Wednesday, October 31, 2012

RADCOM and Amdocs Joint RAN Monetization and Cell Congestion Control Solution [in detail]


RADCOM and Amdocs announced that they have ".. jointly developed, successfully tested and deployed on a trial basis a Radio Access Network (RAN) monetization and cell congestion control solution for LTE networks .. The solution enables service providers to monetize the RAN by offering promotions to subscribers when cells are under-utilized. It also enhances and automatically resolves cell congestion by applying RAN-aware policy to subscriber sessions".

"Based on RADCOM’s Omni-Q probe-based Service Assurance platform and the Amdocs Policy Controller, the solution was successfully deployed in a trial LTE (4G) network at a tier-1 service provider in the Asia/Pacific region. The solution can also support UMTS and CDMA networks"



RADCOM provided me with additional information on the joint solution:
  • The solution used in this LTE networks used probes that monitored S5, S11, S1-U and S1-MME interfaces. In UMTS networks, similar functionality is achieved by monitoring Gn, Iu and Iub interfaces. In CDMA networks, A10/A11 interface is monitored [See chart]
     
  • The PCRF controls the traffic for congested cells via any 3rd party PCEF over 3GPP Gx interface. A number of different PCEFs were used in the trial.
     
  • The probe measures QoE at the subscriber and application level and uses these measurements to determine congestion on a sector and cell level. The rate of updates to the PCRF is configurable and typically sent every 30 seconds or less
See "RADCOM and Amdocs Develop RAN (Radio Access Network) Solution Enabling Service Providers to Monetize Data Usage, Relieve Cell Congestion on LTE Networks" - here.

[Infonetics]: How do BT, PT and Telus Use Edge Routers?

   
A new white paper by Michael Howard (pictured), co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks, Infonetics Research "..examines how the latest advances in edge routing technology are helping carriers meet the demands of growing video traffic, surging mobile backhaul traffic, and cloud services at the IP edge".

The paper shows how large carriers use IP edge routers:
  • TELUS, Portugal Telecom, and Belgacom reduced opex by leveraging a common IP platform to deliver a combination of residential, business, and mobile services
     
  • British Telecom and Portugal Telecom solved the video onslaught with caching/content delivery networks (CDNs), delivery of high quality unicast video, and per-flow QoS
     
  • Portugal Telecom added multiscreen and network intelligence for applications
     
  • Portugal Telecom and Belgacom provide high performance, secure, flexible L2/L3 VPNs, and use them for access to cloud services
     
  • Operators now have the tools to increase revenue with CDN services, a broadband “turbo” button, and new service bundles that are impossible with separate service networks

See "IP edge routers helping carriers overcome triple challenge of video, mobility, cloud" - here (press release) and white paper (here).

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Acme Packet: 9 Wins for Diameter Signaling Controller; 75 Opportunities

 
Several references were made during Acme Packet's Q3 analysts call (revenues - $65.3M - here) to its Diameter Signaling Controller product, by Andrew D. Ory (pictured) - Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, President and Director, including:
  • We expect that VoLTE services, offered by service providers, will ramp in 2014. The first wave of adoption involves LTE data services, where we already have 9 wins with our Diameter signaling controller. This includes 4 wins in the last 30 days alone. What's more, we are actively engaged with over 75 other opportunities.
     
     
  • The European service provider market continues to be a bright spot for us. Some of our strongest and most strategic relationships are among the Tier 1 service providers in Europe. We see acceleration of 4G LTE planning and deployment, rolling interest in cloud and over-the-top architectures, as an alternative to traditional methods, broad support for our Diameter signaling controller and the broad increase in RFP and RFQ activity throughout the region. EMEA leads all regions with regards to engagement for LTE data services, VoLTE and RCSC.
During Q3 Acme published Telefonica Germany (here) and Aicent (here) as customers. See also previous statements on market share here and here.

See "Acme Packet Management Discusses Q3 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by Seeking Alpha - here.

