Accolade Launches Low Cost 100 GE NIC for DPI

Accolade Technology announced the "ANIC-100K, an intelligent, low-cost single port 100 GigE NIC for host offload and Deep Packet Inspection. 

The ANIC-100K captures network traffic at full line rate (100 Gbps) and performs advanced acceleration functions such as deduplication, flow classification, de-tunneling, load balancing and more.

The ANIC-100K features a unique architecture based on a scalable pipelined architecture, implemented in a state-of-the-art FPGA supported by a high performance DDR3 Memory sub-system. In Monitoring applications, the ANIC-100K offloads Host CPUs in applications that demand full 100 Gbps Lossless Packet Capture onto the adapter buffers and 100 Gbps transfer across the PCIE bus into Host Buffers. The ANIC-100K also features a high performance TX-DMA capability which operates on a Ring Buffer or in Scatter-gather Mode.
See "Accolade Introduces Advanced, low-cost 100 GigE Application Acceleration NIC" - here.

Airtel wont Surcharge VoIP; TRAI: "not in accordance with net neutrality, it was not illegal."

This time it took just few days for an MNO to drop its intentions to surcharge VoIP.

While Airtel said that "current VoIP model is not sustainable" the public reaction, as well as some government actions convinced it to drop the idea.

Reuters reports that "Bharti Airtel Ltd dropped a plan on Monday to charge clients extra for Internet communication services such as Skype, amid a debate on allowing equal access to web content and a backlash from subscribers .. The proposal sparked widespread complaints from Indians on social media and the creation of a website to fight against the plan. 

On Monday though, Airtel said the company had decided not to implement the policy in the face of "news reports that a consultation paper will be issued shortly by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on issues relating to services offered by OTT players including VOIP.

The head of TRAI, Rahul Khullar [pictured] , told local media last week that while Airtel's decision to charge more for these services was not in accordance with net neutrality, it was not illegal."

Well played Airtel. http://t.co/oLKlbEF5dI pic.twitter.com/ay3E7P8Dgp
— Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) December 29, 2014

See "Bharti Airtel drops move to charge more for VoIP calls" - here.

"The Interview" Downloads: Sony Vs. Torrent

While "The Interview" had modest distribution and revenues in movie theaters, it gained nice on line traction, mainly in the legitimate (paid) rental and purchase - but also in file sharing:

• Liana B. Baker report for Reuters that "Sony Pictures said on Sunday that the "The Interview" had been purchased or rented online more than 2 million times, generating more than $15 million in the first four days after the controversial comedy's wide theatrical release was shelved.
  This would rank the film, which angered North Korea and triggered a cyberattack against the studio, as the No. 1 online movie ever released by Sony Pictures, the company said in a statement.
  The film has also brought in $2.8 million in the limited theatrical run that began Christmas Day in more than 300 mostly independent theaters, according to tracking firm Rentrak".
  
  See "'The Interview' Becomes Sony's No. 1 Online Movie Of All Time" - here.
  

• ERNESTO, TorrentFreak, reported that "The unexpected release of The Interview is making headlines around the world, but for now only people inside the U.S. can see the film. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 200,000 people have already circumvented this restriction by turning to torrent sites where the film appeared just an hour after its official release. Even The Pirate Bay joined in and started pointing people to the movie as well".
  
  See "The Interview is a Pirate hit with 200K Downloads" - here. 

Sky [UK]: Streaming Viedo Drives Christmas 2014 Peak Traffic to Double

Sky Broadband announced that " Britain’s “connected Christmas” continued in 2014 after it analysed usage on its network, which reaches over 5 million homes across the country. The amount of data crossing Sky’s network peaked at 2Tbps – equivalent to about 1 million families streaming Disney’s Frozen in HD at the same time – and 100% up on last year. 

On Christmas Day over half of Internet traffic was from streamed video services including Sky’s On Demand service. 

Comparatively, on the famed Black Friday weekend Sky’s network saw a lower demand as customers took to shopping online instead of streaming videos.

Usage on Christmas Day surpassed the levels seen from Christmas 2013, with a steady increase in traffic on the day between 8am and 12noon as families switched on to spread some Christmas cheer. The Sky Broadband network then saw traffic drop between 1pm and 3pm as families across Britain tucked into their turkey side-lining any new devices. Post lunch data traffic then started to increase again, reaching an evening peak at 11pm, as the family settled to stream the latest Box Sets, browse the Christmas sales beating the crowds and share pictures of their present haul". 

See "Sky Broadband peaks from Christmas Day" - here.

Airtel: "current VoIP model is not sustainable"

The story of Airtel (and other Indian MNOs) plan to surcharge VoIP services (see "Indian MNOs to Surcharge VoIP Traffic" - here) develops in two directions, as reported by FirstPost: 

• As happened in other countries after such intention had been stated (Singapore, Netherlands), the Indian regulator "will look into Airtel’s plan to charge separately for Internet call services (VoIP) offered by apps like Skype, Viber and Line that will cost up to Rs. 10,000 per GB on 2G network and up to Rs. 4,000 per GB on 3G network to a user .. 'We will look into it. Government will come back with structured response,” Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad  [pictured]said on the sidelines of ‘Good Governance Day’ event organised by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology"
  
  See "Govt to look into Airtel’s plan to charge more for VoIP calls: Ravi Shankar Prasad" - here.

