[Exact Ventures]: Huawei Became the Largest PCRF Vendor

A new report by Exact Ventures finds that:

• The Policy Server/PCRF market [in 3Q15] grew 37 percent compared to 3Q14, to $202 million
   
• We expect that market growth grow by greater than 20 percent for both 2015 and 2016 and that the market will approach $1 billion for 2016

• Many operators are actively deploying VoLTE, and in some cases with video, prioritizing that traffic above all else is key to maintain and assure high quality of service. Specifically, VoLTE traffic is assigned a quality class identifier (QCI) value of 1, which guarantees a specific bit-rate, minimal packet delay (latency) and packet loss. The PCRF is the functional node within an operator’s network responsible for setting the QCI values for each mobile application.
   
• During the quarter, Huawei became the largest PCRF vendor by more than doubling revenues year-over-year to $62 million, narrowly edging Ericsson which grew nearly 50 percent versus 3Q14
   
• Huawei is very strong it its domestic market and other developing regions of Asia Pacific and EMEA where mobile data services are increasingly popular and operators are increasingly sophisticated about segmenting its targeted customers via tiered-data and sponsored data plans.

Vendors Covered in the report include: Alcatel-Lucent, Amdocs, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia / Redknee, Openet, Oracle, Sandvine and ZTE

See "Shared Data Plans and VoLTE Drive PCRF Revenues in 3Q15, According to Exact Ventures" - here.

US Patent for Distributed DPI Granted to Ericsson

A new US patent was granted to Francisco Cortes Gomez of Ericsson, for "DISTRIBUTED TRAFFIC INSPECTION IN A TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK" (here)

DESCRIPTION

Distributed Traffic Inspection in a Telecommunications Network Technical Field

The present invention relates to methods for traffic inspection in a telecommunications network and to corresponding devices. Background

In telecommunications networks, inspection of a payload section of data packets may be used for enabling smarter network decisions, e.g., with respect to controlling data traffic. For example, the inspection may be used as a basis for providing differentiated treatment of traffic based on potentially complex characteristics of the data traffic itself. This differentiated treatment may involve acting on the data traffic itself, e.g., by discarding data packets, modifying data packets, throttling transmission rates, or the like. Further, the differentiated treatment may involve taking actions related to the data traffic, e.g., charging or replication of the data traffic for law enforcement purposes or monitoring. Such inspection of payload may be implemented as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). DPI functionalities may for example be integrated in nodes conveying user plane traffic, e.g., in a gateway or transport node.

However, DPI may require significant amounts of processing resources. Accordingly, implementation of DPI in a node conveying user plane traffic may result in performance degradation of functionalities needed for conveying the user plane traffic. Such performance degradation may be up to several orders of magnitude.

In addition, the processing load caused by DPI may depend strongly not only on the complexity of implemented inspection algorithms, but also on the nature of inspected data traffic. For example, a high proportion of data traffic which is "easy to classify" may lead to relatively low processing load, while a high proportion of data traffic which is "hard to classify" may lead to a processing load which is significantly higher, e.g., up to several orders of magnitude, even if the absolute amount of conveyed data traffic remains unchanged. Although a statistical distribution of data traffic between „easy to classify" and „hard to classify" may be assumed as a general rule, this may alleviate high load variance within relatively short periods of time, but typically does not alleviate impacts from new traffic patterns or addition of complex services. For instance, the dissemination of a new virus/worm requiring complex detection rules, or the success of a new peer-to-peer product may significantly increase DPI load on a rather short time scale.

DPI may also be implemented in specialized nodes. Such nodes may be optimized for DPI and offer sufficiently high processing resources. However, as additional devices such specialized nodes typically require high-capacity network ports for transfer of the user plane data traffic. This applies to the specialized node itself, but also to other nodes connected to the specialized node. Such high-capacity network ports may contribute significantly to the overall cost of a node. Further, such specialized nodes are typically designed to offer processing resources which are sufficient to perform also very complex inspection and classification algorithms at high speed, which may result in significant costs for a given throughput of user plane data. In scenarios where the user plane data traffic has a high proportion of "easy to classify" data the expensive hardware of the specialized node would be utilized inefficiently. Moreover, such a specialized node may constitute an additional potential point of failure and add complexity to any high-availability transport network design.

