pricing and segmentation according to service attributes (such as personalization, and service discovery and integration) that enhance the overall user experience.

Telekom Austria CEO: "We own the infrastructure. We should decide who uses it"

 

Hannes Ametsreiter (picture), CEO of Telekom Austria Group, was interviewed to Ben Rooney, Technology Editor for the Wall Street Journal Europe, on Net Neutrality issues.

See "Telekom Austria CEO Dismisses Net Neutrality" - here.

Some quotes:

About DPI: "It’s very clear. The decision is up to the operator. He owns the technology and he owns the infrastructure. How he uses that infrastructure should really be up to the operator".

About blocking competitive services (Skype et al.): "I have a very clear stand on that one. If there is somebody using our infrastructure to cannibalize and eat up our revenues then of course we set measures against them. If we did not do so we would not have the money to invest in the infrastructure and to keep it working. If Google Voice, Skype or any other player attack our revenues then this would create problems"

BitTorrent: "UK ISPs aggressively throttle BitTorrent traffic after 6 p.m. at night"

  

Mark Jackson reports to ISPReview that "BitTorrent .. has hinted that they could eventually release performance data for over 9,000 broadband ISPs around the world .. At present their unnamed project is still in the very early stages of development but could one day serve as a global ISP performance report".

See "BitTorrent Considers Release of World Broadband ISP P2P Performance Report" - here

VP of Products, Simon Morris, said: "We have download traffic, upload traffic, BitTorrent traffic, and we have HTTP traffic. So we can answer questions like: I live in this city in the world--it could be anywhere, literally anywhere--which ISP should I use? Which is the fastest? Which ISP is messing with BitTorrent traffic? Because we have this data, we can see the difference in speeds by time of day [for example] UK ISPs aggressively throttle BitTorrent traffic after 6 p.m. at night, with speeds suddenly going "off a cliff" ".

If all ISPs are doing it - than the numbers will not help much, and the selective throttling maybe even explained by a "reasonable network management" practice for Net Neutrality conformance.

FierceWireless: "Policy control and network optimization is rising, Femtocells and off-loading data is falling"

   

In its MWC 2011 "Scoreboard:Infrastructure" FierceWirless says:

" .. tide of mobile data is rising and is a problem .. but a range of vendors promise a more delicate approach to the problem--and at MWC this year they were out in force. Vendors both big (Alcatel-Lucent and Tellabs) and small (Allot Communications, Flash Networks, Telcordia, Broadhop, ByteMobile, Sandvine, Acme Packet, Bridgewater and others) made policy control and network optimization hot topics of discussion among wireless operators"

while

"there was surprisingly little buzz about possible tactics to discharge traffic onto alternative transport systems. Operators by and large seem keen on building, accelerating and strengthening their licensed wireless networks--the assets they can easily control and charge for. Femtocells and Wi-Fi offload, while maintaining a sizable presence at MWC, weren't the must-see checkpoints of previous years."See "Mobile World Congress 2011 Scorecard: Infrastructure" - here.

Parks Associates: "Mobile data services will generate $500B in global revenues for mobile carriers in 2015

  

A new report by Harry Wang (picture), Director, Health & Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates concludes that ".. Almost 50% of U.S. mobile phone users pay for mobile Internet access, and the popularity of mobile data services will continue to grow revenues for carriers.. Parks Associates analysts forecast mobile data services, including messaging, Internet, apps, entertainment services, and machine-to-machine (M2M), will generate $500 billion in global revenues for mobile carriers in 2015, up from $204 billion in 2010"

See "Parks Associates reports almost 50% of U.S. mobile phone users pay for Internet; global data revenues to reach $500 billion by 2015" - here and here.

Compare to "Infonetics: Mobile Broadband Service Revenues to Triple by 2014" - here, forecasting $870B in 2014.

“Data services are a future revenue driver for mobile operators, but mobile broadband creates a new set of challenges for them .. Consumer desire for richer mobile experiences and the market demand for services and applications built on open access could undermine their walled-garden business model. Operators will have to adapt their business models to sell more value-added data applications on top of access services. The key question is what types of mobile data applications will have a broad appeal and help operators differentiate from many would-be mobile service offerings from third-party aggregators and distributors.”