DDoS Deployments [194]: DreamHost Selects Arbor Networks

  
Arbor Networks announced that DreamHost has ".. selected Arbor's Peakflow SP platform, the industry's leading network-wide infrastructure security and traffic-monitoring platform .. Hosting providers often have a higher risk of DDoS attacks than other online businesses because they aggregate the risk of all their customers .. DreamHost's deployment of the Peakflow SP platform helps ensure that DDoS attacks are identified and mitigated before they get to customer premises".

DreamHost is a leading global web hosting and cloud services provider with over 330,000 customers and 1.2 million websites, blogs and applications hosted.

See "Web and Cloud Hosting Provider DreamHost Selects Arbor Networks' Peakflow® SP Platform for Infrastructure Visibility and Security" - here.

Monday, October 29, 2012

NI Announcements: Empirix Enhances Analytics


Empirix announced an "..enhanced version of Empirix xCentrix for detecting issues in mobile, fixed line and VoIP networks as they emerge and automatically triggering advanced analytics to immediately scope and diagnose problems .. Now, organizations can predict the impact of service issues and respond swiftly to protect high value customers"

".. Key features include Deep Packet Inspection-Level Application Analysis - As apps proliferate, it is extremely important to pinpoint those that are causing signaling conditions that lead to poor experience, for the app users, localities and subscribers overall. To dramatically simplify app identification for operators, Empirix has integrated signature analysis capabilities that fully characterize these types of issues".

See "Empirix xCentrix Transforms Service Assurance with Actionable Insight" - here.

Arbor Presents: DDoS Attacks Growth During A Decade


Nice video by Arbor Networks showing the "evolution of DDoS attacks — from nuisance to menace" in which DDoS attacks "have broken the 100 Gbps barrier, up 1000%".



See "A Decade of DDoS" - here.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Singapore: Who is Using Data Throttling? (Answer: Everybody)


Sidney Wong covers in an article for Singapore Hardware Zone the different methods operators are using to handle ".. tremendous surge in data traffic that is exerting a lot of pressure on telcos to maintain a decent user experience on their mobile networks".

For data throttling - "We reached out to the three telcos in Singapore on their takes on data throttling, and you will be very surprised by what we've found out. As you might know, IDA works with the various service providers to provide a reasonable level of service quality to consumers. The authority is aware that service providers may need to manage their networks some way or the other in order to optimize the quality of their services to subscribers in general. You can find out more about IDA's stand on this here".

  • StarHub - "To prevent service deterioration and to enhance the end-user experience for all, StarHub implements network management techniques to ensure that no application or user should dominate finite network resources, especially during peak surfing hours (6pm to 2am on weekdays and 11am to 2am on weekends)," said Mr. Mock Pak Lum, StarHub's Chief Technology Officer [pictured]".

    See "StarHub Selected Neuralitic for Usage Profiling and Monetization" - here and "PCRF: Starhub [Singapore] Selected NSN" - here.
     
  • M1 - "We do conduct traffic management of peer-to-peer protocol during peak hours, to maintain service quality to all users. M1’s network management ensures fair and consistent traffic utilization across our customer base and applications," said Petrina Teoh, Senior Manager for Corporate Communications.
  • SingTel - "SingTel optimises the quality of its mobile broadband services with its fair-use policy which aims to ensure a smooth and consistent experience for all customers. When customers have exceeded the $94 data cap, their mobile line will be limited to a speed of 64Kbps until the end of the monthly bill cycle. To reach the $94 cap, customers would have to consume 18GB of data usage on top of their bundled allowance for the month," said Dylan Tan, Senior Corporate Communications Manager.

    See "Singtel: 10% of Subscribers Consume 64% of Data; Implements Tiered Services" - here.
See "Telcos' Strategies to Manage Mobile Data Traffic Flow" - here.

Analysys Mason: The State of Policy Management


Interesting presentation by Larry Goldman (pictured), Partner, Head of Telecoms Software Research, Analysys Mason, should help operators understand the value of policy management.

While "Policy is a key tool to link with analytics for real-time behaviour - helping generate new revenue" and "Policy provides operators with control mechanism at many points in the network", "Policy has many use cases but very few actual implementations that make it work" (P. 16).




