[IDC]:"Volumetric attacks will remain the predominant type of DDoS attacks"

With the recent "biggest DDoS attack ever" that "slowed down the Internet" (here) it comes with no surprise that a new report by Christian A, Christiansen (pictured), VP Security Products & Services research, IDC finds that "In 2012, there was a sharp increase in the frequency, bandwidth volume, and applications orientation of these attacks. As these attacks surged in prevalence and sophistication, organizations were often caught unaware. Embedded capabilities were quickly overwhelmed and outages were readily apparent on the Web. This is driving the need for proactive solutions to protect customer's infrastructure from current and future attacks"

".. the worldwide market for DDoS prevention solutions (including products and services) will grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.2% from 2012 through 2017 and reach $870 million".

According to John Grady (pictured), Research Manager Security Products program, IDC: "Volumetric attacks will remain the predominant type of DDoS attacks throughout the forecast period .. A defense-in-depth posture with a combination of on-premise equipment and cloud-based mitigation provides the best protection against advanced application and SSL-based attacks as well as large-scale volumetric attacks".

See "Denial of Service Attacks Surge and Expose Enterprise Infrastructure Vulnerabilities and New Needs, IDC Says" - here.

[Geddes Consulting]: Why you can't sell QoS?

 
Interesting article for all vendors pitching QoS/QoE-based tiered services,by Martin Geddes (pictured).

The article promotes Predictable Network Solutions, a "research consultants that have created a quantitative mathematical understanding of end-to-end network Quality of Service (QoS)We use that understanding to educate and advise developers, builders and managers in the construction of networks and distributed systems so that predictable application performance can be delivered to end-users". The introduction follows, read the rest - here.

"Network operators have long wanted to be able to sell quality-of-service (QoS) network capabilities to either end users or third party application providers. However, each attempt to do so on Internet Protocol networks has failed to gain market adoption. There are good reasons for this, but they are subtle, and don’t match the common prejudices against creating multiple classes of service.

This newsletter explores the six core problems with the standard approach to QoS:

• Too weak a proxy for user outcomes.
• Obsessed with real-time flows.
• Misallocates resources.
• Opens a new denial of service attack route.
• “Quality inversion” removes the economic incentive to pay.
• Too limited in the scope of the trades available.

There is an alternative way of managing network resources that cures all these issues. A short summary of how to achieve this is at the end"

Torres PCRF Deployed for Quota and Time-based Policies

Torres Networks announced its Policy Engine has been deployed by an Asian MNO for "two data service packages with quota-based and time-based policies. These innovative “limit management” packages will enhance the operator’s control in two ways: checking revenue leakage and generating additional revenue through quota purchase. The deployment was completed in March 2013. The operator now plans to roll out several multi-dimensional data service plans, and migrate the existing subscribers to these plans.

See "Torres Deploys Quota/Time-Based Policies at Asian Mobile Operator" - here.

UK: Traffic Management Makes "Unlimited Service" Limited

UK's Advertising Standards Authority, ASA, ruled recently on a complaint by Sky and BT against an ad by Virgin Media.

The ad claimed that Virgin's service has " ... Unlimited downloads Download and browse as much as you like with no caps and no hidden charges". 

Virgin Media Traffic Management Policies

Sky and BT "challenged whether the "unlimited" claim was misleading, because
they believed that Virgin Media's traffic management policy had a more than moderate impact on those customers who exceeded data thresholds" and it "..misleadingly implied that there were no provider-imposed restrictions on a customer's ability to download data".

Virgin responded that "the claim 'Unlimited downloads Download and browse as much as you like with no caps and no hidden charges' clearly set out what could be expected of the service. They believed that the average consumer's expectation of their "unlimited" service was that they could download as much as they liked, without incurring an additional charge or having their service suspended if they exceeded any usage threshold"

ASA concluded that "the claim 'Unlimited downloads Download and browse as much as you like with no caps and no hidden charges' misleadingly implied that there were no provider-imposed restrictions on a customer's ability to download data".