• And Airtel insists - "Airtel has gone ahead and announced its VoIP data pack. The VoIP pack will cost prepaid Airtel customers Rs 75 for 75MB of data over a 28-day period ..According to the statement, Airtel claims that the current VoIP model is not sustainable in its current form hence the need for an additional data pack. “Our voice services that are enjoyed by every one of our customers provides us the capacity to continuously invest in and upgrade our networks on an ongoing basis. We, therefore, believe that VoIP services in their current form are not tenable for us as a business. As a result we will charge separately for VoIP services,” says the statement".
  
  See "Airtel wants users to pay more for Internet calls: A look at its new VoIP data packs" - here.

New ZTE Patent: Policy Control Method And System For Converged Network

 
A new patent, by Tong Rui, Xiaoyun Zhou, Xiaoyun Zhou from ZTE was published.

Abstract:

A policy control method for a converged network comprises: in a roaming scenario, after learning that a user equipment (UE) accesses a mobile network through a wireless local area network (WLAN) access, a visited policy and charging rules function (V-PCRF) establishing a subsession serving WLAN Offload when establishing an S9 session to a home policy and charging rules function (H-PCRF), and carrying a WLAN Offload instruction. With the present document, the WLAN offload data can be distinguished from data routed back to an EPC network in the roaming scenario, thereby delivering policy control for the WLAN offload data.

See "Patent application title: Policy Control Method And System For Converged Network" - here.

Indian MNOs to Surcharge VoIP Traffic

While Airtel subscribers may enjoy free accesss to Facebook and Google (here and here), the Leading Indian MNO is going to surcharge VoIP services, a common step in the fight against OTT services.

In other countries, such a move led to tight Net Neutrality laws (Singapore, Netherlands).

Telecom Lead reports that "Indian telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has increased VoIP call charges to 4 paise / 10 KB for 3G service to take on OTT players. For comparison, Bharti Airtel charges 0.25 paise per 10 KB for traditional 3G data .. its rivals such as Idea Cellular and Vodafone India are expected to follow suit, leading to a debate over net neutrality.

At the end of June 2014, Airtel had over 209M subscribers,

Source: Airtel Investor Presentation: Nov, 2014

“We have made some revisions in the composition of our data packs and will offer VoIP connectivity through an independent pack that will be launched shortly. Our customers can continue enjoying voice calls over data connectivity by opting for this VoIP pack, or simply use VoIP services on pay-as-you-go basis,” a Bharti Airtel statement said.

See "Airtel takes on OTT with higher VoIP call charges" - here.

[Blog News]: Diameter Router List Updated

The Diameter Router Product list (here) has been updated.

The update includes broken links fixes and the addition of BroadFoward's product, BFX Interface Gateway, which was covered recently [here].

NI Deployments [333]: Aircel [India] Uses Astellia (Multi-$M Deal)

Astellia announced the "..signing of a multi-million dollar agreement with Aircel, one of India's leading innovative mobile services providers with a subscriber base of over 75 million. Astellia has deployed its Nova suite for the optimization of Aircel's 2G and 3G radio access and core network resources. It allows Aircel to detect impediments that may cause network quality degradations and take promptly corrective actions, thereby ensuring the availability and efficiency of the network. 

Furthermore, Astellia will leverage customer analytics to help Aircel understand and predict customer usage trends, optimize existing data plans or introduce new ones, address churn and optimize ROI on infrastructure investments".

See "Astellia to lead network and business performance for Aircel" - here.

[Infonetics]: "Despite the rise of mobile data, blended ARPU continues to fall"

A recent report by Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, Infonetics Research (the first after being acquired by IHS - here - Congratulations to J'Amy, Shira and the team!) finds that:

• "Worldwide mobile service revenue barely budged in the first half of 2014 (1H14), up just 0.5% from the same period a year ago, to $385.5 billion .. For the first time, voice usage slightly slowed, dragged by China where over-the-top (OTT) alternatives took their share, and mobile broadband overtook SMS as the largest revenue generator of mobile data. 

• Mobile broadband revenue rose 26% in 1H14 from 1H13 and continued to drive overall mobile services market growth .. Despite the rise of mobile data, blended ARPU continues to fall, but at a much slower pace in every region, including developing Asia Pacific"  

See "Mobile broadband overtakes SMS as largest generator of mobile data revenue" - here.

Mobilink Pakistan Get Free Twitter Data

Yet another "sponsored-Data" application for 38M+ subscribers of the Pakistani MNO, Mobilink. 

This time it is Twitter. which according to Alexa's stats is rated as the 15th largest site in Pakistan.

This follows earlier agreements with Nimbuzz [here] and Viber [here], both OTT chat services.

