[Analysys Mason]: "PCRF is becoming a core network element for CSPs"

A new report by Glen Ragoonanan (pictured), Senior Analyst, and Anil Rao, Analyst, Analysys Mason, covers the top-six network equipment manufacturers (NEMs): Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, Cisco Systems and ZTE,

Among the findings, some relate to traffic management:  "Traffic management limited network infrastructure spend:

• CSPs continued to implement policy management (PCRF/PCEF) solutions for fair usage and RAN congestion, limiting network overload from video and P2P traffic, primarily.
   
• Data caps and Wi-Fi offloading reduced RAN congestion and limited spending on mobile backhaul capacity.
   
• Diameter signalling traffic is increasing rapidly, but is mostly contained in the CSP’s high-capacity core network.
   
• PCRF is becoming a core network element for CSPs. 

In additions, "Traffic management reduced investment in Business data services".

See "NEMS’ Network Management Systems: worldwide market shares 2012" - here.

Mobilink [Pakistan] Offers Subscribers Unlimited Viber

   

Another MNO partnership for Viber Media (see - AXIS): The OTT voice and messaging provider announced an "exclusive partnership with Pakistani cellular operator Mobilink to provide users with unlimited access to Viber's mobile app. The deal will allow users to send unlimited text messages and make unlimited HD quality calls to other Viber users.  The core of the deal is a pre-paid plan providing Mobilink users with unlimited access to Viber’s messaging and call service".

Mobilink, a subsidiary of the Orascom Telecom Holding, is Pakistan’s leading cellular and Blackberry service provider. With more than 35 million subscribers.
  

Farid Ahmad (pictured), VP Marketing, Mobilink said: "Mobilink has been a leader in one of the most dynamic telecom markets on the globe, both in terms of subscriber numbers and innovation for over a decade. The number of users who trust our data network for their day to day communications continues to grow and our attractive mobile Internet offers make it possible for subscribers to stay connected on the go Our partnership with Viber is another means of innovating the ways in which Mobilink's customers communicate with each other".

See "Viber Brings Unlimited Calls and Messages to Pakistan in Partnership with Mobilink" - here.

EU Tells Telcos to Wake-up!

Neelie Kroes (pictured),Vice-President of the European Commission, leads the Net work Neutrality agenda in the EU (see "EU: 'It's not OK for Skype and other such services to be throttled'" - here and "EU: Net Neutrality is about Transparency" - here).

  

Today Ms. Kores Tweeted the following -  "It's official: chat apps have overtaken SMS globally. The cash cow is dying. Time for telcos to wake up & smell the data coffee". 

  

What should be telcos be doing, while maintaining Network Neutrality? 

Ixia Enhances Visibility Tool with 100 GbE Interfaces

 

Ixia announced that it " has further advanced its award-winning Ixia Anue Net Tool Optimizer® (NTO) solutions .. the release of the Network Visibility Operating System (NVOS) v3.8 and the 100GbE Interface Module [pictured] supports new capabilities that improve forensic analysis capabilities, advance application performance monitoring and simplify security monitoring of 100GbE networks".

 

"The new 100GbE Interface Module and NVOS update protect monitoring tool investments by enabling users to perform packet-level monitoring of 100GbE networks at full line rate, utilizing existing 1, 10 and 40GbE monitoring tools. Up to four 100GbE interface modules can be supported on one high-density Anue NTO device, or may be combined with 1, 10 or 40GbE ports in a single 2RU chassis"

Ixia's Anue Net Tool Optimizer® (NTO) 5293 carrier grade

See "Ixia Delivers Advanced 100GbE Visibility Solution for Service Providers and Large Enterprises" - here.

Ofcom to Pilot ‘white space’ Technology

One more step towards a to solve the mobile data tsunami .. Ofcom announced "plans for a pilot of innovative ‘white space’ technology in the UK, among the first of its kind in Europe. The technology uses gaps in radio spectrum, called ‘white spaces’, which exist in between frequency bands. In this instance, these bands have been reserved for digital terrestrial TV broadcasting and wireless microphones.

Use of these white spaces will allow devices to transmit and receive wireless signals for applications such as broadband access for rural communities, Wi-Fi-like services or new ‘machine-to-machine’ networks.

Source: wireless pulse, Comsearch

Ofcom is inviting industry to take part in the pilot, which is intended to take place in the autumn".

See "Ofcom invites industry to pilot ‘white space’ devices" - here.