"The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Virgin Media not to claim that their service was "unlimited" and with "no caps" if they imposed restrictions that were more than moderate".

See "ASA Adjudication on Virgin Media Ltd" - here.

[Wireless Intelligence]: 6B Mobile Connections Used by 3.2B Subscribers

Interesting stats by Wireless Intelligence [here] shows the number of mobile connections (SIM cards) and subscribers (people). Not sure how Machines are counted .. are they people too?

Will DT Throttle DSL Speeds for Exceeding Quota?

Sean Buckley (pictured) reported to FierceTelecom that Deutsche Telekom "is going to start throttling DSL speeds on users who go over a set bandwidth limit, according to rumors reported on a telecom blog .. The telco's 16 Mbps Call and Surf or Entertain speed package will incorporate a 75 GB cap. It will also implement a 300 GB limit on Fiber-100 and Fiber-200-400 users .. Deutsche Telekom said that it is considering throttling excessive users, but has not revealed any new tariffs, adding that they will "make an appropriate announcement".
See also "DSL, wie in DrosSeL?" - here (German).

See "Rumor mill: Deutsche Telekom to begin throttling DSL users" - here.

France Implements Monitoring System to Track QoE and Net Neutrality

The French regulator, ARCEP, announced that "The minister responsible for electronic communications having approved the ARCEP decision of 29 January 2013, the Authority has introduced a system for measuring and tracking the quality of fixed internet access services [see below or here].

The aim is to improve the information available to internet users, and to provide ARCEP with the means to fulfil its duty to supervise the overall quality of fixed calling and internet access services. This system is also part of the work and discussions and that ARCEP has been conducting since 2010 on the technical and economic aspects of net neutrality.

The new system has two components: main measurements performed in a controlled environment and on dedicated lines, and supplementary measurements performed by users themselves:

• The main measurements, which are to be performed by operators, are carried out on dedicated test lines, inside a technically-controlled environment whose conditions make it possible to achieve a high degree of comparison between operators, and a sufficiently broad representation of the various network access conditions that users encounter. The metrics obtained in this fashion concern seven performance indicators: four generic technical indicators (particularly throughput) and three indicators relating to specific types of usage: web browsing, streaming video and peer-to-peer file sharing. These measurements will be carried out separately on fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-last-amplifier (FTTLA) connections, as well as the copper local loop (whose lines will be segmented by transmission capacity)".

• The supplementary measurements, for which ARCEP will be responsible, will consist of tests that volunteer users will perform using their own equipment. Thanks to a web-based interface, these users will be able to measure their line's performance, and transmit the results to ARCEP. The Authority will thus be able to refer to these supplementary metrics to check that the main measurements are consistent and representative of the user experience".

See "ARCEP introduces a system for measuring and tracking the quality of fixed internet access services" - here.

[Infonetics]: Policy Management Market 2012 Growth - 32%; Openet Leads

According to the recent update to the Infonetics Research Policy Management Software  report, Shira Levine (pictured), directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, concludes that the "The global policy management software market grew 32% in 2012, to $774 million" [$589M in 2011] and forecasts the "global policy management market to grow to almost $2.4 billion in 2017 .. Openet is the reigning policy management software revenue market share leader for the 3rd year in a row, followed closely by recently-acquired Tekelec".

A year ago Infonetics predicted (here) a market size of $1.9B for 2016, and positioned Huawei at the 2nd largest vendor (now switched places with Tekelec). My market size summary table (here) is updated accordingly.

"Oracle’s recent acquisition of Tekelec [see "Oracle - All the Diameter s/w One may Need, Now with Tekelec" - here] ups the ante in the already hot policy management market, where we’re seeing the smaller players being edged out of deals by larger vendors .. “As operators increasingly look for ‘productized’ solutions that support the easy implementation of use cases [Openet], and the ability to define and create their own policy rules, many are replacing their first-generation policy management solutions or adding additional policy functionality to augment what’s already in place, and we believe this is going to shrink the opportunity for many of the niche players with point solutions”.

