Monday's Guest Post: Dynamic Service Chaining Standardization

A new guest post will be published on Monday - "Standardizing Service Chaining Models for Next-generation Service Provider Architectures" by my 35th guest, Nicolas Bouthors

"With intense competition in the communications industry, service providers are looking for ways to offer new services faster and more cost-effectively. Dynamic service chaining allows you to do just that. Three industry organizations have proposed complementary standards for service chaining that include Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) integration because it is considered critical in making the models application-awares" say Nicolas.

Stay tuned!

F5 Business Update: 40 DSC Deployments

Some quotes from the recent F5 Q4 F2014 earning call, by Andy Reinland, CFO and John McAdam [pictured], CEO (retiring in a year):

• we continue to win large deals in service providers with both our traditional traffic-steering solutions and telco-specific offerings such as Policy Enforcement Manager, CGNAT, and Traffix Diameter products
   
• We have also made significant progress with our Traffix Diameter solutions for LTE rollouts. Our competitive win rate is very high and we now have approximately 40 projects currently in production, with several other projects in process
   
• we're pretty excited. I am, and so is the service provider team, about the TCP optimization stuff that we've done during the year. I wouldn't underestimate that opportunity. Basically for heavy traffic, it's a great money-saver for the -- and increases the quality for the service providers. Traffix, we feel really good about

• [Q] by Catharine Anne Trebnick: "Could you tell me roughly how many different use cases you would see in the different operators? I think that would help with -- because you're getting a lot of traction with Traffix and PEM, but like let's take a Tier 1 operator versus a Tier 2 operator. And how many different use cases would they use of F5 today versus maybe perhaps a year ago?"

• [A] by Manuel F. Rivelo - EVP, Security and Strategic Solutions: "Well, Catharine, it's Manny. It's hard to -- I don't have year-on-year comparisons. So it's hard to give you that, but I'll show you when we -- on 2 weeks, when we're over at the Analyst Conference, I'll show you 11 use cases that we're selling aggressively into service providers this year. ..  what we're seeing with service providers is not only the standard use cases we sell around TCP optimization, firewall security, application security, the list goes on and on, but we're also seeing service providers use the extensibility of our product, the openness of the platform, allowing them to program the platform to solve their unique application, traffic-steering problems and/or application problems inside that environment. And that's the power of iRules, iApps, et cetera".

See "F5 Networks' (FFIV) CEO John McAdam on Q4 2014 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by Seeking Alpha, here.

DPI Deployments [327]: SpeedConnect [US] Uses Sandvine's Virtual DPI

Sandvine announced that "SpeedConnect, a Michigan-based operator of fixed and mobile wireless Internet access services has purchased solutions from Sandvine’s Virtual Series .. SpeedConnect purchased multiple instances of Sandvine’s Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) Virtual Series, which will be used to manage traffic for an improved subscriber quality of experience"

Related posts:

• Sandvine CEO; SDN and NFV will Take Time  - here
• Sandvine: "leading edge CSPs around the world are currently working with Sandvine on virtualization pilot projects"  - here

John Ogren [pictured] , CEO, said: “A fully virtualized solution was the only way to enable our entire network with advanced policy control capabilities at once. Through previous acquisitions, we had become familiar both with Sandvine’s solutions and those of competitors, but only in traditional deployment models. Sandvine’s ability to offer the same policy capabilities through a virtualized solution allowed us to extend the benefits of advanced policy control to all of our subscribers over multiple states in a way that made sense today”.

See "Sandvine Secures Another Customer For Virtual Series Products" - here.

DSC Deployments [326]: NTT DOCOMO Uses Oracle Virtualized DSR for LTE Roaming

Oracle announced that NTT DOCOMO has ".. implemented Oracle Communications Diameter Signaling Router to support roaming for its mobile customers. Oracle Communications Diameter Signaling Router enables NTT DOCOMO to accelerate the launch of new, advanced mobile services that leverage an LTE infrastructure. The CSP can now support roaming on LTE bands to ensure subscribers have access to the same advanced capabilities while traveling abroad. With the Oracle Communications Diameter Signaling Router, NTT DOCOMO completed the entire project—from purchase order to live customer traffic—in just six months.

Oracle Communications Diameter Signaling Router was implemented as a virtualized solution providing high reliability and advanced functionality with a small physical footprint well suited to support LTE roaming".

On June 30, 2014, NTT DOCOMO had 63M mobile subscribers, close to 44% of the Japanese market.

See "NTT DOCOMO Implements Oracle Communications Diameter Signaling Router to Support New LTE Infrastructure" - here.

BroadForward Enables MVNO to Upgrade to LTE with Old Generation HLR

BroadForward announced that Voiceworks [MVNO, Netherlands] has "extended the use of the BFX Interface Gateway to support integration with KPN’s 4G network. Like for Voiceworks and hundreds of other operators and MVNO’s worldwide, it used to be impossible to connect to 4G/LTE networks with existing, older generation HLR’s (pre 3GPP release 8). This limitation is now removed with the latest release of BFX, facilitating connectivity with LTE networks for various generations of HLR’s.