The operators announced that "Mobilink has entered into a partnership with Twitter making Mobilink the first and only operator in Pakistan to have an agreement with Twitter which is one of the world’s largest social media service .The partnership will allow Mobilink customers to use the innovative portfolio of Twitter mobile services on feature and smart phones all for free. Mobilink users will not incur any data charges on Twitter usage through browsing twitter.com on their phone or using twitter applications on their handsets.

Mobilink and Twitter have also launched a co-branded Twitter Pulse Homepage to help non-twitter users experience twitter trends and follow celebrities, communities and brands. To experience twitter pulse, open twitter.com from your feature phone and use twitter pulse without a twitter account".

See "Free Twitter Offer" - here.

Mobile Edge Computing Group Formed

The ETSI organization announced recently that "The first meeting of ETSI’s newly created Mobile-Edge Computing (MEC) Industry Specification Group (ISG) took place on 2-4 December 2014, hosted by Nokia Networks in Munich. 

The group has attracted 24 member and participant  organizations [here], including network operators, vendors, technology suppliers and Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers.

.. MEC is a natural development in the evolution of mobile base stations and the convergence of IT and telecommunications networking. Mobile-edge Computing will enable new vertical business segments and services for consumers and enterprise customers. Use cases include:

• video analytics
• location services
• Internet-of-Things (IoT)
• augmented reality
• optimized local content distribution and
• data caching

See "Executive Briefing – Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) Initiative" - here and "Mobile-Edge Computing – Introductory Technical White Paper" - here. 

See "New ETSI Mobile-Edge Computing Industry Specification Group starts work" - here.

DSC Deployments[332]: Teleena [Netherlands] Uses BroadForward

  

Teleena announced it has "..become the first European MVNE (operates over 20 brands for customers like Vodafone, BT and Liberty Global) to go live with a Next Generation Diameter Signaling Controller (DSC). BroadForward’s BFX Interface Gateway enables multiple use cases for Teleena including Diameter routing, load-balancing, mediation and 3G-4G interworking for LTE roaming ..  It facilitates the ever-increasing use of Diameter signaling in Teleena’s mobile network.

The flexibility to innovate at the speed of the ecosystem is increasingly important to Teleena as it offers managed mobile service solutions to many different types of customers, such as mobile (virtual) network operators, cable companies, retail brands and other enterprises throughout the world. 

See "Teleena first MVNE to launch Next Gen Diameter Signaling Solution" - here.

SON Deployments [331]: Vodafone Hutchison [Australia] Uses Amdocs

Amdocs announced that "..Vodafone Hutchison Australia has deployed Amdocs Self-Optimizing Networks (SON) solution [see "Amdocs Acquires Celcite for $129M; 2014 Expected Revenues (w/Actix):$68-103M" - here and "Amdocs Positions Actix/Celcite as its SON Solution" - here] to help with the program to improve its 4G coverage and customer experience across Australia. The solution helps Vodafone to free up 850 MHz spectrum previously used for 3G, so that it can be used for LTE. The 850 MHz spectrum is the most widely supported low-band spectrum currently supported by 4G smartphones and tablets, and provides a superior customer experience with fewer dropped data sessions.

Benoit Hanssen [pictured], CTO Vodafone Hutchison Australia, said: "The Self-Optimizing Network technology is playing an important role in the deployment of our low-band 850 MHz 4G network," said . "…and it allows us to differentiate our network experience across our 3G and 4G networks, in particular where we see dynamic traffic behavior",

See "Vodafone Hutchison Australia Deploys Amdocs Self-Optimizing Networks Solution" - here.

[ABI]: Sandvine, Allot and Citrix Lead the Independent $600M DPI Market

A new report by Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, ABI Research evaluates the "independent vendors delivering Deep Packet Inspection, Traffic Steering, and Policy Control in the Gi-LAN space, and finds Sandvine as best of breed, followed by Allot and Citrix ByteMobile

... This research covers the leading independent vendors, Allot, Citrix ByteMobile, F5 Networks, Ipoque, Sandvine, and Procera Networks that account for nearly US$600M in revenues in this market space.

With the DPI commoditized, the independent vendors work hard to present differentiated value propositions to the telecom market:

• Sandvine takes top rating because of its industry leading power-performance efficiency [see "Sandvine Adds a 200Gbps/2RU Appliance w/100GE Interfaces" - here], focus on compact form-factor suitable for distributed or centralized networks, and a very rich analytics and monetization emphasis.
   
• Allot takes second place with virtually the same power-performance [see "Allot Launched the New Service Gateway; Orders from 4 Operators (over $9M)" - here] but in a NEBS compliant ATCA platform.

Allot's ServiceGateway Tera

Sandvine's PTS 32000

• The Citrix ByteMobile ATM places third with the added richness of its total package solution, and also with NEBS compliance.

See "Sandvine, Allot, and Citrix Top ABI Research’s DPI and Traffic Management Competitive Assessment" - here.