Aptilo 2012 Revenues - $17.7M ; High Wi-Fi Offload Demand

    

Following a number of reported deployments by TIM Brazil, Taiwan (3 operators), eircom, 3 Scandinavia  it looks like Aptilo Networks had a good 2012.

The Swedish vendor reported ".. record revenue for 2012 of 17.7 million USD with EBITDA of 3.0 million USD ..  Demand among mobile operators for Wi-Fi, as a complement to their 3G/4G mobile networks, has brought huge success to Aptilo. In 2012 Aptilo’s revenue grew 40% in the mobile operator segment, maintaining profits even while the company increased staff by 40%. As a result, the Swedish company is well positioned with a leading solution in the center of this rapidly growing market".

"With Aptilo’s service provider Wi-Fi solution [chart below], and the award-winning Wi-Fi offloading solution with SIM Authentication, the user is securely and automatically connected to the Wi-Fi network through the credentials residing on the mobile phone’s SIM card. This is a technology used for 3G/4G mobile networks and is now being fully deployed with Wi-Fi. Aptilo’s solutions have become very popular among mobile operators since traffic is secured with strong encryption and users are automatically logged-in to the Wi-Fi network when they are in range"

See "Aptilo Rides the Wave of Mobile Operator Wi-Fi Initiatives, Grew Mobile Operator Business by 40% in 2012" - here.

Akamai: Number of DDoS Attacks Grew by 207% in 2012

 
Akamai's "The State of the Internet 4th Quarter, 2012" [here] report finds that the ".. number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that Akamai saw in 2012 grew significantly from 2011. While 250 attacks were reported in 2011, 2012 saw 768 attacks reported by our customers, a year-over-year increase of more than 200%.

.. over a third (269 or 35%) of the attacks targeted companies in the Commerce sector. An additional 164 attacks (22%) targeted Media and Entertainment companies, followed closely by companies classified as Enterprise, which were targeted by 155 attacks, accounting for 20% of the total. High Tech companies were targeted by 110 attacks (14%), while Public Sector agencies were the target of 70 attacks (9%) last year. The 768 attacks were reported by 413 unique organizations, meaning that many organizations were targeted more than once — some significantly more.

".. attack traffic among the top 10 targeted ports [see chart] increased slightly during the fourth quarter of 2012, with these ports targeted by 60% of observed attacks, up from 59% in the third quarter, but down from the second and first quarters. The percentage of attacks targeting port 445 dropped very slightly quarter-over-quarter, though not as significantly as the declines seen earlier in the year".

PCC Deployments [244]: Mobinil [Egypt] Selected Openet

  

Openet announced that Egyptian mobile operator Mobinil, has " .. selected Openet Policy Manager and Openet Interaction Gateway [see "Openet Extends Policy Enforcement to the Device" - here] to deliver advanced user controls, real-time usage information, and a sophisticated channel for interaction with Mobinil’s subscriber base of 35 million".

Related post - "Mobinil [Egypt] Deployed HP Tipping Point to Increase Network Availability" - here.

See "Mobinil Selects Openet to Enable Cost Transparency and Rich Customer Engagement" - here. 

PCC Deployments [243]: Spectranet [Nigeria] Selected Alepo for Real-Time Policy Enforcement

    

Alepo announced its ".. first LTE win in Africa by partnering with Spectranet, one of the fastest growing 4G service providers in Nigeria .. Specranet will deploy a broad suite of Alepo products to support their enhanced offerings, including Alepo’s award-winning OSS/BSS software, Service Enabler 8.1, Alepo’s Online Charging System (OCS), and PCRF, for fine-grained, real-time policy enforcement. Spectranet will also be deploying Alepo’s comprehensive set of APIs to integrate with a range of legacy systems and third-party vendors, including Huawei and Cisco network elements".

Regarding the PCEF used by Spectranet, Alepo marketing updated me that "Cisco SCE was originally planned in the network. Though they are currently using Huawei PDN that might be an open issue still"

See "Alepo Announces First LTE Win in Africa, Providing PCRF, OCS, and IT System for both Data and Voice" - here.

[Infonetics]: 2012 DPI Market Grew by 28%; Allot Leads; Reduces Forecast

   
Shira Levine, directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, Infonetics Research, released an updated Service Provider Deep Packet Inspection Products report, predicting a $1.9B market by 2017 (see chart). A year ago Infonetics had a more aggressive forecast, predicting a $2.0B market for 2016 (here).
 
