[Infonetics]: Global OTT mVoIP Subscribers more than Doubled in 2011

A new report by Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics and Diane Myers (pictured), principal analyst for VoIP and IMS, Infonetics Research concludes that:

"The number of global OTT mobile VoIP subscribers more than doubled from 2010 to 2011, to 98 million, with about 40% of the subscribers based in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa)"

" .. In the crowded OTT mobile VoIP market, Microsoft/Skype  still dominates [see "Skype Grew by 48% in 2011 - Generating 25% of all International Minutes" - here] .. independent OTT mVoIP providers like Google Voice, Fring [here], Line2, Nimbuzz, Talkonaut, ThruTu, and Truphone are working to differentiate from Skype and operator-driven OTT services such as T-Mobile’s Bobsled and Telefónica’s TU Me by making their service easier to use, lowering prices, integrating social networking, and adding video features".

Google Voice

"Still, with OTT mVoIP subscribers paying an average of only $14 per year [here], sustaining an OTT mobile VoIP service is extremely challenging, and most providers face daunting possibilities: go out of business or sell to a larger organization; or find a way to drive revenue beyond cheap calling"

Related post - "[NSN]: Chatty Android Phones should Move on to Network Controlled Fast Dormancy" - here.

See "Voice over LTE gaining momentum; 300k VoLTE subscribers by year's end" - here.

Optimization Deployments [157]: 3 Austria Uses Astellia for Core Network Monitoring

Astellia announced it ".. was named by Austria’s fastest growing mobile operator Hutchison 3G (H3G) as a unique supplier for its E2E mobile broadband network monitoring and optimization .. Over the last 10 years Astellia has been providing H3G with performance intelligence to optimize its UTRAN network. With this new contract, Astellia will extend its monitoring to H3G’s core network. This will hereby give H3G a holistic view of its 3G network efficiency and play a key part in ensuring seamless premium service quality delivery .. Astellia’s non-intrusive, vendor-independent Core PS monitoring solution provides H3G advanced E2E service analysis and fast troubleshooting of QoE issues".

At the end of 2011, 3 Austria had 1.4M subscribers. Following some recent M&A transactions (acquired a 100% interest in Orange Austria and a subsequent onward sale of the Yesss! brand and certain other assets to Telekom Austria Group) it will have a combined customer base of 2.8 million customers.

See "Astellia bags Austria's H3G network monitoring and optimization deal" - here.

Monday's Guest Post: Lack of VoLTE Impacts LTE Data

  
A new guest post will be published on Monday. In his article, "Circuit Switched Fallback: In Danger of crippling 3G and leaving LTE underused" my 21sth guest, Marc Bensadoun, will discuss the consequences of using voice calls in LTE networks. 
 

"LTE voice calls are supported in the 3G network through an implementation known as Circuit Switched (CS) Fallback in 3GPP networks. While CS Fallback is an interim measure - via core network upgrades - until a more robust VoLTE implementation is deployed, operators are often unaware of the unintended consequences on their LTE and 3G network", says Marc.

Stay tuned.

 

Guest posts are welcomed! Please send me a proposed subject, abstract and the author details.

Prediction: Worldwide Traffic will Double during London's Olymics

Bytemobile (now Citrix) and Amethon Solutions ".. predict that operators will see a 211% increase in traffic worldwide during the Olympic Games in London .. The volume of mobile video usage will double, accounting for 50% or more of total data traffic on 3G and 4G networks .. Twitter activity will spike by more than 118% and Facebook usage by 136%".

So -- Does London run out of mobile Capacity (here)?  Will ISPs Use Traffic shaping to Cope with Demand (here)?

See "Bytemobile and Amethon Report: Mobile Data Traffic to More Than Double During Summer Olympics" - here.

DPI Announcements: Adax and Vineyard to Offer OEMs Integrated H/W S/W

Adax and Vineyard Networks announced a partnership to "deliver a combination that easily integrates into OEM and VAS solutions for Policy Control and Traffic Shaping, Optimization and Redirection"

"The Adax Pkt-AMC and Pkt2-PCIe Cavium-based controllers provide front-end intelligent processing, delivering line speed packet processing for these demanding telecom applications across a range of platforms, such as ATCA blades, AMC cards or PCIe rack mount servers. The functionality of Adax’ controllers can now be extended by integrating Vineyard’s DPI engine, Network Application Visibility Library (NAVL)"

See also "Adax and Qosmos Offer ATCA based DPI Subsystem" - here.