See "Telecoms software: software strategies that impact operator business results" - here.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Obama Vs. Romney On Network Neutrality

 
Wikipedia's "Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2012" (here) quotes their views on Network Neutrality: 
  • Romney is against "Net Neutrality" - "...Specifically, the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” regulation represents an Obama campaign promise fulfilled on behalf of certain special interests, but ultimately a “solution” in search of a problem..." (here)
     
  • President Obama (pictured) is "'a strong supporter of Net neutrality,' saying that regulations are required to prevent the telecom companies from changing "the internet as we know it." Promoting net neutrality would be a priority in his first continued year as president" (here).

    This is not new - see my post from March 2010 - "Network Neutrality – A Presidential Introduction" - here.

VF Germany: LTE Performance will Replace Fixed Voice and Broadband Service


Paul Rasmussen reports to FierceWireless Europe that Vodafone Germany's new CEO Jens Schulte-Bockum (pictured), said in an interview to the Rheinische Post (here, German) that he:

"..  expects data traffic volume to grow by 2,000 per cent over the next three years .. investment in LTE will be vital .. performance of LTE will also encourage fixed line customers in Germany to move their voice and broadband subscriptions across to LTE .. voice and messaging revenues accounts for around two-thirds of its revenue today, but will fall to contributing only a third of the company's overall revenues in a few years"/

See "Vodafone Germany plans for 2000% data growth in next 3 years" - here.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Optimization Deployments [193]: Gulfsat [Madagascar] Deploys DiviNetworks Cloud Solution


DiviNetworks announced that Gulfsat Madagascar (Blueline) ".. has selected to expand its international IP capacity usingDiViNetworks. Gulfsat follows Telecom Malagasy - Madagascar's largest operator, which already uses DiViCloud  [here] .. Gulfsat is served from DiViNetworks' point of presence (PoP) in Paris. The virtual capacity is generated on top of the existing caching solution installed at Gulfsat, and over several links and carriers currently serving Gulfsat".

Damien de Lamberterie (pictured), General Manager of Gulfsat Madagascar said: "The success of our 4G data services puts a lot of pressure on our costly international links .. DiViNetworks' changes this equation by offering affordable capacity using their cloud software innovative approach".

See "DiViNetworks Provides Virtual Capacity for Gulfsat Madagascar" - here.

NI Deployments [192]: BT Uses Riverbed for Global Applications-aware Networking Services


Riverbed Technology introduced ".. two new virtual editions to the Riverbed® Cascade® product family that enable managed service providers (MSPs) to deliver application-aware network performance management (NPM) as a service to their small-to-medium-sized and enterprise customers. The new Cascade Profiler Virtual Edition and Cascade Gateway Virtual Edition plus the existing Cascade Shark Virtual Edition provide a completely virtualized NPM solution portfolio that allows MSPs to deliver continued value in a virtualized world with the next-generation of performance management .. The new virtual edition products are expected to be generally available in Q4 2012"

"In addition to providing the visibility needed for monitoring and troubleshooting network and application performance, Cascade products provide customers the critical information they need for strategic IT decision making and planning across projects, including data center consolidation, virtualization, and WAN optimization"

Keith Langridge, VP, Network Services at BT Global Services said : "BT has always been at the forefront of delivering application performance management to help organizations succeed in a complex, global environment. By integrating the latest application-aware network monitoring techniques from Riverbed Cascade products into our established BT Connect Acceleration service, we can help customers get the most out of their networks"


See "Riverbed Delivers Network and Application Performance Monitoring to Managed Service Providers" - here.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Sandvine: Already $10M Orders from Asian Tier-1


Sandvine announced that it has "..received over $5 million in Network Policy Control expansion orders for a tier-1 customer in its Asia Pacific sales region. Sandvine has now received over $10 million in orders for this customer since August of this year [here]".

Rumors are that one of Sandvine's Asian customers is Korea Telecom

"The new orders represent ongoing expansion of Sandvine’s deployment, related in part to the Company’s proven support for identifying and applying policy on IPv6 traffic, and Sandvine’s Service Creation capabilities, which fit the operator’s vision for future service differentiation. The orders included units of Sandvine’s high-throughput, high-density Policy Traffic Switch 24000 to be deployed in the service provider’s network".