Working in close cooperation with Voiceworks, BroadForward has developed a unique solution to address this limitation, provided as an on-board function of the BFX product. Now service providers with older generation HLR’s can establish LTE connectivity with a cost-effective and independent solution. This offers providers the opportunity to avoid the usual route of upgrading their HLR, often involving high cost, risky projects and vendor lock-in".

See "Voiceworks launches 4G service with unique interworking solution from BroadForward" - here.

How Do 3, KPN, Swisscom, T-Mobile, A1, EE, TeliaSonera and Orange Pack LTE?

A new presentation by Openet reviews the how leading MNOs are "leverage the speed that LTE brings to create value for customers and generate more revenue".

Verizon Injects HTTP Header for Advertising

A post by Jonathan Mayer [pictured], a computer scientist and lawyer at Stanford analyzes the recent HTTP header insertion by Verizon (apparently used for behavioral advertising):

"After poring over Verizon’s related patents and marketing materials, here’s my rough understanding of how the header works [see chart below] .. In short, Verizon is packaging and selling subscriber information, acting as a data broker on real-time advertising exchanges. Questionable. By default, the information appears to consist of demographic and geographic segments.2 If a user has opted into “Verizon Selects,” then Verizon also shares behavioral profiles built by deep packet inspection". 

See more at "How Verizon’s Advertising Header Works" - here.

StarHub Trialed Nokia's Liquid Applications at WTA Finals

Nokia announced that StarHub [Singapore] has trialed ".. implementation of Nokia’s Liquid Applications solution at its 4G mobile base stations within the Indoor Stadium at Singapore Sports Hub, bringing ‘live’ sports action closer to spectators. For the trial conducted on 21 October 2014, four ‘live’ video feeds of the Rising Stars Finals played at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global were delivered concurrently to spectators on mobile devices, giving them different perspectives of the action played out in the court. Spectators were able to zoom in on the action by selecting any preferred camera angle at any time .. StarHub is carrying out further trials of the full suite of Liquid Applications".

"Nokia’s Liquid Applications, an industry first solution, brings superior services to mobile broadband customers from the mobile base station. This is achieved by bringing applications, content, popular Internet sites or enterprise solutions into the base station whereby these are stored, processed and delivered directly and rapidly to mobile devices, increasing customers' mobile surfing performance. The solution will also allow mobile operators to offer other innovative services such as augmented reality and location-based services". [Related post: "Rumors: NSN's Liquid Applications Uses Saguna's Technology" - here]

See "StarHub and Nokia Networks at the edge of mobile content delivery" - here.

Ericsson SSR 8000 Contracts Follow-up, Q3 2014

In its Q3 report, Ericsson provides their standard update on the number of SSR 8000 deployments: "The momentum for the multi-application IP router, SSR 8000, continued with 134 contracts signed since the launch in December 2011. During the quarter, 14 new contracts were signed of which 6 were for fixed networks".

See "Third quarter report 2014" - here.

[Juniper Research]: How will MNOs Revenues Recover?

A new report by Dr. Holden Windsor [pictured], Head of Consultancy & Forecasting, Juniper Research, finds that "..voice and messaging traffic lost to OTT (Over The Top) players such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Skype will cost network operators $14 billion in revenues globally this year, up by 26% on 2013 ..in a number of markets, including Italy, Spain and the UK, operator mobile voice revenues had fallen to less than 60% of their value five years’ ago. It argued that a combination of IM, VoIP and social media substitution was primarily responsible, resulting not only in lost revenues but in additional costs due to the scale of signalling traffic".

"However, the report also identifies an array of new revenue streams with the potential to deliver cumulative revenues to operators in excess of $66 billion over the next five years. The resulting revenues could more than offset the decline from core service revenues on an annual basis by 2018 .. in areas such as M2M (Machine to Machine) and mobile money, operators can achieve a substantial revenue uplift by focussing on full service provision rather than simple connectivity

• Without optimisation, mobile data delivery costs will increase by more than three times over the next three years
   
• Implementation of NFV  solutions offer operators the potential both of cost savings on proprietary hardware and on reducing product time-to-market
   
• Operators can boost core revenues by introducing higher-value shared data plans or by bundling content into a monthly subscription.

See "Operators to Suffer $14bn in Lost Revenues this Year, as OTTs Take Market Share, Juniper Research Finds" - here.

PCC Deployments [325]: Oi [Brazil] Trialed Renkee Virtualized Solution During 2014 FIFA World Cup

Redknee Solutions announced that Oi has "..successfully trialed Redknee’s suite of virtualized billing, charging and policy management solutions to drive roaming subscriptions and to ensure high quality wireless connectivity for those attending one of the largest sporting events in the world, the 2014 FIFA World Cup. With Redknee’s highly flexible and scalable solution, Oi was able to better monetize its Wi-Fi investment and enhance the customer experience. 

Redknee’s Wi-Fi Monetization and Offload solution enabled Oi to reduce time to market to launch new services, improve the user experience, and extend revenue streams into new business lines, such as Wi-Fi connectivity at major sporting events. 