Accordingly, there is a need for techniques which allow for efficiently inspecting traffic in a telecommunications network. Summary

According to an embodiment of the invention, a method of inspecting data traffic in a telecommunications network is provided. According to the method, a node of the telecommunications network receives data packets of a flow. The node also forwards the received data packets of the flow to a downstream node of the telecommunications network. Further, the node takes a decision whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the node. The node indicates a result of this decision to the downstream node.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, a method of inspecting data traffic in a telecommunications network is provided. According to the method, a node of the telecommunications network receives data packets of a flow from an upstream node of the telecommunications network. Further, the node receives an indication of a result of a decision by the upstream node whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the upstream node. On the basis of the indicated result of said decision by the upstream node, the node takes a decision whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the node. According to a further embodiment of the invention, a node for a telecommunications network is provided. The node comprises at least one first interface for receiving data packets of a flow, at least one second interface for forwarding the received data packets to a downstream node of the telecommunications network, and a processor. The processor is configured to take a decision whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the node and to indicate, e.g., via the second interface, a result of the decision to the downstream node.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, a node for a telecommunications network is provided. The node comprises at least one interface for receiving data packets of a flow from an upstream node of the telecommunications network and a processor configured to receive, e.g., via the interface, an indication of a result of a decision by the upstream node whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the upstream node of the telecommunications network. Further, the processor is configured to take, on the basis of the indicated result of said decision by the upstream node, a decision whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the node. According to a further embodiment of the invention, a system for inspecting data traffic in a telecommunications network is provided. The system comprises a first node and a second node.

The first node is configured to receive data packets of a flow, forward the data packets of the flow to the second node, take a first decision whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the first node, and indicate a result of the first decision to the second node. The second node is configured to receive the data packets of the flow from the first node and, on the basis of the result of the first decision indicated by the first node, take a second decision whether to perform inspection of a payload section of at least one data packet of the flow at the second node. According to a further embodiment of the invention, a computer program product is provided, e.g., in the form of a computer readable storage medium, the computer program product comprises computer readable program code that, when executed by a processor of a node of a mobile telecommunications network, causes the node to operate in accordance with any of the above methods.

[Infonetics]: Business Analysis of the 5 Leading SDP Vendors

 
A recent survey by Shira Levine, research director for service enablement and subscriber intelligence. IHS "profiles and analyzes the top 5 SDP software vendors as identified by service providers: Ericsson, HP, Huawei, OpenCloud and Oracle:

• Ericsson, Huawei and Oracle have all built strong portfolios, both organically and via acquisition, around the SDP opportunity, and that is reflected in their leadership positions in this year’s scorecard.  However, as the market shifts toward emerging opportunities such as API platforms and alternative delivery models, these established players may get a run for their money from smaller suppliers with a more targeted focus, 
   
• Ericsson’s longstanding presence in the wireless industry in general—and SDP market specifically—helps it land a leadership position
   
• Huawei ramped up in the SDP space quickly, gaining market share by selling into developing regions
   
• Oracle enjoys strong financials, a solid customer base, and a reputation for reliability and support which have helped the company maintain a leadership standing in SDP
   
• Despite a solid roster of customers, HP is struggling in the SDP market as it addresses financial issues and revamps its product suite
   
• Smaller player OpenCloud continues to grow by positioning itself as a less expensive and more innovative option to the larger SDP suppliers

See "IHS Names Ericsson, Huawei and Oracle Leaders in Service DeliveryPlatform Scorecard" - here.

IHS Survey: Microwave Market Shifts to All-Packet; Ericsson Leads

Richard Webb [pictured], research director for mobile backhaul and small cells, IHS ".. conducted in-depth interviews with 23 service providers from around the world who use microwave equipment in their networks and found that 51 percent of the microwave links they deploy will be Ethernet-only by 2017, up from 38 percent currently ..  In additional to capacity requirements for backhaul connectivity continuing to rise, operator confidence in deploying Ethernet for voice and data backhaul has been boosted by packet synchronization, reducing the need for TDM:

• Microwave equipment market is shifting significantly towards all-packet microwave through the next few years 

Source: WHAT IS PACKET MICROWAVE?. by Aviat Networks - here.

• By 2017, 52 percent will have more than 5,000 microwave links
   
• Ericsson leads respondents’ rankings of microwave manufacturers; Aviat Networks fared best of the microwave-only vendors

See "Mobile Operators Turning to Ethernet Microwave for Voice and Data Backhaul, Rate Vendors in IHS Survey" - here.