 

See "Adax and Vineyard Networks Announce DPI Partnership" - here.

CDN Announcements: EdgeCast Shows 77% Performance Improvement w/Integrated Google’s PageSpeed

EdgeCast Networks announced it has "integrated Google’s PageSpeed (see "Google Optimizes Web sites and Brings CDN Service to the Masses" - here) front end optimization (FEO) technology into the company’s content delivery network". 

"This major step makes PageSpeed - and the significant speed improvements it can provide for static and dynamic content - available to thousands of customers and millions of web sites. Customers can now select from many “best practice” optimizations to apply to their content, and those optimizations will be conducted on-the-fly, on the edge server closest to the end user, and without requiring any changes to site code .. PageSpeed will also be incorporated into the EdgeCast managed and licensed CDN software platforms [here] making the technology available to EdgeCast distributors such as Motorola Mobility, Dell [here], and the operators they serve".

"The integration is the first implementation that executes PageSpeed logic directly on the edge server closest to each end user - a fundamental architectural distinction that results in major improvements in site performance. Early customer testing has shown up to a 77% improvement in site performance compared to customer origin without the service".

See "EdgeCast brings google pagespeed to the edge" - here.

DDoS Announcements: Radware Adds SSL Support

 

Radware announced that " its Attack Mitigation System (AMS) is the first solution of its kind that detects and mitigates denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that are SSL encrypted .. Today's anti-DoS security solutions do not effectively mitigate HTTP-encrypted DoS and DDoS attacks. Through patent-pending technology, Radware's AMS is the only network security solution with the ability to protect against high rate, SSL-based, Web-encrypted DoS and DDoS attacks, in both symmetric and asymmetrical network traffic environments that typify today's anti-DoS scrubbing and cleaning centers".

Avi Chesla (pictured), Radware's CTO, said: "Recently, we have seen some powerful DoS and DDoS attacks that took advantage of the encrypted SSL traffic, targeting firms that depend on secured online transactions such as financial institutions, government agencies, social networking companies and others. Any organization that relies on SSL-based traffic without a proper decryption engine working in synch with an attack mitigation solution is exposing itself to great risk".

See "Radware's Attack Mitigation System Protects Online Businesses Against Encrypted DoS & DDoS Attacks" - here.

Large UK ISPs will Fight Copyright Infringements

Being fashionably late (for a party that is almost over now - see "French Copyright Law - 165 Cases Reached Court; File Sharing Declines" - here), the UK regulator, Ofcom published a "draft code for consultation that would require large internet service providers (ISPs) to inform customers of allegations that their internet connection has been used to infringe copyright".

See also "UK Culture Minister Vaizey:"ISPs have their role to play to help consumers find legitimate content" - here and

"The code will initially cover ISPs with more than 400,000 broadband-enabled fixed lines – currently BT, Everything Everywhere, O2, Sky, TalkTalk Group and Virgin Media. Together these providers account for more than 93% of the retail broadband market in the UK. The draft code requires ISPs to send letters to customers, at least a month apart, informing them when their account is connected to reports of suspected online copyright infringement.

If a customer receives three letters or more within a 12-month period, anonymous information may be provided on request to copyright owners showing them which infringement reports are linked to that customer’s account. The copyright owner may then seek a court order requiring the ISP to reveal the identity of the customer, with a view to taking legal action for infringement under the Copyright Designs and Patent Act 1988".

What seems to be a long process will start now and "Ofcom currently expects the first customer notification letters to be sent in early 2014"

See "New measures to protect online copyright and inform consumers" - here.

Testing S/W Announcements: GL Diameter Protocol Emulator

  

GL Communications announced the release of its "latest product MAPS™ Diameter Protocol Emulator software – Scripted LTE Diameter S6a, S6d, Cx, Dx, Gx, and Rx Interfaces Emulation".

Other products in this market - Developing Solutions (here) and Mobile Metrics (here).