[Related post: "Oi [Brazil] Uses Aptilo to Create a Public Wi-Fi over Home/SMB Routers" - here]

Redknee’s partnership with Oi emphasizes the confidence leading communications service providers (CSPs) have in Redknee’s ability to support their monetization strategies. With an aggressive timescale, Redknee’s solution was implemented in less than five weeks". 

See "Redknee Enables Oi to Successfully Leverage Virtualization" - here.

Nokia's Software Cuts Signaling by 80%

 
Nokia Networks announced that it has "..conducted the first live network trial of a software feature that improves smartphone performance on 3G networks. Nokia High Speed Cell FACH* cuts smartphone-generated network signaling by up to 80%, boosts response time by up to 65% and achieves up to 20% faster browsing. Up to 40% power savings, contributing to longer smartphone battery life for subscribers, were also shown. The tests were run on the commercial 3G/HSPA network of a major European operator using test devices fitted with Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors that support High Speed Cell FACH .. Part of the Nokia Liquid Radio WCDMA Software Suite, High Speed Cell FACH is already available, so operators can prepare for the market when smartphones support the feature" .

User experience and resource usage efficiency during IM test

See "Nokia Networks shows how to make smartphone browsing 20% faster while reducing power consumption by 40%" - here.

Akamai and Juniper Demo NFV/SDN Based CDN

Akamai Technologies and Juniper Networks demonstrated an "..Elastic Content Delivery Network (CDN) system designed to enable network operators to address network scalability challenges driven by the rapid increase in video traffic.
 

The proof-of-concept demonstration will leverage Akamai's virtualized Aura Licensed CDN (LCDN) software and Juniper Networks® Contrail Controller for software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) to dynamically scale up and down network resources to support content spikes resulting from the broadcast of large events. The technology is also designed to accelerate service creation for service providers utilizing CDNs to launch innovative multiscreen video services that help drive subscriber acquisition and loyalty.

Akamai's Aura Licensed CDN (LCDN)

.. Akamai is collaborating with Juniper Networks to demonstrate the industry's first on-network Elastic CDN. Unlike previous approaches which required dedicated hardware, long lead times and extensive planning to add capacity, the Elastic CDN solution running on virtualization platforms leverages Juniper Networks Contrail to quickly configure virtual network resources within a virtual CDN, and allows additional caching capacity to be deployed in minutes instead of weeks. The Elastic CDN is highly distributed and virtually networked to enable efficient use of resources. Operating in an OpenStack environment, the combined solution is designed to help reduce time and cost associated with adding new caching capacity to the network, decreasing both capital and operational expense".

See "Juniper Networks and Akamai Technologies Demonstrate Elastic CDN Solution Over Virtualization Platforms" - here.

[Guest Post]: Net Neutrality and the Role of NFV

By Matt Halligan*, CTO and VP of Engineering. Openwave Mobility

The state of Net Neutrality and the open Internet have been debated at length. While the pro and anti neutrality camps fight it out - “Free Internet” vs. “Fast-Lanes” - many have overlooked what impact Net Neutrality will ultimately have on online services and the end-user experience. With a commercial, multi-speed internet, NFV could be the path to innovation and monetization opportunities

Net Neutrality: The battle lines are drawn

In one corner we have content providers like Netflix and Google championing the “Free Internet” and “Freedom of Speech”, positioning Net Neutrality as the fairest way to rule the Internet. In the opposite corner we have the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who want to reap back revenues from the rising costs of delivering fast broadband. But amidst the hype and scare mongering, an important message has been lost. Net neutrality does not exist – and hasn’t for quite some time. The fact is conglomerates like Google, Facebook and Netflix already benefit from Fast Lanes in the form of dedicated servers provided to them by ISPs. The vast amount of data created on the Internet today means that how most people perceive it to work is no longer the case. It’s not “Content > Internet Backbone > ISP > User” it’s far more complex, and far less neutral than people like to make out.

Restoring the balance

When the Internet was still relatively young, in order to promote growth and innovation, telecoms operators helped subsidize the Internet sector. It was free, open and innovative. Today the Internet is highly profitable, but extremely costly to run. While some large Internet-based businesses have benefitted from Net Neutrality – US and European mobile operators have cut back on investing in high-speed broadband networks. Under current Net Neutrality rules it just didn’t make sense financially. The result, both regions have lagged behind in the world broadband speeds stakes.

As Internet traffic grows exponentially, operators and ISPs have an uphill battle to provide users with a reliable service, and as a result the network congests and data speeds plummet. With these heavily burdened networks, perhaps the only way to restore fairness and improve user experience is to abandon the concept of Net Neutrality - completely.

The Role of NFV

The fact is Net Neutrality did exist but quite some time ago. Few were on the Internet and Fast Lanes were not really needed. With today’s networks, economy and technological growth, Net Neutrality is just not feasible. Providers cannot be expected to carry the burden of providing high-speed infrastructure alone, with little financial return. Therefore the fairest and smartest option is for data-intense services to contribute to the costs of supplying their content to users.

Which is why Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) can play a vital role in provisioning bandwidth.

Without the burden of Net Neutrality service providers are free to offer extra bandwidth or Fast Lanes as services. NFV can be utilized to granularly separate the network and prioritize services. NFV without Net Neutrality opens up a huge range of revenue generating opportunities while preserving the quality of experience that each user is prepared to pay for. For example, if a mobile carrier is delivering HD video content through NFV, the service to provide faster delivery and extra bandwidth can be switched on and off rapidly. Arguably, NFV technology would become the driver for investment in these services.