Procera: Multi $M Order for 100 GE DPI Platforms

Procera PL 20000

The migration to 100 GE links on DPI gear continues, with announcements by the leading vendors (see "Sandvine: $5M Repeated Order for the 100GE Platform by US MSO" - here, "Allot: 2 Orders, $5M" - here and "Multi-Million$ DPI Win for Procera in Europe (w/100G)" - here).

Procera Networks announced more 100GE orders for "Several-million dollars". The vendor has ".. received several-million dollars of orders from Tier 1 operators for 100GE-equipped PacketLogic™ 20000 Platform [see "Vendor Review: Procera Launches 100GE DPI Device and Shares Market Insights" - here]. 

These deployments will leverage the 100GE interfaces deployed in existing or new PL20000 systems delivering Subscriber Experience solutions for fixed and mobile operators. Most of the revenue from these orders is expected to be recognized in the fourth quarter of 2014". 

Andy Lovit [pictured], SVP Worldwide Sales, Procera said: “The PL20000 has been selected by multiple operators over the past year due to the capability to easily add 100GE interfaces. Network operators are beginning to deploy subscriber experience and analytics solutions on 100GE instead of 10GE interfaces, and the PL20000 has segment-leading port density and performance for 100GE networks.”

See "Procera Networks Ships 100GE Interface Cards to Multiple Tier 1 Customers" - here.

ConteXtream Adds OpenDaylight-based, Carrier-Grade SDN Fabric for NFV

ConteXtream announced the launch of "ContexNet 4.0, the first commercially-available OpenDaylight-based, carrier-grade software-defined networking (SDN) fabric for network functions virtualization (NFV).

Taking advantage of OpenDaylight, OpenStack, OpenFlow and other industry standards, ContexNet 4.0 provides unsurpassed scale, supporting millions of subscribers with customized service profiles, as well as the resiliency, high-availability and extendibility requirements for carriers’ unique network needs. This complies with the Internet Engineering Tasks Force (IETF) horizontal standard interfaces for network virtualization allowing operators to create programmable networks that are not only flexible and self-healing, but also have a high degree of consistency. The solution also allows for geographically dispersed sites to be unified and operate as a single network". 

ConteXtream ContexNet

Nachman Shelef [pictured], CEO, ConteXtream said: “Today’s wireless carriers are facing a tipping point. They need to innovate beyond their traditional service model or become the latest commodity industry .. The cost of increased traffic without corresponding growth in ARPU has tightened profit margins for carriers, making it harder to continue building up the network to meet future needs and investing in R&D to identify and launch new services. ContexNet 4.0 allows service providers to optimize their network to meet traffic demands, control costs and introduce new services so they can open up new revenue streams”.

See "ConteXtream Announces First Commercially-Available OpenDaylight-based, Carrier-Grade SDN Fabric for NFV" - here.

[Ovum]: CSPs CapEx for 2014: $364B; Flat in 2015

A new report by Matt Walker [pictured], Principal Analyst, Ovum, finds that "Revenue growth rates for communications service providers (CSPs) remain modest, but CSPs will continue to invest heavily in their networks .. With global CSP capital expenditures (capex) forecasted to total more than US$2tn from 2014–19, the global analyst firm warns CSPs must continue to do less with more, leveraging new technologies, network designs, vendors, and operating models.

In a new report, Ovum reveals 2014 capex will likely be US$346bn, with fixed CSPs accounting for 41% of the total and mobile the remainder. Ovum expects:

• flat capex in 2015 due to mobile growing roughly the same amount as fixed capex declines. 
• The years 2016 and 2017 are likely to be weak capex-wise, for both the fixed and mobile segments. 
• We expect a modest recovery in 2018–19 as a new wave of fixed broadband, fixed cloud/data center, and mobile broadband upgrades start rolling out in a number of large markets".

See also "[Dell’Oro Group]: Why will Telecom Carrier Capex Decline in 2015?" - here. 

"..CSPs are also adding software intelligence into their networks, in many ways. Mobile operators have been deploying software-defined radios for many years, which may lower the initial capex requirements of radio upgrades. Software-enabled features also appear in most other parts of the network, even in optical transmission and fixed broadband equipment. Vendors typically spend 50–70% or more of product R&D on software, in fact, revealing its importance to future network operations. And then there are software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). While not necessarily offering immediate capex savings, one clear aim of CSP proponents of SDN/NFV is to lower both operations and capital costs, along with new service/feature deployment.

See "Ovum forecasts CSP capex over 2014–19 period will surpass US$2tn" - here.

Netflix to the FCC: "Open Connect is not a fast lane"

Earlier this month, FCC Commissioner, Ajit Pai [pictured], sent a letter (here) to Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, saying that Netflix "..has been working to effectively secure "fast Lames" for its own content on ISPs' networks at the expense of its competitors".

The claim refers to Netflix' CDN service, Open Connect (see "How does Netflix Manage Video Delivery?" - here) and may have to do with the statistics Netflix itself published on ISPs' performance (See "Netflix CDN Customers have More Fun" - here).

A similar claim has been raised in the past against BT and its Wholesale caching features (see "BT's Wholesale Content Connect Service and Net Neutrality" - here).