IHS: VoLTE Starts to Pick Up; Huawei Leads the SP VoIP and IMS Market

A new report by Diane Myers [pictured], research director for VoIP, UC and IMS, IHS finds that ".. global service provider VoIP (voice over IP) and IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) revenue was up 46 percent year-over-year in 2Q15, to $1.3 billion .. Spending related to voice over LTE (VoLTE) deployments is starting to pick up, especially in Europe and India, fueling continued strong growth in the service provider VoIP and IMS market ..As well, operators with commercial VoLTE networks in North America and Asia Pacific are purchasing additional capacity as subscriber numbers grow in those regions". 

"Huawei took the lead in overall service provider VoIP and IMS revenue market share in 2Q15 ..  Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, GENBAND and Mavenir (a division of Mitel) also had standout growth from a year ago". 

See "Service Provider VoIP and IMS Market Soars 46 Percent YoY in 2nd Quarter" - here.

MNO Survey: 5G is Still an Unknown; LTE Materializing

A new survey by Stéphane Téral, research director for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, IHS in which "operators were interviewed about their LTE network deployment plans, challenges and service offerings" finds that many do not know what 5G networks are:

"The 5G debate has started with great fanfare, hype and confusion, but little substance about what it is exactly and what it is not. For now, the mindset is still locked into mobile broadband as we know it with LTE, so it’s good that the ITU has just stepped in to define 5G in its brand new IMT-2020"

"Half of respondents participating in the study say they have already deployed LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) in their LTE networks [see "GSA: 497M LTE Subscriptions Worldwide" - here and "GSA: 360 LTE Networks Launched; 96 in 2014" - here] .. We are slowly but surely moving to true 4G, and that’s good news. However, most users already believe they are on 4G, and that’s the bad news because the experience is far from consistent and is falling short of expectations. How many times does your smartphone display LTE or 4G and you still see the infamous spinning wheel?”

"Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia (in alphabetical order) are perceived by survey respondents as the top LTE equipment manufacturers". 

Source: 5G Concept, by IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group - here.

Source: 5G Concept, by IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group - here.

See "5G Hype Aside, True 4G Is Finally Materializing, Says IHS" - here.

[Analysys Mason]: No Change in the $5.8B SDP Market Leaders

A new report by Glen Ragoonanan [pictured], Principal Analyst, and Gorkem Yigit,Research Analyst, Analysys Mason finds that "The service delivery platform market generated USD5.8 billion in revenue worldwide in 2014, up 11% from USD5.2 billion in 2013. LTE's impact on the overall service delivery platform (SDP) market increased, first in subscriber data management (SDM), then policy management (PM), followed by mobile content management and delivery (CMD), and finally, telecoms application servers (TAS) for mobile data and VoLTE services. Virtualised SDPs were being introduced in 2014.

.. the top-five SDP vendors were unchanged. Amdocs returned to the top six, thanks to a severe decline in Cisco's fixed CMD (FCMD): 

• Ericsson retained its leadership with 9% year-on-year revenue growth – primarily in the content management and delivery (CMD) sub-segment thanks to its acquisitions of Azuki Systems, Fabrix Systems, as well as Microsoft Mediaroom, which forms part of its Media Delivery Network (MDN) solution portfolio. Its other SDP revenue grew, though slower than the overall SDP market
    
• Huawei Technologies achieved the highest organic growth – 30% year-on-year – thanks to strong growth in the number of LTE subscribers in China because all three major communication service providers (CSPs) are rolling out LTE. It continued to win SDP business from other vendors in EMEA
   
• Nokia Networks’ revenue only grew by 5% year-on-year, compared with 11% for the overall SDP market. It remained the SDM leader, enjoying wins worldwide. Its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent could make it the SDP market leader
    
• Alcatel-Lucent’s revenue growth declined by -7% year-on-year as it restructured and refocused on network virtualisation and VoLTE, which were not significant drivers of SDP spend in 2014
    
• Oracle had low 4% year-on-year organic growth, compared with 35% inorganic growth in 2013, when it acquired Acme Packet and Tekelec
   
• Amdocs’ SDP revenue growth was flat in 2014, which reduced its market share, compared with 2013. It re-entered the top-six thanks to Cisco’s decline in fixed CMD (FCMD).

See "Service delivery platforms: worldwide market shares 2014" - here.