See "Policy management M&A activity heats up, market approaching $2.4 billion by 2017" - here.

PCC Deployments [238]: Tango [Luxembourg] Use NSN for Differentiating Services

Nokia Siemens Networks announced that "Tango, Luxembourg’s innovative telco operator, has become the country’s first to offer 4G mobile broadband services and provide personal mobile data service plans .. Nokia Siemens Networks implemented subscriber data management allowing the operator to provide country’s first personalized data tariffs".

At the end of 2012, Tango, part of Belgacom, had 271,000 active mobile customers .

"Nokia Siemens Networks implemented its Liquid Core-based Evolved Packet Core (EPC) platform, including Flexi NS (Network Server) and Flexi NG (Network Gateway) for the operator to replace outdated equipment and launch the LTE services.. In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks implemented its subscriber data management system, including the One-NDS real-time subscriber data repository and data-less Home Location Register, and consolidated Tango’s subscriber data from across the network. The company also provided its highly scalable Policy Control Server (PCS 5000) that optimizes traffic based on a set of business rules. Nokia Siemens Networks’ network management system, NetAct, provides one consolidated view on all network elements".

Information on the PCS-5000 - here.

See "Nokia Siemens Networks powers Tango 4G service, first in Luxembourg" - here.

Multi-Path TCP can Boost Performance

Richard Chirgwin reports to The Register on a recent "demonstration that's routed 50 Gbps of traffic across multiple different paths", by researchers from ICTEAM.

"The experimental setup was straightforward enough: two HP DL 380p G7 machines configured with three dual-port 10 Gbps Intel NICs. The test machines were running Linux and hosting a Multipath TCP implementation created by ICTEAM. Netperf opened a single TCP connection between the two servers, and in the video below, the researchers demonstrate the scaling-up of performance, starting with a single NIC and enabling the multipath stack on the additional interfaces".

The researchers (Alan Ford, Cisco; Costin Raiciu, University Politehnica of Bucharest; Mark Handley, University College London; Olivier Bonaventure (pictured), Universite catholique de Louvain) published earlier this year thier findings in an IETF RFC ("TCP Extensions for Multipath Operation with Multiple Addresses" -here and below):

"TCP/IP communication is currently restricted to a single path per connection, yet multiple paths often exist between peers. The simultaneous use of these multiple paths for a TCP/IP session would improve resource usage within the network and, thus, improve user experience through higher throughput and improved resilience to network failure. Multipath TCP provides the ability to simultaneously use multiple paths between peers. This document presents a set of extensions to traditional TCP to support multipath operation. The protocol offers the same type of service to applications as TCP (i.e., reliable bytestream), and it provides the components necessary to establish and use multiple TCP flows across potentially disjoint paths". 

See "Belgian boffins boast after boosting TCP to 50 Gbps" - here.

Telia Claims for Europe's First(?) Data Share Plan

Source: Telia

Shared Data plans have reached to Europe for the first time, according to TeliaSonera.

The operator launched in Sweden " a subscription that enables customers, like families, to connect all of their mobile devices to one subscription and to share the included data bucket among them"

However, according to a report published by Infonetics more than a year ago, Orange Austria, France and Spain also have shared data plans (here), and closer to Sweden - "Telenor: "Customers Say that Shared Data Plans are Bad Idea - But .." - here.
  
"The new subscription Telia Mobil Dela (Telia Mobile Share) launched by Telia in Sweden makes it possible for customers to connect all of their smartphones, surf tablets and other mobile devices to one mobile subscription. The customer, say a family, pays a fixed monthly fee for the main subscription, which includes a data bucket and unlimited calls, sms and mms. They can then easily add additional devices at a lower monthly price. They also share the subscription’s data bucket among the connected devices, enabling them to use the bucket efficiently. The data bucket can easily be adjusted up or down from one month to the next. Furthermore, customers achieve better overview and control of subscription costs, thanks to one invoice for the entire subscription and all connected devices".