ChristopherLibertelli, VP Global Public Policy, responded in a letter to the Mr. Pai: "Netflix designed the Open Connect content delivery network (CDN) to provide consumers with a high quality video experience that enables ISPs to manage their networks in an efficient and cost effective way. Through Open Connect, Netflix brings data to the location(s) of an ISP’s choice, usually at common Internet exchange points or through localized caches. This is how most CDNs interconnect. Under the Open Connect program, Netflix bears all of the costs of providing Open Connect equipment to any ISP that chooses to participate in Open Connect.

Neflix Open Connect
hardware (here)

Open Connect is not a fast lane.  Since the beginning of this proceeding, Netflix has consistently opposed the Commission permitting ‘fast lanes” in consumer Internet connections.  Open Connect does not prioritize Netflix data. Open Connect uses “best efforts” Internet services into and out of its content  caches. When an ISP asks Netflix to localize an Open Connect cache within its network, it does not  disadvantage other Internet content. To the contrary, Open Connect helps ISPs reduce costs and better manage congestion, which results in a better Internet experience for all end users"

Only ISPs can speed up or slow down data that flow over their last mile. When Netflix directly

interconnects with an ISP, Netflix data does not travel faster than other Internet content VV unless an ISP is artificially constraining capacity to other data sources".

Cache Deployments [330]: CallPlus Brands [New Zealand] Uses Qwilt

Qwilt, announced it will ".. power the online video traffic delivered by leading New Zealand telcos Slingshot and Orcon. Qwilt’s Video Fabric Controller will be used by Slingshot and Orcon, both owned by New Zealand fixed line, voice, mobile and internet company, CallPlus, to cache and deliver online video traffic from a growing number of content providers, including Amazon, Apple, Hulu, Netflix and Twitch".

Back in July 2011, Bluecoat announced "CallPlus has selected Blue Coat®CacheFlow® 5000 appliances to help manage the large and growing demand of its customers for Internet content from outside New Zealand" (here) and in September 2010 Alcatel-Lucent announced that "it has been chosen by Orcon, the fastest growing service provider in New Zealand, to improve the delivery and experience of Internet-based video to its customers" (here).

"CallPlus selected Qwilt for the job because other vendors were unable to meet Slingshot and Orcon’s requirements for universal caching. Upon deploying Qwilt’s open caching technology, Slingshot and Orcon saw immediate savings in international transit costs and improved quality of experience (QoE) for its subscribers, when compared to competitive caching products".

See "Qwilt Selected by Slingshot, Orcon to Cache Increasingly Popular OTT Video Content" - here.

Devicescape: Integrated Wi-Fi/Cellular Service Increases Consumption

Devicescape shared ",, new data demonstrating that consumer consumption of cellular data grows significantly for the majority of users following the introduction of an integrated Wi-Fi and cellular service. Figures from commercial deployments of Devicescape’s ABC (Always Best Connected) solution revealed a 17% increase in billable monthly cellular data use from 64% of end users.

Devicescape’s policy-based ABC solution intelligently manages the movement of users between cellular networks, the Devicescape Curated Virtual Network of 20 million amenity Wi-Fi locations worldwide, and private hotspots in the home and office.

Given automated access to the best available networks, end users ‘supersized’ their overall data consumption. Within three months, the average user’s combined cellular and Wi-Fi data consumption grew by 48%.

While a 17% increase in cellular data represents an excellent operator revenue opportunity, end users themselves were able to exploit Wi-Fi for a dramatic increase in overall data consumed against a small incremental investment in cellular". 

See "Commercial deployments show increased Wi-Fi consumption drives appetite for cellular data" - here.

Qwilt Launched a Mobile Core and Edge Video Open Cache Solution

Qwilt unveiled the ".. Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric, purpose built to address the unique challenges of over-the-top (OTT) video delivery for mobile service providers. Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric is a new software defined networking (SDN)-based open caching and acceleration suite, allowing mobile operators to improve the performance of their network while maximizing their current infrastructure investment.

..The network strain, which will only get worse, is already causing the quality of experience (QoE) for video viewing to suffer from issues such as radio access network (RAN) congestion, buffer bloat, latency and packet loss in both RAN and mobile backhaul.

.. the Mobile Video Fabric, enables dynamic caching of unmanaged and managed streams of video content on mobile networks. This open caching solution, which can be deployed either at a centralized (Gi/SGi) level or distributed (eNodeB) level, will extract the most value and capacity from existing mobile network infrastructure by improving network effective capacity by up to 35 percent. Powered by the SDN-based Qwilt QwOS™ software and enhanced with transmission control protocol (TCP) acceleration capabilities, the Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric reduces network latency, improves throughput and addresses complicated mobile video RAN and backhaul challenges such as packet loss and congestion".

See "Qwilt Launches NFV-based Caching and Acceleration Solution to Power Video on Mobile Networks" - here.