The report finds that "Service provider deep packet inspection (DPI) product revenue totaled $596 million worldwide in 2012, up 28% .. Allot pulled ahead of Sandvine in 2012 to take the overall DPI revenue market share lead for the first time; Allot also tops the wireless DPI segment, while Sandvine leads the fixed-line DPI segment"

My own calculation (here), based on public pure players reports (Allot, Sandvine and Procera - see market share below) showed 19% growth for 2012. See other forecasts here.

"The wireless segment of the DPI market is forecast by Infonetics to grow at a 33% CAGR from 2012 to 2017 .. DPI will eventually move from core and access networks to device themselves so that operators can better manage signaling traffic, provide mobile security, and enable more granular subscriber controls such as parental control and shared data plan device control"

See "Allot takes the lead in deep packet inspection market; IT vendors eyeing DPI acquisitions" - here.

F5 Discusses Traffic Management and Diameter Routing Business

 
F5's CEO, John McAdam (pictured) provided some insights to the recently announced policy enforcement product (see "F5 Announces DPI; 320Gbps/Chassis" - here) and  Diameter Signaling Router (acquired from Traffix Systems) market in the company's earning call:

• Traffic Management business - "Clearly, we were very disappointed with the results in the service provider market last quarter. However, we have a strong pipeline and are convinced that we have a winning strategy with our intelligent services platforms that can consolidate complex traffic steering, carrier-grade NAT solutions, application and network firewall protection and our policy enforcement module .. F5's Application Delivery Firewall solution is the first in the industry to combine DDoS protection, the world's fastest network firewall application security, access management and DNS security, as well as comprehensive traffic management functionality"
   
• Diameter Signalling Business - ".. we are seeing good success and initial project wins with our Traffix Systems Diameter solutions for LTE deployments. And over the past year, we have closed wins with more than 25 operators worldwide .. we feel really good about the Diameter solution, the Diameter product. We think it's the best out there. We thought that before the acquisition. I don't know what will happen".
   
• Competition with Oracle, following its Tekelec and Acme Packet acquisitions - "Acme would also compete in that space. I'm not sure what will happen there. Obviously, that's up to Oracle. But there was really 3 before. And I think that we have -- the deal with us here is basically to get more and more projects to make sure we're partnering with the right partners, and I think that's a good strategy to do that. And I'm very hesitant here because Oracle is a great partner of ours, right? So there is coopetition also a great customer. So -- but I do think the Diameter solution is a great opportunity". 

Manuel Rivelo (pictured) -EVP of Security and Strategic Solutions added:  ".. the Diameter business is going as we projected. It's early in the market, as you all know. LTE is rolling out. As LTE rolls out, the complexity of those networks increases, and that's really when you need the DRA and DEA solutions that are in the market segment. So what we've seen is a huge ramp-up in the number of deals that we're being invited to. From an ARX [Traffix?] point of view, we're seeing more proof-of-concepts out there than ever before. And over the last, I would say, 45 days or so, we've seen an interest from a lot of the operators who had already gone with some solutions prior to us entering the market, re-approaching us in that arena for our portfolio. So we're pretty excited. We think it's going according to plan. Obviously, time will tell".

See "F5 Networks Management Discusses Q2 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha, here.

Is the Optimization Market Declining?

 
Had Citrix acquired Bytemobile for its network optimization solutions, or to boost its load balancing sales (NetScaler) vs. F5? (probably the product most Bytemobile customers were using before the $435M cash  acquisition).

David James Henshall (pictured), Citrix' CFO, said on the company's Q1 earning call that "Bytemobile solutions contributed just a few million dollars of product revenue in Q1. We remain confident in the outlook for the full year, but as we've discussed previously a few times, the timing of closing large engagements, as well as the specific contract terms of those deals will cause a recognition of revenue to be uneven throughout the year .. So still on track from a Byte business to contribute the $50 million guidance number that we had put out there in 2013, still feel very good about that".

Nevertheless, for Citrix, Bytemobile helps selling NetScaler, the load balancing product - "In terms of Bytemobile pulling -- or NetScaler pulling through Bytemobile, in fact, it's usually the other way around. And so what we've seen early on is that for a large Bytemobile deployment, there's generally some functionality that's provided by a NetScaler, whether it's load-balancing or other activities, that while it's early days, the ratio is about 15% or 10% to 15%. So for every $1 of Bytemobile sale, there is an opportunity to pull through about $0.10 to $0.15 of NetScaler"

See "Citrix Systems Management Discusses Q1 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha, here.