See "TeliaSonera first in Europe with new subscription that shares data" - here.

Sandvine: 40 Joint Deployments with PeerApp, Mobixell and Netsweeper

It is no longer "traditional DPI" - detecting bandwidth hungry applications, and shaping traffic or managing congestion on mobile networks. It is about an "eco-system" of services operators wish to see implemented by a single vendor, device or solution.

Allot acquired several companies for video optimization and caching  (see "Allot's Revenues from 2012 Acquisitions" - here), Procera launched HTTP content technology (see "Procera: HTTP Needs Deeper DPI" - here and "Procera Adds High Performance Web Content Categorization & Filtering" - here) although it is focused more on the traditional solutions.

Sandvine builds an eco-system of partners, and it has "deployed over 40 plug-and-play video optimization, parental control and content caching solutions with leading vendors Mobixell, Netsweeper and PeerApp. Sandvine’s patented redirection technology enables: Content Caching, provided by the PeerApp UltraBand transparent caching platform .. Content/Parental Controls: provided by Netsweeper, enables operators to deliver web filtering as a value-added service across fixed and mobile networks and Video Optimization  provided by Mobixell Seamless Access platform, ".

Don Bowman (pictured), CTO, Sandvine said: “Our redirection technology provides clear efficiencies when partnered with third party experts. For example, the Sandvine -Mobixell and Sandvine-Netsweeper partnerships reduce the number of servers CSPs need to deliver video and filter content; and Sandvine solves the network inconsistency of triangle routing or asymmetry, which helps PeerApp deliver video and other content more efficiently”.

See "Sandvine Ecosystem Enables 40 Successful Deployments" - here.

Sandvine - $3M Follow-on Orders

    

Sandvine announced that it has ".. received over $3 million in follow-on orders from a leading North American cable operator that has been a Sandvine customer since 2005. The orders were received in March and represent ongoing expansion of the operator’s deployment of Business Intelligence and Traffic Optimization solutions".

It this Comcast? "Repeat orders from existing customers, which include U.S. cable TV provider Comcast Corp and Spanish telecom company Telefonica SA, would account for the "lion's share" of Sandvine's revenue this year" [2012, here].

See "Sandvine Receives $3 Million Expansion Order From Cable Operator" - here.

Oracle - All the Diameter s/w One may Need, Now with Tekelec

So now, as Oracle buys Tekelec ("Oracle and Tekelec" - here) it has -

• Its own PCRF product - See "Oracle Launches PCRF" - here
• Acme Packet Diameter router - see "Oracle Buys Acme Packet: It's not only about SBC!" - here
• And of course Tekelec's full portfolio .. see "[Infonetics]: PCRF Vendors Ranking Survey" - here

According to the chart below, Tekelec's products will replace the existing Oracle (PCRF) and Acme (DSR). 

"Tekelec’s network signaling (Diameter and SS7), policy control and subscriber data management solutions complement Oracle Communications’ mission-critical operational support systems, service delivery platforms, and business support systems, and are expected to help service providers efficiently allocate and monetize network resources". (here).

Ericsson's New Network Processor - for Internal Use Only

Last week Ericsson announced the SNP 4000 network processing chipset (here).

In response to my question, Ericsson says that "it will use SNP 4000 for its IP portfolio and there are no plans to offer this to other vendors".

In addition, Ericsson states:

"The 4 key attributes of the 4GIP vision Ericsson launched in Feb 2011 were that networks should be smart, scalable, simple and provide superior performance to support the networked society where 24x7 connectivity at high speed cannot be compromised. Ericsson realized that one of the major issues with existing network processor units (NPUs) is the need to compromise between throughput and ability to run intelligent services. Therefore, Ericsson started the R&D activities to develop its fourth generation of NPU that can deliver Layer 2 through Layer 7 services, without any impact on the throughput. Another issue with traditional NPUs is that they are pipelined micro-coded, which has an impact on the ability to add high-touch applications quickly. Hence, SNP 4000 is a breakthrough in network processor technology, with a highly innovative hyper-threaded run to completion architecture running the Linux OS with full support for GNU based C/C++ tool chain".