Mr. Karthik Ramalingam, Manager of Product Development, said, “The Diameter protocol is intended to provide a framework for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) .. GL’s general-purpose platform for emulation of protocols is Message Automation & Protocol Simulation (MAPS™). Recently Diameter protocol for has been added to its wide range of emulation support. The MAPS™ Diameter gives the users the unlimited ability to edit S6a, S6d, Cx, Dx, Gx, and Rx interface messages to support various procedures such as Location Management, Subscriber Data Handling, Authentication, Fault Recovery, and Notification procedures over S6a interface and AA-Request/Answer, Re-Auth-Request/Answer, Abort-Session-Request/Answer, and Session-Termination-Request/Answer procedure over Rx interface”.

See "GL Announces Diameter Protocol Emulator for LTE" - here.

iOS Consumes 100% More Data (Browsing, Facebook) than Android

A new research, "Consumer smartphone usage: data traffic and network usage patterns", by Martin Scott (pictured), Principal Analyst, Analysis Mason shows the "distribution of average traffic generated per minute of web browsing by iPhone users compared with Android users" and finds that "The median traffic rate for Android users was 100–200KB per minute compared to 300–400KB per minute for iPhone users – more than twice the average data consumption .. We observed similar differences in average data rates for use of the official Facebook app on iPhones and Android handsets".

Nevertheless, this may not the full picture, as far as MNOs are concerned. See "Apple Devices Use Wi-Fi, Android Use 3G - Why?" - here and about Android's signaling problems (here, here and here).

See "Web browsing on an iPhone generates twice the per-minute traffic of browsing on an Android smartphone" - here

Tekelec: Vodafone Netherlands/Spain Prioritize Some Business Subscribers Data

Tekelec's CTO, Doug Suriano (pictured), was interviewed to European Communications about the recent pricing models and plans used by operators.

The examples Doug used (are they all using Tekelec?):

• Shared data plans - Orange, Verizon
• Speed tiers - Swisscom  
• Time based - Smart, Philippines 
• QoS tiers - "Vodafone Netherlands and Vodafone Spain currently prioritise data traffic for some business subscribers, and we expect that practice to expand in Europe over the next year as well" (see "Vodafone Uses DPI and Policy Management to Improve QoE" - here) 
• Toll Free - where application providers cover some or all of the cost of a subscriber’s data usage for a particular application (see " AT&T CEO: 1-800 Data will "Catch Fire in the Next 12 Months" - here).

"New mobile data tariffs will need to provide more flexibility – that could mean contract length, devices, types of tiers (eg, speed or time instead of data volumes) and partnerships with OTT providers [here]. Essentially, it’s about operators understanding subscribers and developing new personalized tariffs based on their knowledge of users’ preferences and activities. An example is knowing which subscribers watch long-form video on tablets and being able to make an attractive offer tailored for them".

See "Q&A: Tekelec CTO Doug Suriano" - here.

ISP Shares Transparent Caching Experience

Frank Bulk, Technology and Product Development Manager, Premier Communications, shared with Carol Wilson (pictured), Chief Editor, Events, Light Reading his reasons, expectations and results of using transparent caching (see video below and "Transparent Caching Saves Transport $" - here).

Highlights:

• Streaming video makes 55-70% of Premier's traffic, of which YouTube and Netflix are 82% and therefore the main goal - both to the vendors of transparent cache and operators  [at least in the US market]
• Caching could potentially save 30-40% of uplink bandwidth; 20-25% savings will represent a good ROI for transparent caching 
• CDN (Akamai, for example) is not an option for small ISPs, as volume is too low
• The success so far has been moderate, as some of the Netflix and YouTube traffic has not been identified - need to improve the signatures to increase cache hits

ITU to Review QoS and Traffic Management vs. Net Neutrality

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is going to discuss in its World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) (Dubai, 3-14 December 2012) the relation between Traffic management, Quality of Service (QoS) and Network Neutrality.
  

A background brief document explains:

"WHETHER A COMMUNICATION NETWORK delivers the applications you expect as a subscriber, at the promised speed and with all features as advertised, depends upon quality of service, or QoS. The concept is part of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) .. To continue providing adequate QoS, network operators and service providers can build more infrastructure — but this requires huge investments to deal with the enormous growth expected in traffic".

"The parallel solution is traffic management .. Agreements might be struck between Internet service providers (ISPs) and companies that offer applications or content, so that better QoS is given to their transmissions over a network, leaving other customers with less Then there are the so-called “over the top,” or OTT, services (such as Skype) that run through the networks “on top” of the basic provision of Internet access. Operators might seek to charge for reserving a percentage of capacity for these services — which is then not available for general access to the Internet".