[Survey]: Huawei, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent are the Top IMS Vendors

  

Diane Myers [pictured], research director for VoIP, UC and IMS, IHS (Infonetics Research): "conducted in-depth interviews with global service providers that have IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) core equipment in their networks or will by the end of 2017 and discovered that only 8 percent are running IMS network elements in a network functions virtualization (NFV) environment today .. more are on the path by starting to utilize software running on commercial off-the-shelf hardware as a stepping stone to full NFV. One of the biggest drivers for NFV is the ability to scale services up and down quickly and introduce new network services more efficiently and in a timely manner, which makes IMS a good early fit for NFV".

"80 percent of service provider respondents indicated that parts of their IMS elements will be running in an NFV environment by 2017, which IHS believes is somewhat optimistic. In an open-ended question asking respondents who they consider to be the top three IMS infrastructure vendors, operators most often named Huawei, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent"

See "Service Providers Optimistic about Moving IMS Networks to NFV, Rate Vendors" - here.

Ericsson - Improve QoE by Radio Access and Transport Network Interaction

 
A new paper by Stefan Dahlfort [pictured], Shahryar Khan, Jonas Rosenberg, Anton Smith, Shuo Yang Y, Mats Forsman, and Tomas Thyni, all from Ericsson, presents a new concept for QoE Imprvement.

"The demand for mobile-broadband services is causing network congestion. While such congestion tends to be temporary, it has a significant impact on user satisfaction. By adopting a holistic approach to network architecture, one that enables the radio and transport domains to share information, proactive measures to avoid congestion can be put into place, increasing the number of users at or above the desired QoE level"

"Our concept for radio access and transport network interaction [RTI] is a two-step process that first attempts to proactively avoid congestion and then address any congestion issues that cannot be avoided. For example, if information about transport path congestion can be included in the handover decision, moving users to a cell with congested transport can be avoided. But to do this, the RAN needs to be transport aware and the transport network needs to be RAN aware"

See "Radio access and transport network interaction – a concept for improving QoE and resource utilization" - here (full article - here)

[Survey]: OTT Partnerships Drive SDP Deployments; Oracle, Ericsson, Huawei Lead

A new survey of "21 convergent, mobile and cable operators" by Shira Levine, research director for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, IHS (Infonetics Research) finds that "nearly half of respondents identified supporting partnerships with over-the-top (OTT) providers and better monetization of subscriber data as very important drivers behind their service delivery platform (SDP) deployments .. Operators continue to deploy long-standing use cases such as messaging and single sign-on via their SDPs, but they are increasingly looking to expand the capabilities the SDP to support new use cases including partnerships with OTT providers and better monetization of subscriber data” 

• The majority of respondents have deployed their SDPs on-premises with commercially-available hardware, though virtualized deployments on shared hardware and via an internal cloud are most likely to be under evaluation
   
• Consequently, support for deployment on commercially-available hardware came in relatively high on the list of key criteria for SDP suppliers, although product reliability and support capabilities topped the list
   
• Oracle is the SDP supplier cited as a leader by a majority of survey participants, with Ericsson and Huawei following closely behind [links are for product pages]

See "OTT Partnerships, Subscriber Data Monetization Top Reasons Operators Deploy Service Delivery Platforms" - here.

[Infonetics]: Huawei and Cisco ($89M) are the PCC Market Leaders

 
Maywun Wong announced in Cisco's Service Provider blog that "Last week, we were thrilled to receive the news that Infonetics scored Cisco Policy Suite as a Leader in the Policy Management Scorecard. 

Cisco was one of only two leaders recognized by Infonetics in this space and was recognized for building “… up its position in the market rapidly after its acquisition of BroadHop [Dec '12; here], demonstrating strong momentum around policy virtualization”.

See also - 

• Policy Management Market Rises 27 Percent in 2014; VoLTE, Data Monetization Play Big Role" - here 
• [Infonetics]: "significant changes in the policy management vendor landscape" - here.  

See "Cisco Scores as Leader in the Infonetics Policy Management Scorecard" - here.

[ABI] Encryption Drives Mobile Optimization to a $40B Over 5 Year Market

While many think that the legacy DPI, optimization and traffic management functions lose their role in network management due to customers' demand for QoE, OTT services and growing video traffic, ABI research thinks differently - and the reason is the use of encrypted traffic.

A new report by Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, Mobile Networks, ABI Research sees the "worldwide market for mobile network monitoring and optimization exceeding US$40 billion over the next 5 years... LTE uptake in China leads worldwide traffic growth, including video, and pulls along the monitoring and optimization markets. 

Widespread adoption of SSL-encryption changes the game from compression, transcoding and transrating to throttling, pacing and manipulating the Adaptive Bitrate Stream from the content provider to achieve operator goals. State-of-the-art traffic management technology delivers a better customer experience and virtual capacity gains that operators will appreciate.