AXIS [Indonesia] to Offer Low Cost Viber-only Data Packages

 
In an interview to the iPAD edition of Calcalist [here, Hebrew], founder and CEO of Viber, Talmon Marco, provided the magazine with more details about the VoIP provider recent agreement with AXIS (see also  AXIS and Viber agree on co-marketing partnership" - here).

"Last month, in Indonesia, Viber launched its first partnership with a cellular operator .. according to the agreement with AXIS, it will sell data plans allowing only the use of Viber .. it's a win-win play as most on the population does not have a cellular data plan, and Axis can offer a cheaper plan".

Facebook recently announced that Axis is one of 18 MNOs with which it has partnership "to provide free or discounted data access to Facebook messaging for their subscribers" (see "Facebook Offers Free Messaging Through 18 MNOs"- here).

All in the spirit of Net Neutrality, of course.

ACSI Connect to Launch "Monitoring as a Service"

   

ACSI Connect will announce tomorrow the "..availability of Network Monitoring Centre [NMC] – A cloud-based network monitoring and reporting service that delivers comprehensive visibility into network traffic, delivered through the cloud to a single pane of glass. It does so across both single- and multi-vendor networks, ensuring high-quality experiences for users and all but eliminating help desk calls".

"..  Using NetFlow v9, IPFIX and JFlow traffic data, ACSI Connect NMC provides comprehensive traffic visibility without the cost and complexity associated with deploying and managing multiple network appliances. NMC goes well beyond other NetFlow-based reporting systems that see all port 80 traffic as HTTP, individually classifying a wide variety of applications, including video and voice streaming, instant messaging, file sharing and email.

See "ACSI Connect Launches Network Monitoring Centre (NMC) -- Cloud-hosted Network Visibility and Reporting in a Single Pane of Glass" - here.

NI Deployments [237]: Orange [20+ Subsidiaries] Use Astellia for QoE Optimization

   

Astellia announced that the Orange Group confirmed it as a ".. strategic partner during the presentation of their white paper ‘Supplier relationships of France Telecom-Orange in France’. Over the last 10 years, Astellia’s solution has been used in more than 20 subsidiaries of Orange to optimize the performance of their 2G, 3G and 4G networks and to guarantee the best user experience to their subscribers".

See "Astellia recognized by the Orange Group as strategic partner for network monitoring" - here.

[Intel]: What Happens in One "Internet Minute"?

Enlightening infographic by Intel, showing what's included in "Nearly 640K Gb of global IP data is transferred in just one Internet minute".

"So can our existing networks handle this explosion in network traffic and maintain consumer expectations for immediate access from multiple devices? And if the networks can expand to accommodate this growth, can they do it while maintaining security? Telco equipment manufacturers and service providers will be on the hook to ensure that we continue to enjoy access to information and entertainment on our mobile without any interruption to service".

See "What Happens in an Internet Minute?", by Krystal Temple (pictured), here.

[ABI]: Data Revenues will Exceed 40% by 2014

   

A recent report by Ying Kang Tan (pictured), research associate and Jake Saunders, VP and practice director, core forecasting, ABI Research, concludes that "Global mobile data service revenue, made up of mobile internet and messaging revenue, will rise by 21.4% between 2012 and 2014 to represent 40.4% of the US$1 trillion mobile customers will be spending on their mobile phone services .. North America will be the first region to see mobile data service revenue eclipse voice revenue in 2016".

“By offering unlimited voice calls and texts, while making data the only component in a bundled plan with positive marginal costs to consumers, wireless operators as AT&T and Verizon help to prop up voice and messaging, making positive revenue contributions in the short to medium-term. Rich Communication Services (RCS) and voice and messaging APIs are a key part of their strategy of making carrier-based calls and messaging relevant to their customers”.