Zain Kuwait Prepares for Fair Use Policy

 

A year ago Zain Kuwait reported "500% Increase in Mobile Data in 6 Months" (here) and now the mobile operators is preparing for fair use and personallized services. According to a press release issued by Nokia Siemens Networks today - "The operator has unified its customer data that was previously distributed across the network into a single database based on Nokia Siemens Networks’ One-NDS platform. The deployment promises better insights into customer preferences, savings in capital and operating costs, and up to a six-month reduction in time to launch new services".

Zain Kuwait has 1.9M active subscribers (September 30, 2010).

Fahad Al-Ali, network director, Zain Kuwait said: “A rapid increase in traffic necessitated a better understanding of customer behavior .. we are equipped to accurately predict usage and capacity requirements, and offer new services such as fair use policy and tailored marketing services”.

See "Zain Kuwait customers to get full impact of individual communications experience" - here.

DPI Deployments (53): Solid Broadband [Philippines] Deployed Anagran for Tiered Services/Fair Usage

    

Anagran announced the ".. deployment of their FR-1000 Internet traffic manager by Solid Broadband Corp., operator of My|Destiny Cable and Global Destiny CATV services"

See "Anagran Scores Another Cable MSO With Solid Broadband Corp." - here

Rafael Santiago, Sr. Manager of Network Operations, Solid Broadband Corp said: "..  The FR-1000’s IP Flow-State technology and service differentiation capabilities enabled us to both ensure each subscriber had real-time fair usage of our network resources and that our tiered pricing plans could be enforced".

DPI Announcements: LSI ACP3423 Communication Processor

 

One more announcement in the recent wave of communication processors with DPI engines (NetLogic, Netronome, Cavium) - this time by LSI who "announced the expansion of the Axxia^TM Communication Processor family with the ACP3423 communication processor, targeted at equipment such as multi-radio base stations and wireless backhaul. The Axxia Communication Processor family enables OEMs to deliver deterministic performance in wireless applications such as video streaming, web browsing and high-quality digital voice .. The ACP3423 communication processor features two PowerPC® 476FP processor cores running up to 1.6GHz and a wide array of intelligent offload engines, including industry-leading packet classification, traffic management, security processing and deep packet inspection".

See "LSI Offers Optimized Low-Power Solution for Mobile Infrastructure with New Axxia Communication Processor"  - here.

Netflix: "Comcast either discriminating against Netflix traffic or trying to increase Netflix’s operating costs"

  

In a recent filling to the SEC, Netflix refers to the recent Comcast-Level3 dispute over settlement fees (here).

The document says:

"We rely upon the ability of consumers to access our service through the Internet. To the extent that network operators implement usage based pricing, including meaningful bandwidth caps, or otherwise try to monetize access to their networks by data providers, we could incur greater operating expenses and our subscriber acquisition and retention could be negatively impacted. For example, in late 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 Communications that it would require Level 3 to pay for the ability to access Comcast’s network. Given that much of the traffic being requested by Comcast customers is Netflix data stored with Level 3, many commentators have looked to this situation as an example of Comcast either discriminating against Netflix traffic or trying to increase Netflix’s operating costs. Furthermore, to the extent network operators were to create tiers of Internet access service and either charge us for or prohibit us from being available through these tiers, our business could be negatively impacted.

And on Net Neutrality:

"The adoption of any laws or regulations that adversely affect the growth, popularity or use of the Internet, including laws limiting Internet neutrality, could decrease the demand for our subscription service and increase our cost of doing business. For example, in late 2010, the Federal Communications Commission adopted so-called net neutrality rules intended, in part, to prevent network operators from discriminating against legal traffic that transverse their networks. The rules are likely to be subject to interpretation and legal challenge. To the extent, that these rules are interpreted to enable network operators to engage in discriminatory practices or are overturned by legal challenge, our business could be adversely impacted"

Netflix 10-k filling is available here.

Analysis Mason: Policy Management Market Reached $382M; Forecast 23% CAGR for the next 5 years

  

A recent research by Peter Mottishaw, Principal Analyst and Lorcan MacFadden, Consultant, for Analysys Mason concludes that "Communications service providers (CSPs) can deploy policy management products to deliver a subscriber-specific customer experience, using network-based traffic management capabilities. Driven by increasing take-up of mobile data services and CSPs’ need to move beyond flat-rate tariffs, policy management software has become a USD382 million market worldwide, and is forecast to grow at a 23% CAGR during the next five years".