FCC: No More Data Bill Shocks

   

The deadline for US bill shock regulation [see "[US] Bill Shock Prevention: VZW, AT&T and T-Mobile will Alert on Exceeding Data Charges" - here] has passed, and the FCC was proud to announce that ".. approximately 97 percent of wireless customers across the nation are now protected from bill shock as participating U.S. wireless companies have met an April 17 deadline to provide free, automatic alerts to customers who approach or exceed their wireless plan limits. A recent FCC survey found that 30 million Americans – or one in six wireless users – have experienced bill shock".

Related posts about Sprint, C Spire Wireless, Verizon

   

".. As of the April 17, 2013 deadline, participating members of CTIA are voluntarily providing free,
automatic usage-based alerts when they approach or exceed plan limits for data, voice, and text, or when international roaming charges may be applied .. the FCC updated its Bill Shock Web Portal to give consumers at-a-glance status of carriers’ reported compliance on bill shock alerts".

Carrier	Voice	Data	SMS/Text	Int'l Roaming
AT&T	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes
Cellcom	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cellular One of NE Arizona	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Clearwire	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A
Plateau	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A
SouthernLINC Wireless	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A
Sprint	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
T-Mobile USA	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes
US Cellular	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Verizon Wireless	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
N/A = Carrier does not offer the service or offers it only on an unlimited basis on all domestic plans offered as of or after October 17, 2011, making the sending of usage alerts unnecessary.

Last Updated: April 17, 2013 - Source: FCC

See "FCC MARKS MILESTONE IN EFFORT TO ELIMINATE ‘BILL SHOCK’" - here.

Q1 Average DDoS Attack - 1.8 (Arbor) or 48 Gbps (Prolexic)?

 
Few days ago Prolexic reported that ".. average attack bandwidth totaled 48.25 Gbps in Q1 2013, a 718 percent increase over last quarter" (here) - indeed an amazing number, far beyond the capacity of almost any enterprise connection  and a real threat to many ISPs.

Arbor Networks shows a significantly lower numbers. While the average attack volume also shows a nice growth (+19.5%), it reaches just 1.77 Gbps (see chart below for peak attack size). Not only the number and growth rate make more sense, it is also a more reasonable use of resources by those who try to attack even the bigger enterprises.

Arbor says that ".. attacks above 10 and even 20Gb/sec now occur multiple times per day somewhere in the world. Every day hundreds, or even thousands, of attacks take place utilizing different attack vectors, having different levels of complexity and different motivations and resources behind them. For enterprise network operators, it is important to have a broad view of what is going on out there .. Proportion of attacks in the 2 – 10Gb/sec range grows from 15% to 21.5%" 

See "Q1 Key Findings from ATLAS" -here.

DT Implements Data Caps (but Excludes its Own Video and Voice Services)

 
Last month's question - "Will DT Throttle DSL Speeds for Exceeding Quota?" (here) has been answered: Yes.

Deutsche Telekom announced quota limits on its fixed service, with speed reduction penalty (or top-up option). Nevertheless, it excludes its own video and voice services - and explains why it does not violate Neutrality.

"Given the rapid growth of data .. As of 2 May 2013, a monthly quota of 75GB will apply for ‘Call & Surf’ plans with a download connection speed of up to 16Mbps, 200GB for speeds of up to 50Mbps, 300GB for up to 100Mbps and 400GB for packages with a connection of up to 200Mbps .. If the volume limit is reached, a uniform reduction in Internet bandwidth to 384 Kbit/s will be applied" 

Michael Hagspihl (pictured), Marketing Director, explained that "Users of "Entertain" service will not count against the volume contained in the tariff .. so we are sure that they will not suddenly sit in front of a black screen ..  Also Voice over the telecom connection is not counted .. Both services are, unlike Internet services, managed services that are produced in a high quality and secure and paid for separately by the customer. Regular Internet services are not subject to discrimination by the "best-effort" principle - offering as much as possible with the resources available". 

   

See "Telekom ändert Tarifstruktur fürs Festnetz" ("Telecom tariff structure changes for the fixed network") - here.

ITU Compiles IP Traffic Stats; "Net Neutrality Debate will Continue"

The ITU's "Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2013" regulatory report (here) finds that "Triggered by the growing number of Internet connections over mobile and fixed platforms, monthly Internet protocol (IP) traffic has skyrocketed from the modest 1 petabyte two decades ago, to an estimated 44’000 petabytes in 2012".