See "Global Mobile Data Will Exceed 40% of Total Service Revenue by 2014" - here.

PCC Deployments [236]: Bell [Canada] Uses Openet, NSN and ALU for Shared Data Plans

      

Source: BCE

Openet published an unnamed case study about a "Canadian Mobile Operator". However, some details (taken by Openet from the operators Q3 2012 results - here) reveal the MNO - Bell Canada.

"This Tier 1 Canadian mobile operator has increased data usage by offering innovative offers that attract new data subscribers and encourage usage on their 3G, 4G and LTE networks. As an example of delivering innovative offers, this operator was one of the first in the world to offer multi-device shared data bundles. The operator’s approach to making it easy and compelling for customers to use the high-speed data, new applications and new devices is resulting in growth in profitability, revenues and ARPU".

"Openet supplied Evolved Charging, Network Edge Rating, & Balance Manager .. integrated their solutions with Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent equipment and platforms to enable real-time collection of usage. With over 7 million subscribers, this operator requires Openet’s solutions to deliver the real-time performance needed to succeed"

See "Shared Data Bundles – Innovative Offers enabled by Real-Time Charging" - here.

Allot's Revenues from 2012 Acquisitions

Allot Communications filled its 20-F form with the SEC (here). The report has some information on the cost and results of Allot's 2012 acquisitions - Ortiva Wireless (here, here) and Oversi (here).

Rumors are that Allot expects the optimization related sales (Ortiva) to recover at the 2nd half of 2013.

• Ortiva - "The Company paid $ 10,816 in cash as consideration for all the shares of Ortiva .. The results of Ortiva's operations have been included in the Company’s consolidated financial statements since the Ortiva acquisition date. Revenues recognized from the Ortiva acquisition date to December 31, 2012 were $ 3,404 [since May 15, 2012]".
   
• Oversi - "The total consideration for the acquisition was $ 17,349, which consisted of $ 16,000 in cash and contingent consideration estimated at fair value of $ 1,349 at the Oversi acquisition date ..  Pursuant to the Oversi SPA, the Company has a contingent liability to pay additional consideration if Oversi reaches a certain threshold of bookings for the year ended December 31, 2012. As of December 31, 2012, the fair value of the contingent consideration was determined to be $ 1,088, to be paid on April 15, 2013, and is presented in other payables and accrued expenses. The change in fair value of the contingent consideration was recorded in general and administrative expenses.
  
  The results of Oversi's operations have been included in the Company consolidated financial statements since September 4, 2012. Revenues recognized from the Oversi acquisition date to December 31, 2012 were $ 1,954".

[Infonetics]: PCRF Vendors Ranking Survey

 
Openet announced that it is the ".. top policy management vendor in the world according to Infonetics Research’s Policy Management Deployment Strategies and Vendor Leadership global service provider survey. Survey respondents also ranked Openet the industry leader in technology innovation and in product roadmap advancements". 

The vendor also published some highlights from the Infonetics report (which I covered here) itself, including the survey results for industry leader: "Respondents were asked in an open-ended question who they consider to be the top three policy management suppliers, a measure called unaided awareness. Openet topped the list with 56% of respondents naming it a top supplier, followed closely by Tekelec with 48% of respondents and Huawei with 40%. Amdocs scored surprisingly low, with just 24% of respondents naming it as a top supplier, suggesting that the vendor may need to continue working on boosting its visibility now that the acquisition of Bridgewater Systems has been completed".

 See "Operators name Openet the Leading Policy Management Vendor in Infonetics Research Survey" - here. 