See "Sandvine Secures Additional Business in Asia" - here.

DPI Announcements: Wind River's Content Inspection Engine


Wind River introduced "Wind River Intelligent Network Platform, a software platform for the development of sophisticated network equipment that can accelerate and secure the flood of traffic for current and future networks .. Wind River Intelligent Network Platform is comprised of software that manages a consolidated control and data plane system, and software engines that provide fast packet acceleration and content inspection"

"Wind River Content Inspection Engine: High-speed pattern matching DPI solution matches large groups of regular expressions against blocks or streams of data using a scalable, cost-effective approach. This engine is ideal for applications that need to scan large amounts of data at line rate such as intrusion prevention, antivirus and unified threat management".


 See "Wind River Launches Software Platform Addressing Challenges of Traffic Intensive Networks" - here.

F5 - Moving Ahead with DPI (already in Beta)


Some references to F5's DPI strategy were made during the recent analysts call (revenues - 362.6M - here), by John McAdam, President and CEO and Karl Triebes, EVP, Product Development and CTO (pictured).

This follows previous announcements on the company intentions to enter the DPI market in 2013 - See "F5 CEO Confirms DPI Plans; Happy with Traffix" - here and "F5 Service Provider/Mobile Road Map: Focus on DPI" - here.

"ADF [application delivery firewall] provides performance metrics clearly superior to those offered by our competitors. We will also be delivering the industry's broadest range of Hyper-V support of world-class performance levels. For the service provider market, we will be delivering additional carrier grade NAT functionality and a new software module, as well as a policy enforcement module with DPI classification technology".

"I feel personally very strongly that the product refresh that the DPI functionality that what we're doing with the ADF"

Q: "And have you had any betas yet for the new DPI technology?" - A:"Yeah, we've been in beta for some time with all major features that are coming out…"

"We also think by virtue of having that diameter footprint in data center, it really helps enable us with our DPI solution because that requires a tie-in directly to the diameter interface".

See "F5 Networks, Inc.'s CEO Discusses Q4 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript" - here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Packet Transport Technology Improves Wireless Bandwidth by 10x


David Talbot reports to MIT's Technology Review that "Academic researchers have improved wireless bandwidth by an order of magnitude .. by using algebra to banish the network-clogging task of resending dropped packets".

Prof. Muriel Medard (pictured), MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and a leader in the effort, says:  "Several companies have licensed the underlying technology in recent months, but the details are subject to nondisclosure agreements.. Elements of the technology were developed by researchers at MIT, the University of Porto in Portugal, Harvard University, Caltech, and Technical University of Munich. The licensing is being done through an MIT/Caltech startup called Code-On Technologies"

"The technology transforms the way packets of data are sent. Instead of sending packets, it sends algebraic equations that describe series of packets. So if a packet goes missing, instead of asking the network to resend it, the receiving device can solve for the missing one itself. Since the equations involved are simple and linear, the processing load on a phone, router, or base station is negligible"

"Testing the system on Wi-Fi networks at MIT, where 2 percent of packets are typically lost, Medard's group found that a normal bandwidth of one megabit per second was boosted to 16 megabits per second".

See also - "Google [Still] Claims there is a Faster TCP" - here and "Huawei Improves TCP Performance by up-to 50%" - here.

See "A Bandwidth Breakthrough" - here.

[BI Intelligence]: Surprise! Smartphone and LTE will Drive Mobile Video


A new report by BI Intelligence analyzes the ".. impact of 4G LTE and device design improvements on mobile video growth, examines who watches mobile video and how they watch it, and details the mobile video monetization opportunity".