Mobile optimization is more important than ever and the advent of all IP services, including VoLTE, VoWi-Fi, LTE-U / LAA requires close attention from the operator to assure QoE. With an eye to monetization, DPI, Optimization and Policy remain the largest segments and come together as part of a total revenue enhancement solution. 

All leading network infrastructure vendors, including Ericsson, Nokia Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, offer their own or partnered solutions.Likewise, the independents, such as Citrix ByteMobile and Openwave Mobility, provide differentiated, targeted and ready-to-use solutions for every mobile broadband operator"

See "LTE Adoption to Drive Network Monitoring and Optimization Spend Past US$40 Billion" - here.

Ericsson's 2020 Predictions: 14GB/Month, Smartphoneד, Video ...

Some highlights from Ericsson's new Mobility Report, forecasting how mobile data will look like in 2020:

• Advanced mobile technology will be commonplace around the globe: smartphone subscriptions will more than double, reaching 6.1 billion, 70% of the world's population will be using smartphones, and 90 percent will be covered by mobile broadband networks.

• Smartphone data is predicted to increase ten-fold, when 80 percent of all mobile data traffic will come from smartphones. Average monthly data usage per smartphone in North America will increase from 2.4 GB today to 14 GB by 2020.
•  26 billion connected devices 

• Mobile video traffic will grow by a staggering 55 percent per year and will constitute around 60 percent of all mobile data traffic by the end of that period. Growth is largely driven by shifting user preferences towards video streaming services, and the increasing prevalence of video in online content including news, advertisements and social media.

See "Ericsson Mobility Report: 70 percent of world's population using smartphones by 2020" - here.

Verizon Transfers its Network to SDN Control

While we saw mixed feelings on SDN so far (see "[LightReading]: SDN/NFV Still Doesn’t Show Capex Savings for US MNOs" - here and ["Strategy Analytics]: "Operators are beginning to see the huge potential for SDN""- here), Verizon made a very strong statement with its "key technology partners" - Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper Networks and Nokia Networks.

Verizon announced it is "transforming its network by implementing a software defined network architecture, laying the groundwork for new innovative services and applications. This SDN-based architecture is designed to introduce new operational efficiencies and allow for the enablement of rapid and flexible service delivery to Verizon’s customers.

.. To enable its network vision, Verizon and its technology vendors have co-authored a comprehensive SDN network architecture document, which includes all interface specifications and reference architectures plus requirements for both the control layer and forwarding box functions. This network architecture document will enable Verizon’s key technology partners to develop solutions to achieve the business and technical benefits of an SDN-enabled network.

Much of the foundational work required to deliver on Verizon’s next-generation network has been underway for several years. Verizon has created live lab environments in San Jose, California; Tampa, Florida; and Waltham, Massachusetts, and has commercial data center environments on both the East and West Coasts".

See "Verizon Announces Software Defined Networking Strategy" - here.

[ABI]: Citrix, Openwave and Ericsson Lead the $400M Optimization Space

ABI Research announced it has evaluated the "..leading vendors for Video, Audio, Web and Data Optimization the Gi-LAN space, and finds Citrix ByteMobile with the most compelling total value proposition, followed by Openwave Mobility and Ericsson. ABI Research finds web and video optimization performance as mainly determined by the x86 architecture, and the vendors differentiate along the lines of packaging and the depth of value adding features such as monetization, big data analytics and traffic management bundles.

The leaders in each category include:

• Overall: Citrix ByteMobile, Openwave Mobility, Ericsson:
   
• The Citrix ByteMobile ATM takes top honors with its long standing market reach and total value proposition of its web and video optimization, content caching, and added value in DPI, traffic policy enforcement
   
• Openwave Mobility takes second honors and keeps up the pressure with an innovation clean sweep in depth and breadth, analytics, subscriber and monetization innovation focus
   
• Ericsson takes a not-surprising third award with the rich value proposition of its Multi-Service Proxy and Service Enablement Platform
   
• Implementation: Citrix ByteMobile, Ericsson, Flash Networks
• Innovation: Openwave Mobiity, Citrix ByteMobile, Ericsson
  

Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, ABI Research said: “Nobody buys just video optimization, and now that the fundamental technologies are commoditized table stakes, we enrich the evaluation to consider the total value proposition including analytics and monetization, When an operator buys into one of these solutions, it is economically efficient to consider the big picture bundle.” 