ZTE Announces Smart Pipe Solution

ZTE Corporation announced the "..debut of ezFlow, a national broadband network smart pipe solution.. ezFlow allows operators to operate and manage broadband networks efficiently, increase profits, reduce costs, and improve services for customers .. ezFlow, network capacity can decrease or split increasing traffic to reduce network pressure. The solution meets customer needs and provides differentiated services. In addition, it meets traffic operation requirements for different phases of national broadband development through smart pipe deployment and four-dimension traffic strategy. This aspect features expansion of traffic scale, activation of traffic value, decreases traffic costs and mines traffic content"

"ZTE’s national broadband network solution has been widely applied in global network construction including: Brazil, England, Ethiopia, Italy, Malaysia, South Africa and the Republic of Belarus".

Like in many similar announcements by Chinese and other large vendors, the web site does not have any additional information on the solution.

See "ZTE Debuts Broadband Smart Pipe Solution at Africa Digital Summit" - here.

Ericsson Launches a Network Processor

Ericsson announced "..two key developments that reinforce its commitment to developing 4th Generation IP networks: a powerful in-house ASIC, the Ericsson SNP 4000 network processing chipset, and extension of the Ericsson IP Operating System as the common platform across the entire IP portfolio".

"The Ericsson SNP 4000 brings to the market industry-leading packet processing capacity with an ASIC solution that integrates thousands of processing cores to enable products that can scale from 100Gbps to 1Tbps and applications that support millions of subscribers. With its innovative hyper-threaded run to completion architecture running the Linux OS with full support for GNU based C/C++ tool chain, the SNP 4000 will herald a new era of feature velocity and power efficiency in IP products".

Jan Häglund (pictured), VP, Head of IP and Broadband Networks, Ericsson, says: ".. A common operating system and high-touch packet processing capabilities are incremental steps towards the broader Service Provider SDN architecture that will be a key enabling technology for 4GIP going forward. SNP 4000 sets a new benchmark as it increases the feature velocity by ten times and is twice as energy efficient as available network processors".

See "Ericsson strengthens its 4th generation IP portfolio" - here.

[Survey]: 79% of Top European Retail Sites do not use CDN

A vast majority of the top European retail sites do not use CDN, according to a new survey by Radware and Level 3. 

The survey finds that " .. 3 out of 4 of Europe’s top 400 retail websites take more than 3 seconds to load, failing to meet online shoppers’ performance demands. Numerous user experience studies have found that most online shoppers will abandon a page after waiting 3 seconds for it to load. 

The survey’s key findings include: 

• The median load time for first-time visitors was 7.04 seconds.
• 1 out of 4 sites took more than 10 seconds to load.
• 79% of sites did not use a content delivery network (CDN)
• 78 out of 400 sites do not use text compression

See "Radware and Level 3 Announce Key Findings on Page Speed of Europe's Top 400 Retail Websites" - here.

Vasona Raised $12M; Vodafone Participated

Vasona Networks (see my recent vendor review - here) announced  "total funds raised of $22 million, including a recent $12 million Series B round. The venture capital financing was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation by New Venture Partners and a strategic investor, all of them participants in the company’s Series A round".

Biren Sood, CEO, Vasona Networks, said: "Vasona Networks is succeeding across our operations including multidisciplinary engineering, launching the first edge application controller, deployments with top global operators, and substantial support from our venture investors”  

According to GigaOM (here) the strategic investor (therefore the trials/support) mentioned above are with Vodafone.

Source: Vasona Networks

See "Vasona Networks Venture Capital Financing Reaches $22 Million" - here.

Google Reader - we Still Need you (see my stats)!

   
Google announced last week that it will shutdown Google Reader on July 1st saying that "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined (here)".

Is it? Maybe this blog's subscribers’ statistics can help showing how significant this service is! To sign the 10 petitions calling Google to re-consider click here.

 

How does Netflix Manage Video Delivery?