According to the report, the current state of mobile video market is:

"Mobile video viewing appears to be additive .. the mobile video audience is expanding rapidly .. Mobile video advertising is becoming increasingly popular .. And, we could just be getting started: The expected growth in the number of tablet and smartphone users globally, coupled with increased accessibility to 4G LTE and the integration of larger screens and speedier processors in mobile devices, should all drive significantly more mobile video consumption in the near future"
  
See "BII REPORT: The State of Mobile Video" - here.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Volubill Partners with Semiconductor Vendor to Deliver Policy-based M2M solutions


Volubill announced that "a world leader in 3G and next generation wireless technologies has selected Volubill to support its advanced machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions and services .. Volubill’s VBS Policy Manager and VNS Core Controller allow the global semiconductor company to provide its M2M automotive, transportation and logistics customers with unprecedented connectivity, communications and managerial control that yield significant efficiency improvements and cost-savings. For example, transportation customers are now offered the ability to provide continuous connectivity to drivers, control the amount of bandwidth they can use and the sites they are able to access. In the future this might extend to offering drivers the ability to purchase their own data plan to use for personal and non-business related functions".



See "Volubill Brings Real-Time Dynamic Policy and Session Control to Major US Wireless Market Leader’s M2M Solutions and Services" - here.

[Globes]: Israeli ISPs will have to Advertise Minimum Broadband Speeds


Gad Peretz reports to Globes that the Israeli Ministry of Communications is going to add another level of transparency on ISP services.

ISPs will have to advertise, using the same font size they publish their "up-to" speeds, the minimum (committed) speed provided to the subscriber - both for downloads and uploads. 

There are no details on how these speeds are measured, including which services or severs will be used as a benchmark (see "UK: Transparency for Unlimited and "up-to" Service Speeds" - here)

See here (Hebrew).

Monday, October 22, 2012

DPI Deployments [191]: Evertek, Utah Broadband Use Procera to Manage Wireless Networks


Procera Networks announced "new deployments of its PacketLogic™ systems by several rural Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) customers, representing sales of its solutions into a market previously underserved by existing offerings, older technologies and incumbent equipment providers".

The service providers mentioned in the release are Evertek and United Farmer’s Telephone and Utah Broadband.

See "Procera Deployed by Multiple Rural Wireless Internet Service Providers" - here.

Akamai Sees 460x Increase in IPv6 Requests in a Year


Akamai Technologies released its Q2, 2012 State of the Internet report. The report has some interesting statistics on IPv6 traffic and network attacks:
  • Industry numbers show imminent global exhaustion of IPv4 addresses
  • Akamai identifies 460 times increase in IPv6 requests over its platform from June 2011 – June 2012
  • During the quarter, approximately 38 percent of observed attack traffic originated in the Asia Pacific/Oceania region; 36 percent from Europe; 23 percent from North and South America
  • Among top countries ranked by average measured connection speed, Japan experienced largest year-over-year percentage growth (21 percent)
  • U.S. experienced 76 percent year-over-year growth in number of connections at high broadband levels (greater than 10 Mbps)

See "Akamai Releases Second Quarter 2012 'State of the Internet' Report" - here.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Prolexic Sees 20Gbps DDoS Attacks


Prolexic Technologies announced that "..the size of DDoS attacks increased significantly against its global client base in Q3 2012 .. During Q3, Prolexic mitigated seven DDoS attacks of more than 20 Gigabits per second (Gbps) for different clients across multiple industries".

Stuart Scholly (pictured), president, Prolexic said: "Last year, a DDoS attack in excess of 20 Gigabits per second was not able, but today it seems commonplace .. To put this in perspective, very few enterprises in the world have a network infrastructure with the capacity to withstand bandwidth floods of this size”.

Prolexic’s Q3 2012 Global DDoS Attack Report also shows, compared to Q3 2011 - "88% increase in total number of DDoS attacks, Significant decrease in average attack duration: 19 hours vs. 33 hours and 230%increase in average attack bandwidth .. Like last quarter, traditional Layer 3 and Layer 4 infrastructure DDoS attacks were by far the favored attack type, accounting for four out of five attacks during the quarter with application Layer 7 DDoS attacks making up the remainder".

See "Increasing Size of Individual DDoS Attacks Define Third Quarter, According to Prolexic’s Report" - here.