"There are proposals to revise the ITRs in order to respond to these changes in technology and the marketplace. In particular, it has been proposed [see "European ISPs Suggest New Internet Business Models" - here] to replace “minimum quality of service” in Article 4.3 with “satisfactory quality of service,” while administrations should ensure that there is transparency in this area so consumers know exactly what they are getting. At present, an ordinary user of the Internet might not know whether his or her connection is slow because of traffic congestion, or because of intentional techniques employed by an operator or ISP".

"Administrations will come together to review the ITRs at the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT-12). Decisions made there that have an impact on QoS and network neutrality could affect the future development of Internet access, and what quality of experience we can enjoy online".

See "Quality of Service and “Net Neutrality” - here.

[Infonetics]: Q1 Wan Optimization Revenues Down 20% QtQ

 
Sam Barnett (pictured), directing analyst for data center and cloud, Infonetics Research, recent market research of data center equipment shows that "The data center equipment market was down sequentially, but is up nicely from the year-ago first quarter .. Global revenue for data center network equipment—data center Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers, and WAN optimization appliances—fell to $2.2 billion in 1Q12, down 6% from 4Q11, but up a strong 17% year over year .. WAN optimization appliances saw the steepest revenue decline, down 20% from the previous quarter".

See "Data center equipment up 17% year over year in 1Q12" - here.

Optimization Deployments [156]: Sprint Uses Birdstep for On-Device Access Management

Birdstep Technology announced that "Sprint has selected its EasySmart client to provide intelligent data traffic management for Wi-Fi and WiMAX .. EasySmart .. is an intelligent client for smartphones and tablets that enables seamless connectivity to Wi-Fi with automatic credential handling while providing customer service intelligence, secure connectivity, seamless mobility and marketing capabilities".

According to Tammy Parker's report on Fierce Broadband Wireless, Sprint is adding it to Smith Micro's NetWise Director (covered here for its new iOS version) it is already using. See "Sprint adds Birdstep technology for data traffic management" - here.

See "Sprint Selects EasySmart Solution from Birdstep Technology to Help Enhance Quality of Network Experience for Subscribers" - here.

24 Operator Groups (4B Subscribers) to Adopt Bill Shock Prevention Measures This Year

Months after Bill Shock Prevention was regulated in the EU [here] and the US [here], GSMA members decided to take it to a global level (see also - "CTIA: FCC Bill Shock Alerts would cost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to implement" - here)  

  

"At a meeting held this week in Shanghai, 24 operator groups, including América Móvil, AT&T, Axiata Group Berhad, Bharti Airtel, Ltd., China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom-Orange, Hutchison 3 Group, KT Corporation, MTS, Qtel, SK Telecom, Smart Communications, Inc., SoftBank Mobile Corp., Tata Teleservices Limited, Telecom Italia Group, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, Verizon Communications, VimpelCom and Vodafone Group agreed to undertake a number of measures which will help mobile subscribers better understand their data roaming charges and more effectively manage their use of data services .. In the first phase of this initiative, these operators and their group subsidiaries have agreed to implement these data roaming transparency measures by the end of 2012, covering more than 4 billion mobile connections worldwide. The GSMA will also work to promote the adoption of these guidelines across its full membership base of nearly 800 mobile operators globally".  

• Sending text messages to remind customers of their data roaming tariffs when they arrive in another country and turn on their mobile device;
• Implementing a monthly data roaming spending limit to help consumers manage their roaming bill and sending alerts when their data usage approaches the limit; and
• Temporarily suspending data service when usage exceeds the spending limit.

See "GSMA Launches Data Roaming Transparency Initiative" - here.

Mobixell: Video Optimization Myths

A webinar by Mobixell explains why and how MNOs should use video optimization.

Bottom line, according to Mobixell:

• Video optimization helps you serve more high-performance sessions to more concurrent users
• Targeted video optimization (device-, user-, content-, Network-, Congestion-Aware and Policy-driven) means better video performance
• Too much video optimization can harm user experience and even revenue
• Video optimization can defer CAPEX and does not have to be expensive
• Video Optimization is critical for creating new data service revenues

 

ABI Research - 30% of Mobile Data Offloaded to Carrier Wi-Fi by 2017

 
A new research by Nick Marshall (pictured), principal analyst, mobile networks, ABI Research, finds that "Global revenue for carrier Wi-Fi access points and controllers will reach $2.2 billion in 2017 .. The majority of the total market in 2011 was accounted for by Cisco, Ruckus Wireless, and Ericsson/BelAir .. the drive by mobile operators to offload data traffic is providing a significant boost to this segment of the market".