See "Policy management: facilitating new revenue generation" - here and the chart below showing the common use caes for policy management.


Compare to Infonetics Research - "Policy Servers Market to reach $471M in 2010" - here  and a previous statement from Analysys Mason - "Overall policy management market will grow from $876M in 2008 to $2.62B in 2013" - here.

What's GENBAND "Mobile Edge Optimization Suite"?

 

Last week Genband announced the ".. GENBAND Mobile Edge Optimization Suite as an enhancement to the P Series of Traffic and Policy Management (TPM) Solutions .. to more intelligently manage network traffic by relieving signaling overload caused by smart devices and mobile data congestion in the Radio Access Network (RAN)".  P Series are Genband DPI products OEMed from Procera.

See "GENBAND Introduces Mobile Edge Optimization Suite for Relieving Smartphone Signaling Overload, RAN Congestion" - here.

How does it do it? The release does not provide much information other than the quote by Natasha Tamaskar (picture), VP of Product Marketing: "Our Mobile Edge Optimization Suite enables service providers to accurately identify and characterize mobile devices with potential signaling overload behavior,” said, GENBAND".

So - how does the P Series relief the signaling overhead? A question was sent to Genband PR contact but hasn’t been responded.

Related posts:

• T-Mobile Netherlands Reduces Data Signaling by 30% with NSN Cell_PCH - here
• NSN: New iPhone OS Saves Network Resources - here
• NSN and Qualcomm Show 50% More Efficient Signaling - here

DPI Announcements: NetLogic Multi-core Processor w/Layer 7 Processing

  

Embedding/integrating multi-core packet processors with DPI becomes more competitive as we now have 3 offering: Cavium (here) and Netronome (here) as well as NetLogic recently announced "..XLP316S multi-core, multi-threaded processor which integrates best-in-class NETL7™ Layer 7 knowledge-based processor technology.  This highly integrated processor that combines NetLogic Microsystems’ industry-leading XLP™ multi-core processing and NETL7 knowledge-based processing technologies is ideal for next-generation network security appliances, deep-packet inspection (DPI) gateways, intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and anti-malware gateways".  

See "NetLogic Microsystems Introduces Best-in-Class XLP™ Multi-Core Security Processor with Integrated NETL7™ Knowledge-based Processor" - here.

"The XLP316S .. is targeted to offer unparalleled performance of 20Gbps and 30 million packets-per-second (Mpps) .. The NETL7 knowledge-based processing technology features the Intelligent Finite Automaton (IFA) architecture which .. natively performs stateful cross-packet inspection in hardware. Furthermore, it integrates on-chip memory to provide ultra-low latency access to on-chip signature databases, allowing the processors to accelerate complex and iterative content inspection while eliminating the need to provision for the high-latency and costly off-chip memory that are required by competing solutions".

For comparison - Cavium claims for 40Gbps and Netronome for 100Gbps performance. Not sure if all claims are made on equal basis and assumptions ..

Chris O’Reilly (picture), VP of marketing at NetLogic Microsystems said “..As the industry’s only quad-issue, quad-threaded processor with integrated layer 7 knowledge-based processing technology, our XLP316S processor is uniquely suited to address the growing market for Layers 2 - 7 security processing in enterprise, small-and-midsize business (SMB) and carrier-class networks".

Products File Updated



Source: DPI (Source: Allot - dpacket.org)

 

As MWC is over, it is time to update the DPI product file (accessible from the top banner) - with the latest announcements made by the vendors before or during the show. The file presents only the top of the line product for each vendor, so the updates this time are for Allot, Procera and Ericsson who introduced higher performance products.

In addition to product pictures (significant editing effort!) the table gets to use now the term "Tbps" as some products scaled to the next level (so far only when clustering multiple chassis).