The Final Debate

As the argument for Net Neutrality gets more heated, it is vital to keep the end-user experience at the center of the debate. While it has been positioned by the likes of Google and Facebook to be in the user’s benefit for neutrality to remain, there is a far stronger case for it to be dropped – especially since these companies already benefit from a non neutral internet. As subscribers and users expect more data to be delivered faster it’s only fair that the providers of the content take an amount of financial responsibility in its provision. Whether Net Neutrality remains or not, one thing is certain – the dynamics of mobile broadband will need to change in order to prevent innovation from stagnating.

_________

*Matt Halligan has over 17 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and has held a range of technical and management roles within Research & Development. Prior to his role of Vice-President of Engineering at Openwave Mobility, Matt was Vice-President for Engineering within Openwave Systems, responsible for all R&D functions for the Mobile business, management of 180 engineers across the globe and site management of the Belfast facility. Before joining Openwave Systems in 2002, Matt spent 7 years at Nortel and was the Chief Software Architect for Nortel’s NITEC R&D facility, with responsibility for SDH optical networks software solutions. Matt graduated with first class BEng honors degree.

SON Deployments [324]: Telefonica [UK] Deployed Cellwize

Cellwize announced that its "elastic-SON™, the Centralized Self Organizing Network solution (C-SON) has been commercially deployed by Telefónica UK to enhance mobile network performance and Quality of Service for UK subscribers. elastic-SON from Cellwize was selected following a rigorous evaluation process carried out by the Telefónica Global CTO Team and Telefónica UK.

Telefónica UK is the first to implement the C-SON solution in the Telefónica Group globally and effectively the first company in the UK to implement a SON solution across all three technologies (2G, 3G and 4G)".

Adrian Di Meo [pictured], CTO,  Telefonica UK said: “We chose Cellwize due to its ability to work with all Telefónica UK incumbent RAN vendors and technologie.. Our team is working closely with Cellwize to support additional business needs for special events which require enhanced coverage and capacity. Recently the Cellwize elastic-SON platform was supporting Notting Hill Carnival and the Ryder Cup 2014 event”

See "Cellwize SON Boosts Telefónica UK Network Modernization Rollout" - here.

[Israel]: ISP to Compensate Customers for P2P Traffic Shaping

Two years after a class action lawsuit was filed, judge Ester Shtemer, from the Lod District court, ruled against 012 Smile (subsidiary of Partner Israel), one of Israel largest ISPs for its traffic shaping policy (see the full decision below, Hebrew).

The plaintiff claimed that the 012 did not provide an appropriate speed to its subscribers, when P2P file sharing programs were used, and asked for a compensation of over NIS70M (~$20M).

012 Smile said that they are not committed to provide any specific speed, and they use traffic management policies to prevent P2P program to takeover all available bandwidth, as file sharing is different from interactive web browsing. 012 admitted that file sharing users were discriminated, that they over-subscribe their infrastructure. However, they did not participate in the Glasnost (see "Glasnost: These ISPs are Shaping Traffic!" - here) tests that were presented as evidence by the plaintiff.

[Related post: "Israel: Carriers Must Disclose Broadband CIR" - here and "[Israel] ISPs Respond to the CIR Regulation - What do they Promise?" - here]

012 Smile CEO, Uri Wertman (left the company earlier this year), testified that they have 500,020 subscribers; an estimated 25% were using P2P file sharing applications, and 45% of them were discriminated - a total of 56,252 customers were affected.

The result?

• Smile 012 will provide 9 months of free speed upgrade to each customer asking for it (worth $2/month)
  
• 012 smile will deploy a control system that will ensure that the network will provide 98% of the accumulated demand (95% at peak hours) of all customers. 

Monday's Guest Post: Net Neutrality and NFV

A new guest post will be published on Monday - "Net Neutrality and the Role of NFV" by my 34th guest, Matt Halligan.

The role of NFV in Net Neutrality? How the two are concocted? "The state of Net Neutrality and the open Internet have been debated at length. While the pro and anti neutrality camps fight it out - “Free Internet” vs. “Fast-Lanes” - many have overlooked what impact Net Neutrality will ultimately have on online services and the end-user experience. With a commercial, multi-speed internet, NFV could be the path to innovation and monetization opportunities" say Matt.

Stay tuned!

Cache Deployments [323]: ViewQwest [Singapore] Use Qwilt to Improve QoE on Fiber

Qwilt announced that "ViewQwest, Singapore’s premium fiber broadband operator, has deployed the Qwilt Video Fabric Solution to deliver improved quality of experience (QoE) to ViewQwest’s customers ..  

When fiber broadband was introduced to consumers and businesses in Singapore, ViewQwest took full advantage by launching Fibernet, a superior service for popular online game streaming applications like Twitch, and online video streaming sites such as Netflix and YouTube".