".. the use of increasingly sophisticated connection managers, which aggressively seek out validated Wi-Fi access in accordance with the service provider’s policies, will accelerate this trend. Thanks to this trend, carrier Wi-Fi data traffic offloaded is expected to grow to around 30% by 2017".

Compare to - "[Juniper Research]: 60% of Mobile Data Offloaded in 5 Years" - here.

  

See "Carrier Wi-Fi Equipment Market to Grow Eight Times Its Current Size to $2.2 Billion by 2017" - here.

Smith Micro Helps MNOs with Smarter Offloading

 
Smith Micro Software announced a ".. new addition to the company’s Netwise™ traffic management portfolio with NetWise SmartSpot™ for iOS-based devices. The NetWise SmartSpot solution helps mobile operators offload data traffic from iOS devices to Wi-Fi networks by proactively notifying subscribers of available Wi-Fi access points and measuring their Wi-Fi efficiency. For consumers, it simplifies connection to those networks and helps them to better manage data costs".

"Ideal for mobile operators that have or are in need of a strong Wi-Fi strategy, NetWise SmartSpot helps reduce network congestion and support calls associated with data usage for Apple’s iPhones and iPads. Wireless traffic is improved by helping subscribers to know when and where alternative networks are available, and helping them to seamlessly authenticate and connect to those networks".

See "Smith Micro Expands Wireless Data Traffic Management Solution to Include Support for iOS Devices" - here.

SK Telecom Fights OTT Services and Signaling Load

SK Telecom continues its fight against OTT. After trying to protect their voice and messaging revenues by blocking access to competitive internet based services (see "Complaint against SK Telecom & KT for Blocking VoIP over 3G (Using DPI)" - here), the MNO is now launching its own services.

Mobile World l!ve reprots from GSMA MOBILE ASIA EXPO 2012 that "South Korea’s largest mobile operator SK Telecom (SKT) is fighting back against a number of Over-The-Top (OTT) players that have become hugely popular in the country in recent years, promising the imminent launch of an RCS-based service and further deployment of its Smart Push technology"

Dr. Choi Jin-Sung (pictured), SVP and Head of SKT’s Technology Strategy Office, told Mobile Asia Daily: “Korean mobile carriers are experiencing difficulties, including decreased SMS revenues and increased network investment cost to accommodate surging traffic, caused by the popularity of various free messaging services .. KaKao Talk, a mobile messaging service used by 37 million Koreans (46 million subscribers globally as of May 2012), is fast becoming a threat to mobile operators as it has recently launched a mVOIP service. And these OTT service providers are expected to evolve into a UC (Unified Communication) platform after securing subscribers based on their messaging services”

About the notorious signaling/keep-alive problem:

"At the same time, the company is applying Smart Push, its home-grown technology that enables integrated management of keep-alive signals, to prevent network overload .. Here, the opening up of the Smart Push technology is an exemplary case where all stakeholders including mobile carriers, OTT service providers and customers gain benefits .. SK Telecom has also entered into MOUs with Samsung Electronics and NSN to promote overseas exports of Smart Push-embedded network equipment”

See "SK Telecom fights OTT rivals" - here.

Akamai CEO: "Our CDN will Need 100x Expansion in 5 Years"

Mathew Ingram reports to GigaOM on Akamai's CEO, Paul Sagan (pictured), presentation during the GigaOM Structure event held in San Francisco:

"[The Internet] is still growing at a phenomenal rate — thanks in large part to streaming .. the already enormous content-delivery network his company runs will need to expand by a factor of 100 times in the next five years just to keep up with the demand for real-time video"

"the complicating factor for Akamai is the multidevice, multiplatform world, where the company doesn’t know what kind of content it is going to have to deliver to a user, or where it is going to come from, or what device or network it is going to have to be delivered to — but people just expect it to work"

See "You think the internet is big now? Akamai needs to grow 100-fold" - here.

NSN - 5X Uplink Capacity Increase with CPC

Nokia Siemens Networks announced it is the ".. first to implement a bundle of standards-based features that deliver Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC). By reducing network interference, the feature set provides five times more uplink capacity and allows operators to support more smartphone users on HSPA+ networks. In addition, smart device batteries last 15% longer while people benefit from a 60% increase in data rates".