Study: LTE isn't the Performance Savior for Mobile Commerce Sites


A recent study by Strangeloop Networks reveals that "a typical ecommerce site takes 11+ seconds to load, one-third of site owners don’t have a mobile-specific site, and LTE isn’t the performance saviour it’s been touted as"

"This past summer Strangeloop Networks .. measured the performance of top ecommerce sites – both m.sites and full sites – as these sites load on newer and older Android and iOS phones and tablets .. over both 3G and LTE networks".

Main findings are:
  • Desktop vs smartphone performance - The median page (full site, not m.site) took 11+ seconds to load for both the Galaxy S and iPhone 4 over 3G
  • LTE was 27% faster than 3G - the average load time for pages on 3G was 11.7 seconds, compared to 8.5 seconds for LTE 
  • One in three don’t have a mobile-specific site
  • 32% of owners don’t let visitors go to the full site

See "Your mobile site is slower than you think" - here; the report is available here (registration required).

Saturday, October 20, 2012

[ABI]: Optimization as a managed Service to Reach $2.5B by 2017

  
According to new research by Aditya Kaul (pictured), practice director of mobile networks, ABI Research "Optimization is expected to become a larger component of the mobile network managed services portfolio going forward .. optimization as a managed service to account for 10% of the total network managed services market by 2017. The market opportunity for optimization as a managed service is estimated to be $2.5 billion by 2017"

"ABI Research expects the large infrastructure vendors [the reports covers Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and ZTEto soon start providing dedicated monitoring and optimization on an on-going basis from their Global Network Operations Centre’s (GNOCs). While some of the network optimization elements are already provided today, the service and customer experience optimization is where the opportunities lie"

See "Optimization as a Managed Service will be 10% of Total Network Managed Services Market by 2017" - here.

[Infonetics]: 2012 DPI Market to pass $600M; Driven by Wireless Deployments

  
Shira Levine, directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, Infonetics Research, has updated her DPI market research, with the following highlights:

  • Traffic management is still the primary use case for DPI technology, but we’re seeing a growing interest in folding DPI into larger solutions, such as video optimization, content caching, and usage-based billing"
     
  • The service provider deep packet inspection (DPI) market is forecast by Infonetics to grow at a 34% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2011 to 2016, driven by the increased use of DPI in wireless networks
     
  • DPI product revenue is on track to pass the $600-million mark this year [i.e. Infonetics maintains its April forecast for a $2B market in 2016 - here].
     
  • Mobile operators are deploying DPI hand-in-hand with LTE for more granular traffic management and to enable value-added services, tiered services, and sophisticated pricing models
According to recent tweet from Sandvine, the report positions it as the market leader with 19% market share. The chart below shows the market share, based on reported revenues for the first 2 quarters of 2012, for the 3 public DPI vendors - Allot Communications, Procera Networks and Sandvine. Note that not all reported revenues derived by selling DPI solutions to service providers. 


  
See "Mobile momentum drives DPI market to 34% CAGR through 2016" - here.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Broadband Traffic Management Congress Awards


The Broadband Traffic Management Congress, now on its 4th year, will be held in London (6th - 8th November 2012).

The organizers expect to welcome over 100 operators, analysts and solution providers. The congress will have 6 key streams in key areas including Mobile Video, Policy Control, WiFi, Network Intelligence, Signal Congestion and Data Pricing.

The final shortlist for the Broadband Traffic Management Congress Awards 2012 has been announced (click on the vendor name to related post):
  1. Best Signaling Solution for Traffic Management: Openet, Tekelec 
  2. Best Use of Traffic Management for Improving Customer Experience: Huawei, Citrix Bytemobile, Sandvine 
  3. Best Content Optimization Tool for Managing Video Traffic on Mobile Networks: Flash Networks, Radisys, Skyfire 
  4. Best Mobile Offload Solution for Enhancing Customer Experience: Ruckus Wireless, Aptilo, Accuris 
  5. Most Innovative Tool for Driving Real-Time Intelligence: Avvasi, Huawei, Comverse 
  6. Best Real Time Charging Platforms for Customers: Alcatel-Lucent, Comverse 
  7. Most Effective Solution for Integrating RAN-Awareness into Policy Management: Commprove, Roke 
  8. Best Integration of Traffic Management into OSS/BSS Architectures: BroadHop, Comverse 
  9. Most Innovative New Service Launch Enabled By Traffic Management: Openet, Procera Networks, Comverse 
Book here (Operators receive a 40% discount)