Vignesa Moorthy [pictured], CEO, ViewQwest said: “Our Fibernet service was designed to eliminate antiquated practices such as severe caps on international bandwidth, traffic shaping, port blocking and throttling of downloads and torrents. We needed an innovative approach to caching that doesn’t sacrifice quality of experience or performance of our service offerings,.. We also saw an immediate improvement in network optimization and are very impressed with the QoE we are now able to offer our customers”.

Alon Maor, CEO, Qwilt said: "We are honored to provide a solution that can reduce the amount of OTT video traffic by up to 80 percent and offer a higher QoE across all major content provider sites.”

See "Qwilt’s Plug-and-Play QB-Series Video Fabric Controller Deployed by ViewQwest" - here.

Ceragon Partners with Qosmos and Telefonica to Improve QoE

Ceragon Networks announced that " in collaboration with Telefonica .. is demonstrating applications that provide operators with the ability to enhance user experience and enable more capacity and coverage at a lower total cost of ownership. 

• One application allows service providers to enhance Quality of Experience (QoE) by rerouting traffic based on intelligence of current network conditions and using DPI capabilities with wireless link information. This application shows how SDN and the IP-20 platform go far beyond the capabilities of today’s L2 and L3 networks.
   
• A second application demonstrates the IP-20 platform’s ability to dynamically allocate spectrum where needed via central, dynamic spectrum and interference management which considers intelligence of service capacity demand with spectrum resources availability.

..For this demo, Ceragon has partnered with Qosmos, the market leader in embedded Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and network intelligence technology for use in physical, SDN and NFV architectures" 

Luis Miguel Contreras Murillo [pictured], technological specialist, Telefonica I+D / Global CTO unit said: “Telefonica shares in Ceragon’s long term SDN vision, and is confident in Ceragon’s abilities to deliver in this realm,” said. “We value our ongoing partnership and collaboration both in the ONF Showcase, and beyond”

See "Ceragon Demonstrates Advanced SDN Applications for Wireless Backhaul Networks at SDN & OpenFlow World Congress" - here.

Allot & MRV Partner to Offer Orange NFV/SDN Application-Aware Traffic Management CPE

More NFV news, this time with the twin brother, SDN. Allot Communications and MRV Communications announced  ".. collaboration to demonstrate an SDN-enabled virtual Customer Premises Equipment (vCPE) solution for bringing application awareness to service providers access networks. Initiated and validated in Orange Labs.

..Allot and MRV have partnered to respond to Orange needs by introducing an innovative solution for delivering application awareness at the access network that combines a centralized traffic detection function (TDF - see also "Allot and Procera Push NFV-based DPI" - here), programmable business customer premises equipment (CPE) and an OpenDayLight SDN controller to enable stringent SLAs by setting per-application priority and dedicated bandwidth, and enforcing them starting at the customer premises and throughout the network"

Allot network functions virtualization is compliant with the ETSI blueprint

See "Orange, Allot and MRV to Demonstrate SDN-enabled Application Aware Virtual CPE @ SDN & OpenFlow World Congress" - here.

Procera Validates 40 Gbps Performance for its NFV Product

   

The DPI vendors continue to promote their NFV products (see "Allot and Procera Push NFV-based DPI" - here), with Prcera Networks already validating its perfroamce level on standard hardware.

the company announced today that "PacketLogic/V, [see "Procera Goes Virtual" - here] Procera’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) software solution, has been benchmarked by the European Advanced Network Test Center (EANTC) at 40Gbps with fully active Internet Intelligence functionality, running on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment. 

The EANTC testing measured the performance of the PacketLogic/V solutions running on a dual socket Intel® Xeon® E5-2699v3 CPUs clocked at 2.30 Ghz and 18 cores with 64 Gigabytes of memory (RAM). The software environment for the test was Debian 7.6 and Qemu 1.6.2, as well as version 15.0.4.5 of PacketLogic software. 

The tests measured the performance and latency of PacketLogic/V running in a NFV configuration with full Internet Intelligence capabilities being exercised. In the tests where PacketLogic/V was achieving 40Gbps of performance, the CPU usage never exceeded 45%, demonstrating that the performance could go higher if the platform supported more interfaces".

The following charts show the tests results in which "we sent full-stack layer 7 traffic and measured again the throughput of the system. The throughput of the system during this test was less influenced by the packet per second performance but by actually running the deep packet inspection analysis on the flows the Ixia tester generated and creating statistics on these flows" for HTTP-only and mixed traffic flows.

HTTP-Only Throughput Performance

HTTP, YoutTube, Bittorent,SIP and Skype mix  Throughput Performance

See "Procera Networks NFV Performance Validated by EANTC at 40Gbp/s on COTS Equipment" - here.

Openwave Supports HEVC for 4K Ultra-HD Video Optimization

Openwave Mobility announced it is the ".. first company to provide comprehensive optimization for 4K Ultra-HD video on mobile networks. It offers carriers up to five times more data savings compared to previous technologies. Openwave Mobility’s DynaMO, is now capable of optimizing High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) [see "ITU New Approved Video Codec will Save 50% Bitrate" - here] to achieve optimum HD video playback on mobile devices .. DynaMO’s HEVC optimization is available for trials and demos immediately"

[Related post - "Openwave Mobility Deploys Cloud-based Mobile Video Optimization" - here]

source: 4K Shooters - here

"DynaMO is the industry’s first NFV-ready audio, HD and media optimization solution to help carriers manage the bandwidth constraints on their networks. DynaMO uses a combination of contextually-selective and congestion-aware optimization techniques to provide the highest quality video experience for users. Taking into account each subscriber’s device, it intelligently adapts video optimization to fit the original video. The solution monitors individual users’ data sessions, optimizing videos only when networks are congested and to the extent where smooth playback can be achieved".