CPC is (see "Understanding HSPA+ Cellular Technology", by Jodi Zellmer - here) ".. a collection of enhancements that allow more users to be continuously connected to the network and, at the same time, increase UE battery life and improve the link quality, especially for low-data-rate services like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)".

See "Nokia Siemens Networks boosts smartphone experience on HSPA+ networks" - here.

[Infonetics]: Comverse, Huawei and Ericsson Lead Convergent Charging Market ($14B/5years)

  

A new research by Shira Levine, directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy, Infonetics Research concludes:

"Comverse narrowly regained the revenue lead in the fast-growing and hyper-competitive convergent charging market, with Huawei and Ericsson close behind, and Amdocs ramping up its market share over the past year .. We expect operators to spend a cumulative $14 billion over the next 5 years on convergent charging software and services .. Many are integrating their solution portfolios with policy management capabilities to enable flexible service bundles that better tie the amount of bandwidth consumed to the price charged".

Related guest posts: "Why Not a Single Vendor for Policy and Charging Controls?" (here) vs. "Policy and Charging: The Value of Independence" (here).

Infonetics forecasts $3.9B revenues for the convergent charging market in 2016 (see chart); previous report (here) forecasted $3.2B for 2015.

See "Carriers to spend $14 billion on convergent charging over next 5 years; Comverse regains lead" - here.

[Exact Ventures]: Tekelec has 75% of DSR Market; Acme and F5 Follow

   

An updated report by Exact Ventures concludes that the "Diameter Signaling Controller (DSC) cumulative product revenues between 2011 and 2016 are forecasted to approach $1 billion, a 25 percent increase compared to Exact Ventures’ prior forecast (see "[Exact Ventures]: Diameter Router Market "will double each year through 2016" - here)"

".. Adding to the market opportunity are services revenues, including software maintenance, which is expected to approach 40 percent of the overall market in 2017".

Other market size forecasts: "Yankee Group: Diameter Routing Takes off - $212M Market in 2015" - here and "[Infonetics]: Diameter Signaling Router Market to Grow at 106% (!) CAGR Through 2016" - here.

" .. Tekelec [here] capturing an estimated three-quarters of the market, followed by Acme Packet [here] and F5/Traffix [here] .. Exact Ventures expects market competition to intensify as larger vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Huawei enter the market" [note also the recent Diametriq OEM - here].

On the same day, the proud marker leader, Tekelec, announced that its "Diameter Signaling Router (DSR) is now carrying live LTE traffic at four customers: two North American Tier 1s [here], a Tier 1 in the Asia-Pacific region and a major hub provider in the Asia-Pacific region. Two customers went from purchase to running live LTE traffic on the DSR in only two months" - see "Four service providers accelerate LTE services, go live with Tekelec's Diameter Signaling Router" - here.

See "Diameter Signaling Controller Market Forecast Boosted in Anticipation of LTE Signaling Storm, According to Exact Ventures" - here.

LTE Vendor Adopts Diametriq Diameter Signaling Router

 
Diametriq announced that a ".. major LTE equipment provider has expanded the use of the Diametriq Diameter platform for its 4G communications solutions".

Diametriq (formally IntelliNet Technologies) decided recently (here) to focus on Diameter signaling - a young market that is gaining traction quickly, including M&A activities (see "F5 Acquires Traffix Systems for $135M" - here and "[Light Reading] Rumors: Tekelec is Seeking a Buyer" - here).

See "Diametriq’s Diameter Platform Adopted by Leading Equipment Provider for Advanced LTE Communications" - here.

Optenet and Allot Team on Integrated DPI/Parental Control

   

A year ago I covered Opetenet's deployment at Vodafone Turkey (here), enabling web filtering services with Allot Communications' DPI gear.

This has turned now into a strategic alliance.

Optenet announced "a new strategic alliance with Allot [that] ..   will allow both organizations to offer operators a network intelligent solution which acts as a centralized policy enforcement point .. enabling a feature-rich parental control solution ..  known as the Allot-Optenet Parental Control Solution, fully ensures that a broad range of home and mobile devices have secure and controlled browsing helping to make the Internet safe for children. It gives service providers a set of real-time tools to develop a comprehensive package that allows parents to monitor their children’s Internet activity and take actions by blocking unwanted access or limit usage during pre-determined periods".