Elisa (Finland) and Ooredoo (Qatar) Test Nokia's Centralized RAN for Faster Uploads

Nokia Networks announced the use of its Centralized RAN with two operators. "Centralized RAN reduces interference between neighboring cells and allows up to 10 times faster uploads at the cell edge. Battery life of smart devices last longer as they don’t need to transmit at high power to cut through the interference .. Nokia Centralized RAN technology is built on the company’s Flexi Multiradio 10 base Station .. The base stations work directly with one another over fiber optic, without the need for additional network elements":

Hartwall Arena

• Elisa and Nokia Networks have jointly conducted successful tests of Centralized RAN under extreme load conditions at the packed Hartwall Arena in Helsinki. Running on the operator’s live LTE network, the solution delivered data uploads more than two and a half times faster, while cutting smartphone power consumption by one third"
   See "Elisa, Nokia Networks boost speed of uploading content to web" - here. 

• "Nokia Networks and Ooredoo demonstrate, how uplink capacity can significantly increase with Centralized RAN. During large events in stadiums, there can be more uplink than downlink traffic as people upload pictures and videos. Nokia’s Centralized RAN links multiple LTE base stations to work directly with one another and doubles the average uplink capacity across a cell".
  
  See "Nokia Networks, Ooredoo show 10 times faster upload with Centralized RAN at ITU event in Qatar" - here
  

Allot: Security VAS Solutions Sold to 5 Carriers

Allot Communications announced it has "..received five orders for Allot ServiceProtector, a solution that provides protection against massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, prevention of outbound spam, and containment and cleanup of infected botnet hosts .. In response to growing cyber threats, five Tier-1 operators have selected Allot ServiceProtector to deliver and monetize value-added security offerings to customers. 

[Related posts: "Allot: 2 Orders, $5M" - here and "Allot Receives a $15M Expansion Order, W/Analytics and DDoS Protection" - here]

.. ServiceProtector Sensor and Mitigation functions are embedded within Allot Service Gateway platforms and Allot NetEnforcer devices to protect service networks against a number of growing threats including DoS/DDoS attacks against customer web services; Zero Day attacks; anomalous traffic impacting network and service performance; anomalous behavior such as spamming, worm propagation, botnet attacks; and malicious user activity such as probing and flooding".

Source: Allot Communications 

See "Allot ServiceProtector Selected by Five Tier-1 Operators to Secure High Capacity Networks from Evolving Cyber Security Threats" - here.

Germany: Chancellor Merkel Supports Fast Lanes for "New Uses" of the Internet

In the series "World leaders views on Net Neutrality", the next episode comes from Germany's Chancellor, Ms. Angela Merkel,

[See President Obama's position - "What's Next for Net Neutrality?" - here]

Adam Westlake reports to Slashgear that "German leader Angela Merkel made comments earlier in the week on the topic of net neutrality .. Merkel's position is in favor of a two-tier internet, where the "fast lane" will be for priority speeds, as long as ISPs have been paid their additional fees, while the other lane is supposed to act as the internet we know today. She feels that the future development of new uses for the internet is actually dependent on a two-tier format, as opposed to net neutrality proponents who feel a single, equal net is needed for growth.

.. new advancements like driverless vehicles or telemedicine wouldn't be able to function properly without priority treatment, regardless if ISPs need to charge more for their higher speeds". 

Ms. Merkel spoke at the "digitising Europe" conference, hosted by Vodafone. See the full speech (in German) - "Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel zum Digitising Europe Summit am 4. Dezember 2014" - here.

 

See "German Chancellor voices support for fast lane internet, opposing net neutrality" - here.

Allot @Verizon: 26 Locations

Recently I quoted an Infonetics Research survey, which states that "Respondents reported either buying or being likely to buy subscriber intelligence solutions from traditional analytics vendors, though nearly half indicated they were likely to buy from DPI (deep packet inspection) vendors". 

It seems that the survey's results are not just forward looking, but is already a reality, with one of the world's leading MNO.

A random review of one of Allot Communications former employee's profile in LinkedIn, shows that the engineer claims to be a member of the team servicing a Verizon Wireless subscriber analytics project:

 "Allot’s DPI product SigmaE-14 was installed in 26 Verizon Wireless (VzW) sites for Passive Network Subscriber Analytics. Performed software upgrades and solved issues reported by VzW. Involved in sizing of Allot products to VzW requirements in Southern CA sites. Team member to manage Allot’s Big Data Analytics (see "Allot Enhances Analytics w/Visibility, Granularity and Self-Service Approach" - here) POC to VzW".

Needless to say, this information should be treated as a rumor, as this former employee does not necessarily have accurate information about the project and its size. Allot itself has never identified Verizon as a customer, although rumors about the deal exist since early 2013 following former Allot's CEO, Rami Hadar, statement at 2013 Q1 earning call:

"The thing we will say is that U.S. Tier 1 mobile operator, the order is mainly around certain Value-Added Services, which, obviously, we will not go into detail. But it is around -- it's not a classical DPI at the moment"  (see "Allot's US Tier1 MNO $9M Order: 'not a classical DPI'"- here and the press release - here).