US: House Bars FCC from Using Government Money to Implement Network Neutrality

 

"With a 244-181 vote, Republican leaders succeeded in attaching an amendment to a sweeping spending bill that would bar the FCC from using government money to implement its new "network neutrality" regulations [here].. Republicans argue that the net neutrality rules amount to onerous and unnecessary regulations that will discourage phone and cable companies from continuing to upgrade their broadband networks by making it too hard for them to earn a healthy return on those investments. They also maintain that the FCC overstepped its authority in adopting the rules"

See "House Republicans seek to block FCC Internet rules" - here.

See also:

• George Gilder: "DPI is absolutely critical to our technology" - here
• Verizon Appeals vs. FCC Net Neutrality - here
• FCC: We Need "Apps" to Monitor Naughty Service Providers - here
• MetroPCS LTE Service Plans: "Pay to use Applications" - here 
• Americans Voters are Against Net Neutrality - here

Rep. Greg Walden (top picture), R-Ore., the sponsor of the spending bill amendment and chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, said his measure is "about keeping the government out of the business of running the Internet." 

George Gilder: "DPI is absolutely critical to our technology"

     
In an interview to Steve Forbes, Chairman of Forbes, George Gilder, Senior Fellow Discovery Institute, explains why DPI is crucial commercially and militarily - bringing arguments from the cold was times to nowadays and says:

"You can’t do any of the new promise of broadband without having ways to differentiate among different packets"

See video below, or here.

ITU Urges Governments to Release Extra Spectrum for Mobile Broadband - US Allots $18.2B

   

ITU's Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré says that "Governments need to take urgent action now to support mobile broadband growth .. Mobile operators have been investing billions to upgrade and improve the capacity and performance of their networks, but in some high-usage cities, such as San Francisco, New York and London, we are still seeing users frustrated by chronic problems of network unavailability .. Robust National Broadband Plans that promote extra spectrum and the faster roll-out of the fibre networks which are essential to mobile backhaul are vital to support the growing number of data-intensive application".

See "Network congestion set to worsen ITU calls for international broadband commitment" - here.

See also: "US and UK Regulators to add Mobile Spectrum for Data" - here, "Obama details $18.2 billion wireless broadband plan" - here and the video below (Obama's advisor, Melody Barnes says: "we are building on top of what the private sector is doing and filling in the gaps that are missing".

Netronome and Qosmos to Offer DPI Processing at 100Gbps

  

Netronome and Qosmos announced "a joint solution to scale deep packet inspection (DPI) from 1Gbps to 100Gbps while simultaneously offering the richest detection set for thousands of applications and protocols [see details here]. The integrated solution is the result of a strategic partnership between the companies and is designed for manufacturers of security applications".

See "Netronome Expands DPI Capabilities Through Partnership With Qosmos" - here.

Jarrod Siket (picture), SVP of sales and marketing at Netronome said: “Netronome pioneered flow processing and is committed to providing its customers the silicon, hardware, software and building blocks to securely process flows at the speeds required for next generation platforms .. This exciting partnership with Qosmos expands our offering to include both current and emerging protocols, frequently updated, from the recognized leader in Network Intelligence and DPI software.”

See also - "How to Build DPI Products? (Part I - CPU Architecture)" - here.

Recently, Cavium announced a 40 Gbps DPI processor (here).

Cache Deployments (53): True Internet [Thailand] Uses Bluecoat to Reduce Costs and Improve QoE for Web and Video

         

True Internet, Thailand’s largest ISP with approximately 1.5M subscribers (of which nearly 800,000 in Bangkok Metropolitan Area) must be a paradise for equipment vendors, as it frequently agrees to deploy similar systems from multiple vendors, cooperates very well with the vendors and allows them to mention that in press releases.

3 months ago Oversi announced a cache deployment at True (see "Does True Internet [Thailand] Use Oversi Just to Improve Internet Video QoE?" - here) and now Bluecoat announces that "True Internet .. has deployed Blue Coat^® CacheFlow^® 5000 [here and chart below] appliances to reduce costly international bandwidth consumption, as well as to improve end-user Web experience especially for the delivery of rich Web 2.0 and video content". 

  

See "True Internet Deploys CacheFlow Appliances to Reduce Bandwidth Costs and Improve User Experience for Rich Web 2.0 & Video Content" - here.

True is also using PeerApp - see "True -- Thailand's Largest Internet Service Provider Cuts Bandwidth Costs with New Peer-to-Peer Technology from PeerApp" - here.