See "Openwave Mobility Develops An Industry First: 4K Ultra-HD Video Optimization for Mobile Devices" - here.

[Analysys Mason]: Telco S/W Market to Reach $34.2B in 2018

A new report by Analysys Mason finds that (see also "[Anaylsys Mason]: Ericsson and Amdocs Led the Telecom Software Market in 2013" - here]:

• The worldwide telecoms software market is forecast to grow from USD25.1 billion in 2013 to USD34.2 billion in 2018, at a CAGR of 6.4%.
   
• LTE network upgrades worldwide are driving spending in OSS/BSS. Investments in North America (NA) and Western Europe will decline initially as deployments are completed, but software revenue will be sustained over the forecast period by increased spending in emerging markets.
   
• The service delivery platform (SDP) market is the fastest-growing telecoms software segment, at a CAGR of 10.1%, driven by take-up and usage of mobile data services.
   
• Network function virtualisation (NFV) will begin to impact the industry during the mid-to-late forecast period, driving the need for new OSS/BSS solutions that can support both the virtualised and traditional network environments.
  

See "Telecoms software: worldwide forecast 2014–2018" - here.

Allot Transfers its US Video Optimization R&D Center to HQ (Israel)

Bruce V. Bigelow reported to the xconomy that "Israel’s Allot Communications is shutting down its San Diego-based operations, which came with the 2012 acquisition of Ortiva Wireless, a spokeswoman confirmed today. About 20 employees are affected by the shutdown, according to an e-mail from Maya Lustig, director of communications for Allot, which is based near Tel Aviv, in Hod Hasharon. Ortiva, which specializes in optimizing video streaming across wireless networks, had 41 employees in San Diego when the deal closed". 

Related posts:

• [Rumors]: Allot to Buy Ortiva Wireless - here
• [Done!] : Allot to Buy Ortiva Wireless - here
• Allot: Cost of Ortiva Acquisition - Less than $17M, in Cash - here
• Allot Integrates Ortiva and Oversi into the Service Gateway - here
• Allot Launches the Acquired Ortiva Video Optimization Solution - here
• Allot's Revenues from 2012 Acquisitions - here

Yaniv Sulkes [pictured], AVP Marketing, Allot Communications provided me with the following comment:

"Allot Communications views video-related solutions as a core part of its offering to its customers. As part of this view we have developed many different solutions in this area – solutions for video-caching, video-optimization, video-analytics and others. The operation and development of most of these solutions is done mainly from Allot's headquarters in Israel, while part of the video-optimization development is done from our facility in San Diego". 

Source: {Core Analysis}

"Further to our continuing goal to best support and answer our business and customer needs, Allot decided to begin a process of transferring and centralizing all video knowledge regarding markets, products and support to our headquarters in Israel. We aim to complete this process by the end of this year and as a consequence, we are gradually closing our facility in San Diego. We believe centralizing our video capability will enable us to continue to improve the solutions, services and support we provide to our customers".

  

See "Allot Closing San Diego Operations Two Years After Ortiva Buyout" - here.

Will Allot's $5M Order Rebound the DPI Market?

The recent announcements from Procera Networks (See "Procera: Q3 Revenues Decline by 25% Y/Y" - here), and other TEMs (Juniper), resulted in a free-fall for the pure-players DPI shares.

Allot, Procera and Sandvine Stock Performance, 5 Days

The announcement made by Allot Communications on Friday (during the holiday season and weekend in Israel) tries to regain some confidence in the market, and to show that the multi-million $  projects are still out there (but sometime they take a long time to show-up in revenue, says Sandvine - see "Sandvine: IBM is a 10% Reseller with an 'active pipeline of opportunities'" - here).

Allot's Service
Gateway Tera

Allot announced that it has " ..  received expansion orders of over five million dollars from two Tier-1 mobile operators for the Allot Service Gateway Tera for delivering value-added services to the Operators' subscribers. 

The key offering enabled by Allot is a virtualized security service which protects subscribers and boosts ARPU. This follows a $15 Million expansion order from another major Tier-1 operator [here] that was announced recently for the Allot Service Gateway Tera and associated value-added services".

See "Allot Communications Receives Expansion Orders of Over $5 Million Dollars from Two Tier-1 Mobile Operators" - here.

Sandvine: IBM is a 10% Reseller with an "active pipeline of opportunities"

Sandvine published its Q3 results (see "Sandvine Reports Q3 2014 Results" - here). Revenues were $27.9M, within the range estimated by the company at the beginning of Q4 (see "Sandvine Receives $5M Expansion Order (CALA)" - here).