The ITU compiled a chart from multiple sources:

On Net Neutrality, ITU says "one of the key questions in the net neutrality debate concerns what types of traffic management are acceptable (and what triggers their use) and which are not. Ofcom, for example, has placed management practices on a spectrum [see chart below], which shows the progression from traffic management that does not raise concerns (and will generally improve efficiency), to those measures considered more problematic"

"In many ways, the net neutrality debate will continue to be shaped by the changing dynamics of the ICT market. Fixed line and mobile operators facing increasing capital investment costs will continue to seek more equitable business and revenue sharing models. In turn, service providers are responding by taking measures to protect their own interests, such as reducing reliance on public networks by using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) or by building or acquiring their own networks". 

"Going forward, both regulatory and business models will need to adjust to ensure that investment in advanced networks and services is encouraged. There is ongoing debate on the appropriate regulatory model for access, with proponents of net neutrality regulation calling for greater investment in and upgrades to both access and backhaul networks. Likewise, new business models are being suggested to deal with the investment needed to serve new bandwidth-hungry content and applications. These include charging service providers more for prioritization (faster or higher quality service for latency-sensitive services) and providing guaranteed network capacity and quality of service for end users". 

US Air Force Looks for IPv6 DPI @ 10Gbps

US Air Force is ".. conducting market research to identify sources that may
possess the expertise, capabilities, and experience to meet the requirements for delivery of IPv6 DPI capability at a 10 Gigabytes per second (Gbps) throughput"

"Hanscom Air Force Base has program management responsibility for the Air Force Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRnet) Gateways Program. As a result, the Air Force Network (AFNET) Gateways Program Office is requesting information to identify possible sources to deliver IPv6 DPI capabilities at a 10 Gbps throughput. This effort may consist of, but may not be limited to, the following activities: .. Interoperability with the Air Force Information Operations Platform (IOP) and the Cloudshield 4000 .. IPv6 DPI at 2.5 Gigabytes per second no later than (NLT) 31 August 2013 & 10 Gigabyte per second (Gbps) throughput NLT 1 Aug 2014". 

See "Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) at 10 Gbps" - here.

Vodafone to Offer Multi-Device and Family Plans (End of 2013)

A while ago Telia announced the first Shared Data Plan in Europe (here). Vodafone now follows - although it will take some time before it will be available to its subscribers.

The MNO announced "the expansion of its Vodafone Red customer proposition to cover a total of 14 European markets, together with the addition of new and compelling customer options. Vodafone Red offers European consumers and businesses one integrated service plan with .. very generous mobile data allowances"

"In addition, by the end of 2013 Vodafone customers across all 14 European markets will benefit from further innovations: multi-device plans, enabling customers to connect a smartphone and tablet under one Vodafone Red plan, making it simple and cost effective to own and manage multiple devices under a single bill; family plans, allowing individual family members to sign up to a Vodafone Red package at a discounted price".

See "Vodafone Red To Transform Consumer And Business Experience Of Mobile Communications Across 14 European Countries" - here.

NI Deployments [242]: Plateau [US] Uses Astellia for Visibility and Control

   

Astellia announced it will "coordinate 3G and 4G network optimization activities for New Mexico based carrier Plateau through a dedicated team of qualified consultants .. to evaluate the current performance of their network. Astellia’s monitoring solution is used to guarantee reliable services and the best possible quality of experience (QoE) to an ever more demanding customer base".

Plateau has 79,000 wireless accounts and 235 cell towers.

See "Plateau calls on Astellia for mobile network optimization" - here.

[ARCchart]: DPI Market to Reach $5B by 2018

 
A new report by Asad Khan, Lead Analyst and Matt Lewis, Research Director, ARCchart, forecasts a very growth to the DPI market, higher than any other research I've seen so far (here).

According to the report "Despite opposition from privacy advocates and ongoing the net neutrality debate, service providers have already begun significant investments in DPI products, with spending expected to reach $1 billion by the end of 2013. ARCchart expects the global carrier networks DPI market to grow at a CAGR of nearly 40% between 2013 and 2018, eventually accounting for $5 billion in revenues by the end of 2018".

"Not only does DPI empower service providers to optimise their network capacity and performance, but it also open avenues for new opportunities such as targeted advertising, WiFi/small cell offload management, M2M connection management and value added services such as content filtering and policy enforcement"

See "Deep Packet Inspection: Market Analysis & Forecasts" - here.

[TeleGeography]: Demand for Int'l Bandwidth Grew by 39% in 2012

   

TeleGeography reveals that "demand for international bandwidth grew 39% in 2012, and at a compounded annual rate of 53% between 2007 and 2012. International bandwidth demand growth has been robust on all five of the world’s major submarine cable routes, but has been particularly rapid on key routes to emerging markets in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America ..  Telcos have kept up with increasing bandwidth demand by building new cables and upgrading existing systems, deploying a total of 54Tbps of new capacity between 2007 and 2012".