  

The solution (see top chart) is built on Allot's Service Gateway and Optenet's MIDAS (Multicontent Inspection and Dynamic Analysis System) products:

See "OPTENET Announces a Strategic Alliance with Allot" - here.

OVUM: Shared Data Plans are "here to stay"; Require Management Tools

 
Nicole McCormick (pictured), Senior Analyst - Telco Strategy, Ovum covers the recent adaption of shared data plans by major MNOs.

"After a significant amount of discussion and hype, “bucket plans” are beginning to gain traction around the world. Bucket plans are a tariff structure where a monthly data allowance is shared between all of a user’s connected devices"

"Telefonica, Canadian operator Rogers Wireless, Hong Kong operator CSL [here], and Norway’s Telenor are just some of the growing number of operators that offer data bucket plans. These plans are typically aimed at the “connected person” who owns a smartphone, laptop, and tablet".

Related posts:

• Verizon Wireless Adds Shared Data Plans (1-10GB) - here
• [Gartner]: "CSPs should adopt these multidevice plans- here 

See also "Shared Mobile Data Plans Savings Opportunities at A Cost" (here) for more examples: Bell Mobility[Canada], Orange Mobistar and Proximus [Belgium], Vodafone and Telstra [Australia],Orange Austria and Vodafone Ireland.

 

Source: CSL/one2free 

Back to Ovum - "Bucket plans provide operators with significant cost savings as they do not have to acquire and manage two separate subscriptions for a single customer. A combined account also makes it far easier for operators to find out what a customer is using their device for and when. This information makes upsell opportunities clearer and easier to implement, and enables the possibility of providing the data to third-party applications and advertisers .. Unified plans increase customer stickiness, which results in lower churn".

 

"Operators will also have to ensure that bucket plan users are provided with adequate data monitoring tools to prevent excess usage charges if big-screen devices unknowingly consume a high proportion of the bucket. These should also provide a mechanism that enables customers to upgrade to a larger plan if required" (see also "Infonetics: Shared Data Plans - an Opportunity with OSS Needs" - here).

  

See "Data buckets arrive to cater for the “connected person” - here.

PLDT CEO: Network Intelligence Allows to Offer More Flexible and Attractive Service Packages

Carmelito Q. Francisco reports to Mindanao Times on PLDT's Chairman, Manuel V. Pangilinan, presentation during the annual stockholders meeting.

Source: PLDT Q1 2012 Results

"Telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Co. is completing the upgrade of its systems, including those of its subsidiary smart communications and newly-acquired sun cellular .. the installation of modern cell site of smart all over the country will be completed .. This enables us to quickly upgrade to the latest mobile phone technologies such as hspa+ (high speed packet access) and lte (long term evolution), as and when our plans and market demand require. other telcos have only just begun this process".

   

"The company will also be able to complete its core networks and backroom facilities for both fixed and mobile .. As a result, we shall have more network intelligence to efficiently manage our various services and thus offer our customers more flexible and attractive service packages".



PLDT had 66.1M mobile subscribers at the end on March 2012 (see chart).

   

See "PLDT to complete modernization this year" - here.

[Infonetics]: 2.6B Mobile Broadband (17% on LTE) Subscribers by 2016

   
A new research by Stéphane Téral (pictured), principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, Infonetics Research concludes that:

 "The number of mobile broadband subscribers jumped nearly 50% in 2011 to 846 million and we expect that number to reach 2.6 billion by 2016, driven by Brazil, Russia, India, China and others in the developing world .. The number of LTE subscribers is forecast by Infonetics to near 450 million by 2016 .. WiMAX subscribers are expected to grow at a 35% compound annual growth rate through 2016, when they will top 132 million"

(compare to "[Juniper Research]: 430M LTE Subscribers by 2016; Attracted by speeds and Service Guarantees" - here)

"DSL subscribers accounting for over 2/3 of all wireline broadband subscriptions in 2011"

".. We anticipate Asia Pacific to account for over half of the world’s mobile broadband subscribers by 2016, while Latin America will see the fastest growth .. Mobile subscribers are forecast by Infonetics to pass the 6-billion mark in 2012, and to approach 7 billion by 2016 .. China Mobile, Vodafone, and América Móvil are the world’s top mobile operators by number of subscribers"

See "Mobile broadband subscribers up 50%"- here.