During the earning call, Sandvine's CEO, Dave Caputo, explained that "When we provided our Q3 revenue estimate, we had explained that a couple of significant deals that we had been working on during the quarter were delayed. We have now closed one of those deals .. the other deal that I referenced in my call still hasn’t closed and can be as far out as December. We’re still confident that we can win that business but sort of stuff happens and there is no question that it takes sales effort to continue to bring those over the line, and so I wouldn’t read into that".

Scott Hamilton [pictured], CFO, added - "I’m certainly getting the feeling that customers are becoming more focused on particular things that I believe is going to defer revenue into a period after from which we’ve received the order, and so while on a long-term basis that doesn’t necessarily impact us, it could impact short-term results from period to period" (i.e. acceptance by customers).

Sandvine filling to the Canadian Authorities (here) shows that for the first time, IBM joins Alcatel-Lucent as a 10% reseller (see also "Sandvine CEO Bullish on IBM Relations" - here and IBM's document - "Dynamic Policy Management for Mobile and Fixed Networks" - here).

Dave explains: "Certainly, we’re very pleased and excited to see the IBM relationship develop .. it was a couple of end customers that drove that, but there is an active pipeline of opportunities, so hopefully this won’t be the last time. They are a major reseller for us. We like system integrators who like to pull together best-of-breed solutions to provide a compelling use case for our customers and no one can doubt IBM’s resolve on the business intelligence, smarter planet, smarter networks, network analytics side of that, that’s a big part of their global corporate messaging and theme". 

See "Sandvine's (SNVNF) CEO Dave Caputo on Q3 2014 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha, here.

Allot and Procera Push NFV-based DPI

Allot Communications and Procera Networks take the NFV concept one step forward and demoed some capabilities, during SDN & NFV USA 2014 in Dallas, TX., that took place earlier this week, and in SDN & OpenFlow World Congress, Germany next month. 

• Allot, participating in both events, announced the ".. demonstration of a virtual Traffic Detection Function (vTDF) as part of a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) network to enable application-centric plans and advanced services. 
  
  Allot’s vTDF provides all of the capabilities provided today by the physical TDF including traffic detection, analytics, policy enforcement and charging. In addition, the vTDF offers cost savings, reduced time to market for new and complex services and deployment flexibility advantages. The vTDF can be deployed anywhere in the network, from the RAN to the core network, to facilitate application-centric use cases and services".
  
  See "Allot Demonstrates Industry’s First Virtual Traffic Detection Function at SDN & NFV USA 2014" - here (see also "Vedicis and 6WIND Launched Virtual PCEF and TDF" - here)
    
• Procera announced that during the event in Germany it will be "participating in the ETSI NFV proof-of-concept #19 on the acceleration of network functions in carrier networks. Procera’s Network Application Visibility Library (NAVL) will be embedded in the NFV proof-of-concept solution in collaboration with Avago, Ericsson, Tieto, and ARM.
  
  NAVL is an easily integrated embedded intelligence engine that provides real-time, Layer-7 classification of network application traffic and metadata extraction in a reliable, scalable and cost-effective way to deliver industry leading coverage and accuracy".
  
  See "Procera Networks to Discuss Possibilities of Mobile Policy Control at SDN & OpenFlow World Congress 2014" - here. (see also "Procera: "lower than anticipated total addressable market" for NAVL" - here). 

Procera: Q3 Revenues Decline by 25% Y/Y

Sandvine is not the only DPI vendor seeing a slowdown in the standalone DPI market (see "Sandvine Receives $5M Expansion Order (CALA) "- here). Sandvine blames the long process of closing large deals and acceptance by some customers for delaying orders and revenue recognition.

Procera Networks also announced its preliminary results for Q3. The company says that "Revenue for the third quarter of 2014 is now expected to be approximately $16 million, a year-over-year quarterly revenue decline of approximately 25%. The ratio of bookings to revenue for the third quarter of 2014 is expected to be above 1.

The company expects the gross margin rate target range in low to mid-60%s for the third quarter of 2014. Revenue for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2014 is expected to be in the range of $70 million to $75 million, compared with $74.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2013".

This brings the first 3 quarters revenues to $51.1M, so the estimated revenue for Q4 is in the range of $19-24M, compared to $21.3M in Q4 2013. Shares of Procera went down by 19% in after-hours trading, following the announcement made after market close.

James Brear, President and CEO said: "Our second half of 2014 revenue performance is expected to be below the company's plans because of large opportunities not closing as quickly as originally anticipated. The customer prospects remain in our pipeline and we hope to close a number of them"
See "Procera Networks Announces Preliminary Third Quarter and Full Year 2014 Financial Update" - here.

Telenet [Belgium] Replaces DPI; Upgrades PCRF

  

FTS announced that ".. Telenet, a long-standing FTS customer, has carried out a major upgrade to its Leap™ Policy Control software solution. Telenet, a member of the Liberty Global Group, uses Leap Policy Control for bandwidth quota and policy management. FTS’ solution serves as an integrated policy control and charging (PCC) solution within Telenet’s network and BSS environment. It provides Telenet with volume-metering [related post: "Telenet (Belgium): Unlimited, but Fair Use, Means 2.7TB per Month!" - here] and associated rating functionality for its customers and delivers the source data for the informative Telenet Telemeter portal. This deployment ensures that Telenet’s subscribers will continue to benefit from personalized packages and quotas while providing Telenet with immediate upsell opportunities". 