This time it is clearly said that caching is used to reduce the usage of costly international bandwidth, and not only in order to improve subscribers’ QoE. Bluecoat explains that "Particularly in high-growth, developing regions such as Latin America, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, international bandwidth costs can be prohibitive for service providers. In many instances, regional service providers may be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per megabit per second (Mbps) per month for international IP transit bandwidth."

Dr. Viriya Upatising, CTO of True Internet said “..We face considerable demand for bandwidth, especially as each customer consumes a growing amount of rich media content from such sources as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, DailyMotion, RapidShare and other sites With international bandwidth still being quite expensive, the CacheFlow appliances have provided a significant remedy for us by helping us manage the operational challenge of adding more users and addressing greater traffic volumes. From our extensive testing of the solution, we have seen how the CacheFlow product consistently delivers high bandwidth savings, while improving the quality of our Internet service to our customers”. Dr. Viriya was also quoted on Oversi's release.

Traffic Management Announcements: Stoke Mobile Data Offload Ecosystem

   

Stoke announced recently ".. enhancements to its award winning Mobile Data Offload application together with a new ecosystem that allows operators to improve mobile data service delivery efficiencies .. Stoke has begun extensive testing with a number of globally recognized application providers, including Volubill, the leading provider of real-time policy management and charging solutions, and major players in mobile traffic optimization, cloud-based web application and content acceleration, and video CDN technologies". 

See "Stoke Enhances Mobile Data Offload, Catalyzes New Ecosystem for Innovation at the Edge" - here.

Similar concept was introduced by Cisco's AIR (here) with their new Mobile Service Edge Gateway - ASR-1000. See the charts below.

"Stoke's 3GPP standard selective breakout gateway intelligently intercepts and re-directs select data traffic, with extraordinary levels of specificity. New enhancements in support of the Edge Service Exchange ecosystem include the following:

• API accessible RAN routing area details for offloaded sessions (e.g. RAC/SAC)
• API accessible session details (e.g. IMSI, APN, Device IMEI, etc.)
• API accessible Radio Access Bearer (RAB) and QoS parameters for sessions
• Network controlled, real-time offload policy updates
• Programmatic session start and stop notification for Service Exchange applications
• Enhancements to breakout controls that mitigate potential failures in Service Exchange partner applications"

Stoke:

Cisco:

PCRF/DPI Deployments (52): South African Wireless Broadband Provider Uses FTS and Cisco to Manage Congestion and Quota

    

FTS announced that " A leading South African wireless broadband provider has now deployed FTS’ Leap™ Policy Control [here]. The new customer is a wireless broadband service provider which offers prepaid and postpaid broadband, VoIP, content and other services. By integrating FTS’ Leap Policy Control with FTS’ Leap Billing and Cisco’s Deep Packet Inspection solution [Cisco SCE], the carrier is now better able to monetize its network traffic".

See "Leading South African Wireless Broadband Provider Deploys FTS’ Leap™ Policy Control Solution" - here.

"..The service provider is also able to more rigorously apply its fair usage policies and so reduce network congestion, thus ensuring a consistent quality of service for all users, as well as reducing revenue leakage. Beyond that, the South African provider is also able to offer subscribers the ability to choose what happens next should they exceed their quota – they can either continue with a pay-per-use option or top-up online with a Bandwidth Booster – a bundle of extra bandwidth".

Gil Nizri (picture), VP Sales & Marketing, FTS said: “We were able to help them immediately manage network congestion, which resulted in increased revenues. While the new services and functionality, such as the Bandwidth Booster, have increased customer satisfaction and reduced churn”.

Telefonica: "Pricing for Optimized Service should be based on QoS"

  

 

In an interview to LightReading, Tanya Field Telefonica UK Mobile Data Group Director, tells Ray Le Maistre how the mobile carrier will monetize the increased use of data - "..it is all about understanding what customers are using data for and being able to optimize the service .. if they are very high video users and they want to have optimized solution so they get very good delivery then we should be looking at pricing for that optimized service so it should be at QoS basis based on the service usage that you effectively undertaking as consumer.."

 

See the video below (or here).

 

See also: 

• Policy Management: What Does Telefonica Need Now?  - here.
• Telefónica Group Selects Acision/Tekelec - here
• Sandvine - Who is the Global DSL/Mobile Customer with 20 Properties? - here.   