Verizon Customer's Agreement for its wireless service states, in the "My Privacy" section:

"We collect personal information about you. We gather some information through our relationship with you, such as information about the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination and amount of your use of our telecommunications services. You can find out how we use, share and protect the information we collect about you in the Verizon Privacy Policy, available at verizon.com/privacy"

The "Privacy Policy Summary" page states that "Verizon collects and uses information about our customers and website visitors when you interact with us, when you use our products and services, and when you visit our websites. This information is used to deliver, provide, and repair products or services; establish and maintain customer accounts and billing records; contact you about our products and services and direct offers or promotions to you; monitor website statistics; and manage and protect our networks. Information may also be aggregated or anonymized for business and marketing uses by us or by third parties. 

We may also obtain consumer information (such as demographic and interest data) from outside companies who provide such data. We use this data and combine it with other information we have to help us predict customer preferences and direct marketing offers".

Allot's Subscriber Analytics Reports

[Pyramid]: Trends in Mobile Data Services Driving $600B Revenues by 2018

A new report by Ozgur Aytar [pictured], Research Director, Pyramid Research finds that " .. the transformation of the mobile operator business model is evident in data pricing schemes that are innovative and disruptive in an ever-competitive market landscape worldwide:

• Competitive pressures call for operators to take a dynamic approach to tariff plans, whereby they constantly revise pricing and introduce new schemes to gain market share and increase data usage among existing subscribers.
   
• Shared mobile data plans for multiple users or devices have spread outside of the US, enabling operators to draw in the growing installed base of tablets as well as other connected devices
   
• Pyramid Research expects an increasing number of operators worldwide to pursue flat-rate or time-based charging for specific applications (e.g. streaming content and social media) as well as sponsored, zero-rating schemes in 2015 to boost data usage and 4G adoption and leverage the popularity of over-the-top content for upsell opportunities

Pyramid Research expects mobile data revenue to grow annually by 11% between 2013 and 2018, reaching over $600bn as compared to an 0.2% decline in mobile voice revenue in the same period"

See "Pyramid Research explores successful and emerging mobile data pricing strategies" - here.

[Infonetics Survey]: 50% of Operators will Buy Subscriber Analytics from DPI Vendors

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2014 Subscriber Intelligence Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey, by Shira Levine, directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, with the following findings: 

• “As [operators] look for ways to better monetize their customer base and differentiate against new competitors, we’re seeing interest in a wider range of analytics use cases, including identifying next-best-action marketing opportunities, ascertaining a subscriber’s relative profitability, and enabling variable charging based on factors such as network conditions and customer value

• The cost and time associated with subscriber data integration and migration are significant barriers to subscriber intelligence projects
   
• The top drivers behind respondents’ subscriber analytics initiatives are gaining a better understanding how subscribers use networks and applications and reducing subscriber churn
   
• Respondents reported either buying or being likely to buy subscriber intelligence solutions from traditional analytics vendors, though nearly half indicated they were likely to buy from DPI (deep packet inspection) vendors"

See "Subscriber analytics market opening up to alternative vendors" - here.

ALU Adds NFV-Based Malware Protection Solution

Alcatel-Lucent announced that "Motive is to introduce the Motive Security Guardian (powered by Motive Security Labs, formerly Kindsight Security Labs), a virtualized security solution to optimize both the delivery of services as well as the customer experience by protecting service provider’s networks, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, and mobile and home devices from malware that can degrade performance, mine information and even steal data minutes.

.. When malware is found on a device, its owner is immediately alerted with step-by-step instructions on how to remove the threat. This intervention can significantly reduce calls to care agents triggered by malware, such as complaints of mobile device batteries draining too quickly; bill shock due to pirated data usage; and unwanted pop-up ads on a laptop.

[Related post - "Kindsight Helps ISPs to Detect, Block and Remove Bots" - here]

.. Residing on an operator’s cloud network, it can identify and pinpoint malware on mobile or home devices without having to be installed on them. The solution can be onboarded and managed using Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand™ 2.0 NFV platform and can be rapidly scaled up or down to meet market demand". 

See "Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive to deliver virtualized security solution to help service providers ensure a safe ultra-broadband customer experience" - here.

Sandvine: $5M Repeated Order for the 100GE Platform by US MSO

Sandvine
PTS 32000

Sandvine announced that it has ".. received an expansion order for more than $5 million for its Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) 32000 hardware [see "Sandvine Adds a 200Gbps/2RU Appliance w/100GE Interfaces" - here] from a tier-1 North American cable operator. 

The order was received in Sandvine’s fourth quarter of 2014 and the company anticipates that shipment will begin in the first quarter of 2015.

This long-time Sandvine customer was among the first operators to place an [$4M] order for the PTS 32000 in November [see "Sandvine: $8M, 20 PTS 32,000, 3 Tier-1 Customers" - here], and this order represents continued deployment of multiple next generation PTS 32000s within their network to enable traffic optimization and business intelligence use cases".

PTS 32000 Performance Data

See "Sandvine Receives $5 Million Order For New 100GE PTS 32000 Platform" - here.