"This upgrade also sees FTS’ Leap Policy Control deployed within a virtual environment and includes integration with Telenet’s new DPI infrastructure. Virtualization enables Telenet to benefit from significant savings on hardware investment, ensuring a more cost effective, scalable and flexible infrastructure". 

FTS declined to comment on the identity of the new DPI supplier, who replaced the Cisco CSE [see "Cisco Expands SCE Line with a 60Gbps and Virtual Models" - here] solution used by Telenet [here], nor if the new DPI solution is virtualized as well,  

See "FTS Strengthens Relationship with Leading Belgian Telecom Provider" - here.

Nokia will Include Flash Network Gateway in its Offering

    

Nokia Networks announced it ".. has signed a partnership agreement with Flash Networks to include Flash Networks’ Harmony™ Gateway [see chart below] as part of its mobile broadband core network offering. The market leading solution [see "Flash Networks (40%) and Citrix (30%) Lead the Mobile Optimization Market" - here] enables operators to optimize video and web traffic for an improved user experience, including faster web browsing and downloads, smoother video viewing, and content control services. 

Source: {Core Analysis}

Thorsten Robrecht [pictured], VP, Head of Product Management, Nokia Networks said: “With the addition of Flash Networks’ offerings into our mobile broadband portfolio, we create a significant value-add and enable mobile operators to maintain a competitive edge by providing the fastest network possible while handling the dynamic growth in mobile data”.

Flash Networks' Harmony™ Mobile Internet Services Gateway

See "Nokia Networks enters into partnership with Flash Networks" - here.

Verizon Wont Optimize LTE Congestion by Temporary Throttling

Back in July Verizon announced that it will ".. expand its existing Network Optimization to include unlimited data customers who use 4G LTE devices .. when an unlimited data customer meets specific criteria and hops onto a cell site that is experiencing high demand. This is only a temporary reduction, not a billing cycle throttle. Once that customer leaves the cell site under stress, their connection should return to normal" (see "Verizon Expands "Optimization" to LTE Subs to Fight Cell Congestion" - here).

Something has changed, and Verizon announced recently that "We’ve greatly valued the ongoing dialogue over the past several months concerning network optimization and have decided not to move forward with the planned implementation of network optimization for 4G LTE customers on unlimited plans. Exceptional network service will always be our priority and we remain committed to working closely with industry stakeholders to manage broadband issues so that American consumers get the world-class mobile service they expect and value"

Verizon "Network Optimization Practices for Customers with Unlimited Data Plans" (here) is yet to be updated. It explains the optimization practice ("To optimize our network, we manage data connection speeds for a small subset of customers – the top 5% of data users on unlimited data plans – and only in places and at times when the network is experiencing high demand") but excludes only some LTE customers ("Only a small percent of customers will be affected. To be affected, you must be a data customer on an unlimited data plan who is among the top 5% of data users. Network Optimization of 4G LTE devices does not apply to government customers or business customers who have signed a major account agreement").

 

See "Ensuring the Optimal Wireless Experience" - here.

[UK]: Cable Service is Faster than Fiber!

According to a new research by the UK regulator, Ofcom, the "average broadband speed delivered by cable services is now faster than that of fibre - In the six months to May 2014, the average speed delivered by cable broadband reached 43.3Mbit/s, overtaking the average speed for fibre connections for the first time (42.0Mbit/s)"

Average broadband speeds for fixed broadband connections,
all connections including ‘up to’ 2Mbit/s and less, by technology
Source: Ofcom

Key findings from Ofcom's research show that between November 2013 and May 2014:

• the average actual UK broadband speed increased by 5% (0.9Mbit/s) to 18.7Mbit/s;

Average UK broadband speed:
May 2014 Source: Ofcom

• take-up of superfast services (those with a headline speed of 30Mbit/s and above) increased from 24% to 28% of connections, while average superfast speeds remained stable at 47Mbit/s;
   
• the extent to which speeds were maintained during peak evening times varied significantly between broadband packages, ranging from 76% to 96% of maximum speeds"

Finding regarding providers:

• "Virgin Media's ‘up to' 152Mbit/s cable service, which launched in February 2014, achieved the fastest download speed over a 24 hour period, averaging 141.9Mbit/s
   
• This was followed by BT's ‘up to' 76Mbit/s fibre package, which delivered an average download speed of 62.0Mbit/s
   
• EE's ‘up to' 38Mbit/s package experienced the greatest degradation in speeds during peak times. The average speed for this type of connection between 8pm and 10pm was 27.2Mbit/s - 76% of the maximum speed (35.8Mbit/s). Five per cent of consumers on this package received average peak-time speeds that exceeded 90% of their maximum speed
   
• In comparison, customers on Sky's 'up to' 38Mbit/s package saw the least degradation in average speeds. Speeds achieved during evening peak-time (34.5Mbit/s) were 96% of the average maximum speed (35.9Mbit/s)"

See "Average cable broadband speed overtakes fibre" - here.