NI Announcements: Citrix Adds "User Experience Index"


Citrix (Bytemobile) released " .. new product enhancements to the company’s mobile data traffic management platform for the telecommunications market .. The new Citrix ByteMobile UXI (user experience index) technology uses advanced mobile analytics capabilities"

The new UXI technology highlights include:
  • Continuous measurement of changes in network performance and resulting user experience
  • Insight into the quality of the subscriber’s user experience – including speed of web page downloads, amount of video stalling and how often users are abandoning video
  • Analysis of mobile data usage patterns and how they impact the network
  • Benchmarking of mobile data service quality across geographies without the need for specialized equipment or projects
  • Automatic feedback loop between user experience and traffic management policies
The Citrix Marketing team shared with me some screenshots from the new product:




See "Citrix ByteMobile Enhances Mobile Analytics for Network Operators" - here.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Openet Pre-Packaged Solutions Available (Fair use, Tiered Services ..)

   
Openet announced "..the general availability of Openet Express Solutions, a scalable set of pre-packaged Policy and Charging Control (PCC) solutions specifically designed to streamline configuration and administrative complexity"

See also "PCC Announcements: Openet Launches pre-packaged Solutions" - here.



Openet Express includes solutions for Fair use (see chart below), Tiered Services, Service Pass and Shared Data.   



See "Openet Express Solutions Combines Best of Breed Technology with Streamlined Deployment" - here.

CDN Deployments [190]: DT Uses EdgeCast for Application Delivery Network

    
Deutsche Telekom International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS), the international wholesale arm of Deutsche Telekom AG, announced " .. the launch of Application Delivery Network. The new service is capable of substantially improving the performance and throughput of web applications and the provision of dynamic content. Application Delivery Network (ADN), based on the cutting-edge CDN technology of EdgeCast, is a multi-layered, easy-to-use service that combines best practice optimizations with core technology refinements".

See "EdgeCast Shows 77% Performance Improvement w/Integrated Google’s PageSpeed" - here and "EdgeCast Announced "Licensed CDN"; Deployed by Pacnet and AT&T(?)" - here.

Source: ICSS

"With ADN, ICSS complements its CDN Solution portfolio, which is based on a global footprint. It supports content delivery requirements, be it caching, multi-platform streaming, premium storage, content security and in-depth analytics. Value-added services and the web-based, self-provisioning portal complete the CDN offering"

See "Deutsche Telekom launches Application Delivery Network" - here.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Resource: Overview of the Sy Interface


Bart Barton added another post to his very useful blog - "LTE and Beyond" - this time documenting the Sy Interface.

"The Sy reference point is defined between the PCRF and the OCS. Big picture of the relationships between functional entities are shown in Fig 1. below".

See "The Sy interface - between PCRF and OCS" - here.

 

Source: LTE and Beyond, by Bart Barton

Radware Presents: On-line DDoS Information


Radware announced the launch of ".. a new online resource called “DDosWarriors.com" .. this in-depth resource provides a comprehensive analysis on denial-of-service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack tools, trends and threats ..  site visitors can review first-hand accounts and analysis that will guide proactive implementation of defense techniques and solutions". 


"Users of the site will have access to Interactive Threat & Attacks Map .. Attack Reports & Threats Library .. Knowledge Center DDoSPedia and Survival Handbook Security"



See "Radware Launches In-Depth Resource for Information Security Professionals" - here

Ericsson Adds Differentiated and Personalized Services Features to the SSR 8000


Ericsson enhanced its Smart Services Router (see "Ericsson: "The IP application router SSR 8020 is now in commercial operation" - here) with Broadband Network Gateway (BNG), adding  functions that enable "..differentiated and personalized services while supporting the rise in subscriptions and growing bandwidth usage that comes with increased connectivity ..This new gateway derives its software technology foundation from Ericsson's Broadband Remote Access Service (BRAS)"