M-LAB Blames Transit Carriers for ISPs Service Performance Degradation

A new report by M-Lab concludes that "we observed sustained performance degradation experienced by customers of Access ISPs AT&T, Comcast, Centurylink, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon when their traffic passed over interconnections with Transit ISPs Cogent Communications, Level 3 Communications, and XO Communications.

In a large number of cases we observed similar patterns of performance degradation whenever and wherever specific pairs of Access/Transit ISPs interconnected. From this we conclude that ISP interconnection has a substantial impact on consumer internet performance -- sometimes a severely negative impact -- and that business relationships between ISPs, and not major technical problems, are at the root of the problems we observed.

Observed performance degradation was nearly always diurnal, such that performance for access ISP customers was significantly worse during peak use hours, defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the hours between 7pm and 11pm local time. This allows us to conclude that congestion and under-provisioning were causal factors in the observed degradation symptoms. 

It is important to note that while we can infer that performance degradation is interconnection-related, we do not have the contractual details and histories of individual interconnection agreements. As such, we cannot conclude whether parties apart from the two we identify are also involved (e.g. in the case that an Access ISP shares an interconnection point with another, etc.). We leave this non-technical question open for further study by others and focus here on the impact of what we can observe on consumer performance through measurement".

See "ISP Interconnection and its Impact on Consumer Internet Performance" - here.

Aterlo's CEO: "The idea is to charge a monthly subscription fee"

Following my post on Aterlo Networks  ("Ex-Sandvine Team NightShifts Netflix for Satellite Subscribers" - here) earlier this week, I had a short Q&A session with Gerrit Nagelhout, Atelo's CEO [pictured]. The first thing I learned is that Gerrit spent several years at Sandvine's R&D center in Israel (here), but more-importantly - much more on Aterlo's plans.

Gerrit started with the observations led to the starting Aterlo: 

When we left Sandvine, we set out to solve the problem of peak congestion caused by streaming media in the access network. We felt this was a space that didn't have enough focus yet. This is an issue for any network, but in particular the rural ISPs (satellite , fixed wireless and some DSL) are struggling to deliver a good Streaming Video experience. Being a startup we had to focus and choose one area so we started out with Netflix. 

Q: I understand that Aterlo targets service providers (here) as a market, rather than the consumers.

A: With our Sandvine background, we originally fully intended to sell directly to service providers. Although we are in talks with a number of them now, we actually started with the end consumers. As you probably know, selling to service providers can take time. We were looking for a way to bring our first version of the product to market as fast as possible in order to gauge interest and get valuable product feedback. We figured that from there we would see what would happen. Either continue to sell to end consumers and/or attract the attention of service providers and start working directly with them. In some cases it would even make sense to integrate our technology with their existing home gateways.

On the consumer front, many satellite internet providers structure their plans to have either unlimited/free or additional bytes available at night. These people typically can't use Netflix at all (or if they do only at very low quality levels and in great moderation). This was a perfect starting point for NightShift. We posted on a couple of ISP forums and got our first batch of beta customers this way. Somebody with free nights can now basically watch an unlimited amount of Netflix, while not causing the ISP any congestion issues as its all downloaded off peak. Actually it makes it better for the ISP even in this case for those that did use some Netflix during the peak already.

Q: What is the business model?
   

A; In terms of the end consumer business model, the idea is to charge a monthly subscription fee (something less than Netflix itself). NightShift currently supports various ASUS routers (pretty much anything running asuswrt with a USB port). We expect to expand upon this in the future. Part of our software runs on the router, and part of it in our cloud service (hence the monthly subscription). For now, consumers buy an ASUS router and a USB Flash Drive (typically 64GB), download our software onto the Flash drive, put it into the router and it automatically installs from there.

Q: What are the other benefits to the carrier?

A: At this point, NightShift is in beta and deployed at end consumers of a number of different service providers. We are now also in talks directly with a number of carriers. The benefits to the carriers are

• Reduction in peak bandwidth leading the less congestion and/or ability to add more subscribers to typically constrained capacity networks such as satellite
   
• Reduced churn in subscribers (or even additional subscribers)
   
• Potential value add packages they can sell to their subscribers while using off-peak bandwidth that is already available. 

Q: How do you select the content to cache? 

A: There are a couple of different models for selecting the content. NightShift automatically downloads subsequent episodes in TV shows when one episode is watched. This doesn't require any consumer interaction and is a great to way to automatically offload peak bandwidth. About 70% of Netflix is in the form of TV shows. 

For those consumers that want to download all Netflix at night (we are getting this a lot right now), we have provided a mechanism to schedule movies. That is currently done by watching the first few seconds of the movie from their Netflix player in order to provide a hint to NightShift. We are looking at other options for this in the future.

We do not break the Netflix DRM, you need an active Netflix subscription and internet connection to be able to use NightShift. NightShift stores the content in the same encrypted way that a network level cache would.  Because of this we think this is a good thing for content providers such as Netfix also as it will result in additional subscribers and improved QoS for them.