 

 

 

 

DPI Announcement: Wipro and Continuous Computing Offer a Mobile Internet Offload Gateway

     

Wipro Technologies and Continuous Computing announced that "the two companies are working together to provide carrier-class Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and Femtocell products for network equipment providers .  A jointly developed Mobile Internet Offload Gateway (IOGW) solution .. By configuring the IOGW at the Iu-PS interface, the data traffic is offloaded away from the SGSN/GGSN directly toward the Internet based on specific offload criteria configured by the operators. Such line-rate DPI intelligence enables operators to change policies dynamically based on traffic type and user SLAs".

See "Wipro Technologies and Continuous Computing Join Hands to Develop Wireless Solutions for Long Term Evolution (LTE) Network Infrastructure"  - here.

See also the recent announcement from Sandvine, for a DPI device that maybe implemented in the same network  location (here).

"With the IOGW providing higher throughput while decongesting core network bottlenecks, service providers can achieve incremental CAPEX savings of more than 60% – realizing benefits right from the first year of deployment. The IOGW is a 3GPP SIPTO (Selected IP Traffic Offload) standards-based IuPS offload solution for UMTS  networks".

See more details on SIPTO - here.

  



Source: FemtoForum



DPI Market Size: Heavy Reading Forecasts $1.1B by 2016

    

A press release from Sandvine quotes a recent DPI market research from Heavy Reading by Simon Sherrington, according to which "global DPI market will grow to $1.1 billion by 2016 ..  Heavy Reading estimates that Sandvine was the largest player in the entire market".

See "Six New Customer Wins Underscore Sandvine’s Market Leadership Position" - here.

The "DPI Market Size Forecast" file (accessible from the top bar) is updated with the new research.

[Update] BroadHop and CommProve Offer Integrated RAN Congestion Management Solution

 

[Update]: Regarding my comment below "Still not clear which element enforces the policies":

BroadHop clarifies that "it is GGSN or DPI that enforces the policy. Comprove has probes in network that identify congestion and which customers are experiencing that congestion. Quantum Network Suite then collects that info from ComProve and instructs GGSN or DPI to respond accordingly to better manage congestion for customers".    

     

Cell congestion management becomes an urgent need for mobile operators, and a number of DPI, traffic management and policy server vendors are addressing the need. See previous posts on this issue - here.  

  

BroadHop and CommProve join the party and are announcing today the "..interoperability of their independent, best of breed solutions. BroadHop's advanced next gen policy management platform, the Quantum Network Suite and CommProve's RAN Insight, the state of the art application designed to dramatically improve radio optimization, will deliver the industry's first intelligent end-to-end application and subscriber Radio Access Network (RAN) Congestion Management solution enabling service providers to apply radio policies based on subscriber service level and the application being used".

See "BroadHop and CommProve Team to Deliver Industry’s First End-to-End Intelligent Application and Subscriber RAN Congestion Management" - here.

"The combined BroadHop and CommProve offering manages localized RAN congestion, maintaining the best quality of experience during congested periods to .. Apply targeted policies to intelligently manage subscriber, application, bandwidth usage and prioritize traffic .. Ensure fair access for all subscribers during network congestion periods .. Accurately track subscriber cell location to enforce policies only for devices active in a congested area without the need for additional location updates to be provided from the network .."
  

Previously, I understood that CommProve's RAN Insight is a monitoring only (passive) solution. Now, Lars Pedersen (picture), CEO of CommProve says: “Together, CommProve and BroadHop provide operators not only unique 2G/3G/4G intelligent network visibility but also the ability to apply policy management based on real-time information per subscriber in a ‘who-what-where’ format".

Still not clear which element enforces the policies. CommProve uses Qosmos' DPI engine (see "CommProve and Qosmos Offer Layer 7 Visibility into Mobile Traffic" - here).

BroadHop and CommProve Offer Integrated RAN Congestion Management Solution

     

Cell congestion management becomes an urgent need for mobile operators, and a number of DPI, traffic management and policy server vendors are addressing the need. See previous posts on this issue - here.  