"Ericsson BNG on SSR 8000 offers a wide range of interfaces and enables advanced services optimized for superior user experience and new service offerings. It efficiently supports 100-gigabit performance, supporting monetization of demanding cloud and high-definition video streaming services"

See "Ericsson introduces new broadband network gateway for connected homes" - here.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Riverbed OEMs Vineyard's DPI Engine

  
Vineyard Networks announced that Riverbed Technology ".. has licensed Vineyard’s Network Application Visibility Library (NAVL) deep packet inspection (DPI) engine, designed to provide Riverbed® customers with comprehensive application classification technology to protect critical applications while containing recreational applications"

According to Vineyard, its DPI software is part of the recent enhancements to Riverbed's Steelhead (RiOS release 8.0) and the enhanced Layer 4-7 app classification capabilities in it. Riverbed now claims the ".. ability to scale automatic identification and prioritization to more than 600 applications" (see "Riverbed Introduces Software Enhancements and New High Performance Hardware Models to Steelhead Product Family" - here)

Vineyard partners' page (here) shows additional vendors as "powered by Vineyard" including BlueCoat.

"Integrating NAVL with market-leading Riverbed wide area network (WAN) optimization solutions increases the accuracy and efficiency of the real-time network traffic classification. The licensed technology helps identify all types of applications, even hard to detect applications and custom applications, to protect critical applications like web, voice, and video and contain recreational application traffic".

See "Vineyard Networks Announces Strategic Relationship with Riverbed to Provide Powerful Layer-7 Application Identification Technology" - here.

Optimization Deployments [189]: Safaricom [Kenya] Deployed Mobixell for QoE Management and Content Filtering

   
Mobixell Networks announced that Safaricom "..  has deployed Mobixell Seamless Access as its mobile data traffic management solution".

Thibaud Rerolle, Director Technology & IT, Safaricom said: “.. Our customers will now have faster access to data services faster and at the same time will be able to protect their families from unsuitable content [see "Mobixell and Commtouch Offer Parental Control W/Real Time Content Categorization" - here]”. 

Safaricom has 19M mobile subscribers; At the end of March 2012 it had 4.6M data customers - mobile and fixed. It uses OSS solutions from Huawei (here) and Alepo (here). 

See "Safaricom, Kenya’s Largest Mobile Operator, Accelerates Web Browsing with Mobixell Seamless Access" - here.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Procera: "Deployed at 5 of Top10 US MSOs"

    
Procera Networks announced it has ".. received a $1.4 million follow-on order from an existing Tier 1 Cable Multi-System Operator (MSO) in the U.S. for its PacketLogic products [pictured] and services. This recent order reflects the deployment momentum that Procera is experiencing across five of the top ten MSOs in the U.S. Procera solutions are currently installed in over 30 North American MSOs that represent an installed base of tens of millions of cable subscribers"

"As MSOs experience rapid growth in data usage on their networks and compete with alternative Internet access services and alternative Over-the-Top (OTT) sources for on-demand video and audio content, it is becoming even more strategic that their networks leverage Procera’s fine-grained analytics combined with advanced policy enforcement capabilities to drive innovative new services for their cable subscribers".

See "Procera Deployment Momentum Continues Across Five of the Top Ten US MSOs" - here.

Tilera: New Network Processor with 5Gbps DPI


Tilera Corporation announced the availability of the "TILE-Gx9, a 64-bit 9-core processor targeted at applications in networking, multimedia, storage and general purpose computing .. The TILE-Gx9 is ideally suited for compute and I/O-intensive applications including: .. Layer 7 Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) at 5Gbps .. [and]  Network monitoring with 100% line-rate packet capture at 10Gbps .. The TILE-Gx9 devices are available immediately"

"The TILE-Gx9, fabricated in a 40 nanometer process, integrates nine 64-bit processor cores along with a robust set of I/O ports and memory ..  Integrated I/O features include up to 12 ports of 1Gb Ethernet and 2 ports of 10Gb Ethernet"

See "Tileras TILE-Gx Processor Family Expands with a 9-Core Offering, Providing Unparalleled Integration and Performance at Under 10 Watts" - here.