Source: TeleGeography

See "International bandwidth demand is decentralising" - here.

PCC Deployments [241]: C Spire Wireless [US] Deploys Shared Data Plans and BoD with Openwave Mobility

Openwave Mobility announced that "C Spire Wireless has implemented Openwave Mobility’s Promotion and Pricing Innovation (PPI) Mobile Data Charging solution to power the company’s CHOICE and SHARED Data plan offerings, providing unmatched flexibility, control and value for customers: 

• C Spire’s CHOICE plans enable prepaid and postpaid customers to purchase passes for premium data services such as video streaming and tethering at the time of consumption via an intuitive in-line subscription experience. CHOICE passes allow customers to pay for only the services they need, when they need them, and comes with the ability to monitor usage in real time to avoid bill shock.

• C Spire is also leveraging PPI to power its SHARED Data service plans which allow customers to purchase monthly data plans with varying quotas that can be shared among multiple subscribers and devices. C Spire’s SHARED Data plans provide a much wider range of options for customers to choose from to meet their individual needs as compared with other similar offerings on the market. Subscribers of both CHOICE and SHARED Data plans benefit from the overage protections provided by PPI’s intuitive real time end-user engagement interface. Upon reaching data quota thresholds, subscribers are notified in-line and can elect to purchase a Top-Up pass with a simple click of a button.

See "C Spire Wireless Partners with Openwave Mobility to Launch CHOICE and SHARED Data Plans" - here.

Procera and Genband Terminate OEM Agreement

An SEC filling by Procera Networks (here) states that the OEM agreement it had with GENBAND (see "DPI Market: GENBAND OEMs Procera" - here and "Procera - Genband OEM Agreement" - here) has been terminated. At the quarters following the agreement Procera mentioned GENBAD is its earning calls (Q4-2010, Q1-2011, Q2-2011), but not in recent quarters.

Nevertheless, the two agreed to promptly enter into a reseller arrangement.

"Effective April 15, 2013, (i) Procera Networks, Inc. (“Procera”) and GENBAND US LLC and GENBAND Ireland Ltd. (collectively “GENBAND”) terminated their Master OEM Purchase and Sales Agreement, dated July 19, 2012 (“OEM Agreement”) .. The transition agreement permits GENBAND to continue to perform its functions for existing customers, as provided under the OEM Agreement, for the remainder of the current service term, and further provides that Procera will continue to provide support or maintenance to GENBAND’s existing customers under or in connection with the OEM Agreement and for which GENBAND previously submitted a purchase order. Under the transition agreement, Procera and GENBAND also agreed to promptly enter into a reseller arrangement"

CSG Updates PCC; Adds Parental controls, Tethering, Bill Shock

CSG Systems International announced "CSG Integrated Charging and Policy (ICP) 2.0 .. Key features include support for the use of parental controls, mobile tethering, managing bill shock, and setting defined usage and spending limits and notifications ..  When policy and charging are combined, solutions for managing flexible customer consumption caps, and enabling choices for monetary top-ups, quality or speed upgrades/downgrades become possible. CSG ICP 2.0 enables these scenarios in an adjunct fashion to the CSP’s existing systems through an interoperable, standards-based framework.

With CSG ICP 2.0, CSPs can realize faster time to market and monetization of new services on advanced networks using new pre-configured use cases that support multi-device plans and tethering plans out of the box"

See "CSG Evolves Integrated Charging and Policy Capabilities" - here.

DT Launched CDN/Cloud Optimization Solution; Powered by Cedexis

   

Deutsche Telekom’s Business Development and  Innovation (BDI) announced a new CDN and cloud delivery optimization solution comprising two services  called "NetAnalyze" and "NetOptimize" These services enable the evaluation, development,  and automation of multi-vendor hosting and delivery solutions (and hybrids of each) .. The new service duo was developed in partnership with Cedexis, a global expert in multi-cloud engineering: 

• NetAnalyze works by providing an examination of how the end user experience (whether accessed via mobile or traditional mechanisms) is delivered at any particular moment across  a multitude of platforms. This is accomplished by aggregating around 1 billion measurements  generated by users located in more than 34,000 networks around the globe. 

• NetOptimize  works by selecting the optimal delivery mechanism for the end user in real time based on  both the performance information collected in NetAnalyze, and the business criteria of the  content owner. The new service duo was developed in partnership with Cedexis, a global  expert in multi-cloud engineering.  