  

BroadHop and CommProve join the party and are announcing today the "..interoperability of their independent, best of breed solutions. BroadHop's advanced next gen policy management platform, the Quantum Network Suite and CommProve's RAN Insight, the state of the art application designed to dramatically improve radio optimization, will deliver the industry's first intelligent end-to-end application and subscriber Radio Access Network (RAN) Congestion Management solution enabling service providers to apply radio policies based on subscriber service level and the application being used".

See "BroadHop and CommProve Team to Deliver Industry’s First End-to-End Intelligent Application and Subscriber RAN Congestion Management" - here.

"The combined BroadHop and CommProve offering manages localized RAN congestion, maintaining the best quality of experience during congested periods to .. Apply targeted policies to intelligently manage subscriber, application, bandwidth usage and prioritize traffic .. Ensure fair access for all subscribers during network congestion periods .. Accurately track subscriber cell location to enforce policies only for devices active in a congested area without the need for additional location updates to be provided from the network .."
  

Previously, I understood that CommProve's RAN Insight is a monitoring only (passive) solution. Now, Lars Pedersen (picture), CEO of CommProve says: “Together, CommProve and BroadHop provide operators not only unique 2G/3G/4G intelligent network visibility but also the ability to apply policy management based on real-time information per subscriber in a ‘who-what-where’ format".

Still not clear which element enforces the policies. CommProve uses Qosmos' DPI engine (see "CommProve and Qosmos Offer Layer 7 Visibility into Mobile Traffic" - here).

Radware's Alteon 10000 - Mobile Service Edge Switch for Security and Optimization

      

Radware announced a new "Mobile Service Edge (MSE) strategy,  .. [and]  is launching the new Alteon® 10000 application switch"

See "Radware Introduces its Mobile Service Edge Strategy to Better Streamline Mobile Data Centers" - here.

"Radware’s MSE is designed to address and add value for all aspects of application delivery and security for current and upcoming mobile data networks, as well as for the mobile data-centers:

1. Enabling operators to gain full control, enhance scalability, flexibility and optimization over mobile data (including applications, Internet and OTT video) augmenting existing and future infrastructures.
2. Capitalizing on new data center architectures to enhance application delivery under consolidated virtualized networks and IT infrastructure as well as enabling emerging mobile cloud service models
3. Integrating and managing mobile security protection for critical services and network infrastructure under the service delivery framework"

Radware's MSE also offers integration to mobile data ecosystems – a set of open APIs and plug-ins to reduce end-to-end provisioning cycles enabling complete service automation– across PCRF for the Gi/SGi mobile data networks, mobile data center cloud infrastructures, Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and more.

The new Alteon 10000 is built on an ATCA chassis delivers on demand, extendable throughput of 80Gbps and supprot upto 15 ports of 10GE / GE

Cisco MOVEs into Video Optimization and Monetization; New Mobile Services Edge Gateway

 

The mobile core gets lots of attention at MWC this year - especially in the area of traffic management, policy control and video optimization.

Juniper announced its "Open mobile core for 2G/3G and LTE networks" (here) with some partners, and now Cisco is announcing  "Cisco® MOVE, a strategic framework that comprises new solutions to enable service providers to better manage, enhance and take financial advantage of the rapidly growing volume of mobile video and data traffic. The new Cisco MOVE (Monetization, Optimization, Videoscape Experience) solutions include Cisco Mobile Videoscape^TM, Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi and Cisco Adaptive Intelligent Routing (AIR)".

See "Cisco Drives the Mobile Internet for Enhanced Video Experience Across Wireless Networks" - here. See also "Cisco M.O.VE: Monetize, Optimize, Enhance the Video Experience" - here.

MOVE includes:  

• Cisco Mobile Videoscape, a video delivery architecture, platforms, and technologies that together help optimize, monetize, and enhance the delivery of mobile video.
   
• Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi, a cost-effective, secure solution for deployment of Metro-scale outdoor Wi-Fi networks.
    

• Adaptive Intelligent Routing allows Cisco® products in the network to interact with each other in a way that provides exceptional capabilities and benefits. The first implementation of AIR, the Cisco Mobile Services Edge Gateway (MSEG), is designed to lower the cost of mobile data traffic by providing service intelligence at the edge of the network while using the control plane in the packet core to maintain a high-quality service experience, with optimal transport of traffic and lower cost.