NSN Optimizes Mobile Broadband in CDMA

Nokia Siemens Networks introduced ".. a set of features that enable more efficient use of network resources. These features increase data capacity by up to 40% in loaded cells thereby helping operators economically manage greater data traffic volumes, without the need for hardware investment, via a straightforward software upgrade .. EV-DO Advanced software comprises a number of capabilities that increase network capacity, deliver higher data rates and prioritize and allocate bandwidth better to improve overall network efficiency. In addition, these features improve mobile device performance and extend battery life:  

• Network Load Balancing (NLB) reassigns mobile devices from heavily-loaded sectors to lightly-loaded sectors, to increase network capacity, reduce backhaul bottlenecks and improve data rates.
   
• Smart Carrier Management maximizes data throughput and overall network capacity by assigning one or more carriers to a device (within the same cell or from an adjacent cell) if they are less loaded or offer better coverage.
   
• Enhanced Connection Management optimizes device connections to the network depending on the type of application being used to improve signaling capacity and reduce latency. It includes new features that will enhance device performance and data speeds and extend battery life.

See "Nokia Siemens Networks frees spectrum, increases data capacity on #CDMA" - here.

How will T-Mobile US Improve Spectral Efficiency?

Mike Dano reports to Fierce Wireless on T-Mobile's CTO Neville Ray (pictured) presentation at the NGMN conference held in San Francisco earlier this week.

Mr. Ray provided some statistics on T-mobile's "4G" network (or HSPA+, as the rest of the world calls it; LTE, by NSN and Ericsson, will be launched in 2013). The network reaches 230M people, has 37,000 cell sites and the current average monthly smartphone bandwidth consumption is 760MB, or 1.3GB for HSPA+ devices. This (760MB) is a 30x increase compared to 2009.

See "T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 smartphone users guzzle 1.3 GB per month" - here.

In addition, one of Ray's slides (full presentation - here) shows how T-Mobile is planning to improve spectrum and capacity challenges, resulting from the above usage.

Related post: "Kineto Wireless Makes Wi-Fi Offload Easier; Used by Orange UK and T-Mobile US" - here.

Allot: New VP of International Sales

While Allot Communications' web site still shows Eli Cohen as its VP of International Sales, a LinkedIn update by Gary Drutin shows that this is going to change soon.

Gary, who served in a similar position at AudioCodes, will find a number of his ex-colleagues at the management team.

Good luck Gary!

Cisco: Introduction to "Flow Metadata"

 
A post to Cisco's blog by Ulrica de Fort-Menares (pictured), Director of product management, Medianet, discusses Flow Metadata "..allows an application to explicitly signal any arbitrary attributes to the network from node to node. This avoids the pitfall of data not being visible for deep packet inspection due to increasing use of encryption and obfuscation".

See "Cisco's Medianet Brings QoS For Video Using DPI" - here.

 

"Tradition network classification solution using deep packet inspection technology is localized as classification may not be available along the path. How can network element enforce policies if they do not have uniform view of traffic to apply consistent enforcement of network policies ? Flow Metadata is reusable across network nodes by allowing sharing of flow attributes amongst network nodes. This allows appropriate and consistent policies to be applied at each hop, end to end, improving the quality of experience".

Source: Cisco - Medianet Metadata 

See "A new Application recognition paradigm – Flow metadata" - here.

DiViNetworks' is Ready to Optimize China Telecom International Links

DiViNetworks announced that "China Telecom’s Guangzhou Institute approved DiViNetworks’ solutions, following lab tests targeted at China Telecom’s 10G international links .. The thorough testing conducted by China Telecom demonstrated 30-50% capacity expansion with general Internet traffic, and 10X capacity expansion with video traffic".

According to Yair Shapira, DiViNetworks' VP of Marketing and BD, China Telecom will use its DiViLink product over its network of international links (see "Vendor Review: DiViNetworks' Bytestream Caching" - here).

DiViLink

".. With the success in China Telecom, DiViNetworks established a Joint Venture in China named BeijingDiViNet, which will lead commercial and technical activities in China. DiViCloud [here] PoPs (points of presence - see below) are being established in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney, followed by Mainland China".

See "DiViNetworks gets the Green Light from China Telecom" - here.