See "Deutsche Telekom Announces New Multi-Platform Performance Optimization Solution" - here. 

Prolexic: Average DDoS Attack Bandwidth Up by 718% (!!!!)

 
High volume DDoS attacks are now a real threat also to many carriers and ISPs, according to Prolexic, as average DDoS attack now takes more than 48 Gbps!

  

The DDoS prevention service company's latest report (Q1 2013) shows that "average attack bandwidth totaled 48.25 Gbps in Q1 2013, a 718 percent increase over last quarter, and the average packet-per-second rate reached 32.4 million". Other indexes grew in a reasonable numbers -  Average attack duration increases 7.14 percent from 32.2 hours to 34.5 hours  and total number of DDoS attacks increased by 1.75%.

Stuart Scholly (pictured), president, Prolexic said: “Average packet-per-second rate and average bit rate spiked in the first quarter and both are growing at a fast clip .. When you have average – not peak – rates in excess of 45 Gbps and 30 million packets-per-second, even the largest enterprises, carriers, and quite frankly most mitigation providers, are going to face significant challenges”.

  

See "Average Attack Bandwidth up 718 percent;Average Packet-Per-Second Rate Reaches 32.4 Million According to Prolexic’s Q1 2013 DDoS Report" - here. 

Tekelec Expands DSR with Virtualization, Emergency VoLTE Calls

Tekelec launched the ".. latest version of Tekelec’sDiameter Signaling Router (DSR), available this quarter. The newest release introduces virtualization and adds new emergency Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services, scalability and routing functions that reduce signaling network complexity".

"Tekelec has more than 25 DSR customers, including T-Mobile [here],Telstra Global [here], Syniverse [new disclosure!], and multiple Tier 1 operators in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia".

See "Tekelec Virtualizes the Diameter Signaling Router for Elastic Scalability, Adds New Voice over LTE Services" - here.

Sandvine and Openwave Offer Joint VAS Steering Solution

Openwave Mobility announced a joint solution with Sandvine to
"enable mobile operators, to deliver advanced monetization capabilities by empowering them to rapidly introduce new Layer 7 services including targeted video optimization, innovative pricing models, and subscriber self-care"

This follows a previous announcement by Sandvine of similar solutions with other partners: "Sandvine: 40 Joint Deployments with PeerApp, Mobixell and Netsweeper" - here.

"Sandvine’s Policy Traffic Switch .. combined with Openwave Mobility’s Integra4 .. offers operators a solution whereby data traffic can be classified at line-rate and appropriate Layer 7 application traffic can be steered to Integra4 to apply services. These services can include video optimization, parental controls or even dynamic content insertion for engaging users with inline promotions. These promotions typically include new Application-based Price Plans which are easy for subscribers to adopt and are known to lead to significant incremental ARPU increase .. the Sandvine-Openwave Mobility solution has been successfully trialed with live traffic by a North American operator".

See "Openwave Mobility and Sandvine Collaborate to Empower Operators to Pursue Large-Scale Monetization Opportunities" - here.

Sandvine: Mobile Data Growth Stats

An interesting presentation by Sandvine, during CommsDay Summit 2013.

Who Led the Policy Management Market in 2012 - Take II

Well, we have a new (3rd) research and a new leader for the policy management software market in 2012.

Amdocs announced that leading analyst firm Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan has named it as the "top global policy rules vendor in 2012. According to their recently published "Global CSP Policy Management Strategy Definition and Solution Supplier Market Analysis," Stratecast awarded Amdocs a 15 percent revenue-based market share of the 2012 policy rules market, which Stratecast estimates will grow from $1.6 billion in 2013 to $2.4 billion by 2017 .. Stratecast estimates that the policy management market, which comprises policy rules/PCRF and policy enforcement technologies, will reach $3.9 billion by 2017".

Other reports named Openet (Infonetics, here) and Tekelec (Exact Ventures, here) as the leader for 2012.

See "Amdocs Leads in Global Policy Market Share, Analyst Firm Reports" - here.

Virgin Media Makes Traffic Management "more flexible and responsive"

Regulation helps consumers. After begin slammed by UK's ASA (see "UK: Traffic Management Makes "Unlimited Service" Limited" - here), Virgin Media is changing its traffic management policies.

"We’ve made it more flexible and responsive. If you’re on one of these tiers and enter traffic management, the speed reduction could apply for as little as an hour provided you reduce your downloads or uploads. Also, speed is only reduced for the direction a threshold is exceeded – if you exceed your threshold with downloads, your speed will only be reduced for downloading .. In addition to this we also apply a temporary speed limit to all peer-to-peer and Newsgroup traffic during peak times to ensure that they do not slow the network down for everyone".