Greg Sandoval, interviewed Neil Hunt (pictured), chief product officer, Netfilx (since 1999) to The Verge getting some interesting quotes about Netflix network challenges:

• A big piece is the actual delivery: making sure that we can continue to deliver 30-percent plus of the total internet downstream traffic. That's a big project. Our initiative with Open Connect [here and here] ... As part of Open Connect, we pay the cost and expense of installing Open Connect servers at common peering points or within an ISP's network at the most effective point. This makes it easier and more efficient for an ISP to deliver the best quality Netflix video, including our Super HD and 3D streams, by caching Netflix videos close to consumers and thus offloading it from a good part of an ISP's network
   
• .. In Europe, essentially all of our traffic is delivered through Open Connect .. The major ISPs in Europe like British Telecom have embraced Open Connect and deployed servers very rapidly .. we're able to upload new content to Open Connect caches overnight in off-peak traffic, because we know the content and what will be popular tomorrow we don't fill on cache-miss, like most CDNs
    
• We bring in hundreds of hours a week of new content, encoded in many formats and different bit rates for all the devices [here] we support. That's a fair amount of traffic pushed out towards to the servers every night
     
• we expect to be delivering 4K within a year or two with at least some movies and then over time become an important source of 4K. 4K will likely be streamed first before it goes anywhere else.

Source: Netflix 2012 Q4 Report

See "Netflix Chief Product Officer: expect 4K streaming within a year or two" - here.

[Infonetics]: MNOs can do without Additional Spectrum

 
A recent report by Stéphane Téral (pictured), principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, Infonetics Research, explains how operators can "optimize their cellular resources without adding more spectrum and provides an alternative view to the mainstream belief that there is not enough spectrum":

• “HSPA+ and LTE are two of the primary reasons operators have been able to squeeze more and more bits out of limited spectrum HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE improve spectral efficiency so significantly that the need for spectrum has been greatly reduced, often by at least half. LTE technology is not only resistant to interference between cells but also spreads transmission efficiently over available spectrum.
   
• WiFi offload may also be helping ease the spectrum crunch: Some mobile operators report to Infonetics that up to 75% of mobile device data traffic is on WiFi".

See "Is there a mobile spectrum shortage? New data from Infonetics may come as a surprise" - here.

CDN Deployments [235]: TELIN [Indonesia] Partners with EdgeCast

  

EdgeCast Networks has entered into a ".. partnership with PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (TELIN) to power a TELIN-operated Indonesian CDN, The partnership will enable TELIN to offer CDN services to its enterprise customers and further expands the reach and capacity of EdgeCast’s global network, which now carries more than 4 percent of the world’s Internet traffic".

See also "EdgeCast Announced "Licensed CDN"; Deployed by Pacnet and AT&T(?)" - here.

TELIN's (part of Telkom Indonesia) focus is as an "international carrier services and strategic investment in international telecommunication business serves as Telkom’s business arms in managing and developing its business lines abroad".

Syarif Syarial Ahmad (pictured), CEO, TELIN said: “With rapidly-growing rate of Internet adoption in Indonesia, we have observed a commensurate rise in CDN usage among enterprise companies here .. This partnership with EdgeCast enables us to participate in that growth by leveraging CDN as a source of new revenue”.

See "Edgecast and Telin partner on Indonesian content delivery" - here.

US Army Needs Satellite Bandwidth Management Services W/Exinda DPI

 
The US Army is seeking sources to "Provide satellite bandwidth to multiple locations in Southwest Asia for a three month period (26 March 2013 - 25 June 2013) with global mobility capability on existing and provisioned Global Networks. Networks shall be operational with iDirect Version 2.0.1.0 or later and fully compatible with existing SNAP VSAT Terminals".

[including]: ".. Network Packet Shaping services shall provide QoS at the application level and ensure that all users of the service at an individual site are allocated equal portions of total available network bandwidth. The Contractor shall incorporates an Exinda (Unified Performance Management (UPM) solution) appliance at each teleport to perform deep packet inspection to ensure certain types of traffic is rate limited and prioritized in a way that provides the highest levels of QoS to the network".

See "D--Satellite Bandwidth Management Services Three Month Bridge" - here.