See "Your guide to traffic management - 30Mb or Higher" - here.

Tekelec Adds Mobile Policy Gateway: Customer Loyalty/Revenue Generation Use Cases

Tekelec ".. extends rules from the core network to mobile devices, tablets and machines with its Mobile Policy Gateway (MPG). .. the first eight use cases Tekelec has developed go well beyond basic signaling scenarios to enrich subscribers’ interactions with their devices and enable operators to more intelligently manage network resources, applications and devices: Network Congestion Management, Application Firewalling, Application Traffic Scheduling and Management, Service Continuity, Battery Life Preservation, Chargeable Services and Mobile Payments, Targeted Mobile Advertising. and Subscriber Self-Care".

See "Tekelec Unveils Eight Use Cases Taking ‘Policy Everywhere’" - here.

Radware: Use SDN to Provide DDoS Protection

Radware announced ".. the introduction of DefenseFlow the first in the company's suite of Software Defined Networking (SDN) applications providing organizations with superior network wide attack mitigation service.. enables network operators to program the network and provide automated DoS & DDoS detection and protection as a native network service. DefenseFlow transitions in path device-based security solutions into a network-wide service by utilizing the SDN control plane to collect traffic information for attack detection and optimally divert the traffic through the most relevant security resources in the network that can mitigate the identified risk only when needed".

"By deploying this behavioral-based technology to detect network attacks in real time, network operators and IT staff can implement DoS & DDoS protection service to their networks at a low cost".

See "Radware Unveils Comprehensive SDN Strategy and Introduces New SDN Application: DefenseFlow" - here.

[Israel]: More Illegal Download Sites are Blocked (or not)

 

ZIRA's Notification on blocked sites

The Israeli press reports (Calcalist, here - Hebrew) reports that local ISPs are now blocking two more pirate video streaming downloading sites - nako.me and gozlan.me. 

 

The two are from few remaining illegal download sites, following the shutdown of other sites during the recent months. 

ISP are now blocking these sites based on DNS names, after an initial block by IP addresses failed. The court order issued to the request of ZIRA (Hebrew acronym for "Internet Copyrights"), a coalition of major local media and broadcasting organization.
 
Nevertheless, although my ISP is mentioned in the story as blocking the two sites, I can access both sites (which have new names now - Deniro and loka - the latter even ask the visitors to sign a petition against ZIRA).

[Juniper Research]: "Data Offloading [60% by 2017] is Key, Challenges Still Remain"

A new report by Nitin Bhas (pictured), Juniper Research, forecasts that "..the amount of mobile data traffic generated by Smartphones, Featurephones and Tablets will exceed 90,000 Petabytes by 2017 .. only 40% of the data generated by these devices will reach the cellular network by 2017, as majority of the data traffic will be via the Wi-Fi network .. Data Offloading is Key, Challenges Still Remain ..  despite 2012 being a breakthrough year for 4G LTE, operators will still need offloading technologies such as Wi-Fi & Small cells to augment 4G networks".

"The report identifies a series of trends that are coming together to greatly accelerate carrier-Wi-Fi adoption, mainly NGH (Next Generation Hotspot) and Hotspot 2.0 specifications along with 5GHz enabled devices. Carrier-grade small cells along with Wi-Fi will enable high levels of capacity and along with the macro network will provide commercial and financial success to the operator".

See "Mobile Devices to Generate Data Traffic Equivalent to 42 Quadrillion Tweets by 2017, at Over 90,000 PB" - here.

[Ovum]: Wireless Optimization can Take Different Forms: 4 Examples

Daryl Schoolar (pictured), principal Analyst of Wireless Infrastructure, Ovum writes about wireless optimization - "optimization can take different forms. The two I see the most are optimization solutions targeting improved network performance, like self-optimizing networks (SON), and those looking to improve the delivery of network content, specifically video. Even in these two areas companies have different approaches as to how they achieve optimization. Network optimization can be performed in the mobile core, at the access layer, or can involve software in the device. Network optimization can also be centralized or distributed. As for content optimization this can range from solutions that focus on traditional areas like compression, transcoding, or transrating all the way to managing the actual flow of content across the network"

The article cover 4 vendors (with links to my coverage): Avvasi (here,here), Movik (here, here, here), Newfield Wireless (here) and Vasona Netwroks (here, here)

See "Schoolar: 4 vendors to watch in optimization" - here.