"This research covers the leading vendors that offer video, audio, web and data optimizations solutions, including Allot, Avvasi, Flash Networks, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Networks, Opera Software, and Vantrix, and accounts for a large part of the US$400M in 2014 revenues in this market space".

See "ABI Research Ranks Citrix, Openwave Mobility, and Ericsson with Top Honors in the 2015 Mobile Web and Video Optimization Competitive Assessment" - here.

Ericsson: 4 Video Channels O/LTE Use 10% Capacity; Deployed by Telstra

Ericsson announced that "Ericsson and Telstra continue to lead mobile operators in the adoption of LTE Broadcast .. Following a series of successful trials in 2014, Telstra will deploy Ericsson's LTE Broadcast end-to-end solution on their Australian 4GX network. 

[Related post - "GSA: 16 MNOs Deploying or Trialing LTE Broadcast" - here]

The LTE Broadcast trials (here and here) run by Telstra and Ericsson in Australia have shown that three or four channels of video can be efficiently streamed along with complementary data channels. This traffic used as little as 10% of the 20 MHz carrier to cover all users. 

The adoption of High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) compression further improves network efficiency and potential picture quality (see "ITU New Approved Video Codec will Save 50% Bitrate" - here).

Source: Ericsson - LTE Broadcast a revenue enabler in the mobile media era (here)

In late February 2015, Ericsson and Telstra demonstrated LTE Broadcast transmission using HEVC encoders. HEVC encoding reduces the bandwidth required to deliver high quality video by around 30-40%, compared with existing MPEG-4 AVC coding, enabling operators to either deliver higher quality video or more channels in the same spectrum.

LTE Broadcast has a number of potential key use cases including new customer content experiences at sporting events, such as tennis, cricket, horse racing, car racing and other special events. Using the technology, event goers will be able to access multiple high quality video streams and event related data. 

Without LTE Broadcast technology, delivery of the video and data streams would have been via unicast, consuming significantly more spectrum and network resources. Delivery via LTE Broadcast will deliver an enhanced quality of experience to a higher number of subscribers than when served via unicast delivery".

See "Telstra deploys Ericsson LTE broadcast to enable video-centric applications" - here.

Ericsson: It's Always Facebook and 4 Other Apps

A new report from Ericsson finds:

• Two-thirds of app data traffic over mobile networks comes from top five apps in each country studied, with video streaming and social networking dominating .. each nation displays its own unique preferences - for example, in December 2014, the US top three included Netflix and YouTube, while South Korea was notable for peer-to-peer TV app AfreecaTV and home-grown search portal NAVER.
  
  Facebook was the number one app in each country studied.

• Total mobile video traffic of next six years will be around 17 times that of last six years
   
• Q4 2014: LTE subscriptions achieved higher net additions, with 110 million, than WCDMA/HSPA for the first time.
    
• FY 2014: 800 million smartphone subscriptions added worldwide taking the total number to 2.7 billion, up 40% from a total of 1.9 billion subscriptions in 2013

See "Mobile data traffic dominated by top five apps: Ericsson Mobility Report" - here.

Ericsson SSR 8000 Contracts Follow-up, Q4 2014

In its Q4 report, Ericsson provides their standard update on the number of VoLTE and SSR 8000 deployments:

• "The Ericsson solution for VoLTE continued to gain momentum across regions. Two customers in Japan launched commercial VoLTE services in the quarter
   
• To date 146 contracts for the multi-application IP router, SSR 8000, has been signed, since the launch in December 2011. During the quarter, 12 new contracts were signed of which two were for fixed networks".

See "Fourth quarter and full-year report 2014" - here.

[Infonetics]: "significant changes in the policy management vendor landscape"

 
A new survey by Shira Levine, directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, Infonetics Research, on the Policy management marker finds that:

"The next generation of policy management solutions has evolved to address the challenges associated with increased broadband consumption and a wider range of end-user devices. This shift has translated into significant changes in the policy management vendor landscape as suppliers look to refine and reposition their offerings .. There are new buyers for policy management within the operators and new requirements that policy solutions must address, and this has created challenges for many suppliers playing in the market -- a trend that we expect to continue in the coming years" 

Survey results: 

•  respondents put Huawei at the top of the list; Ericsson came in second, and Openet and Oracle tied for third
   
• Topping respondents' criteria for choosing a policy management solution are reliability and performance scalability
   
• While only 13 percent of respondents are currently running policy management software as a virtual network function (VNF), 57 percent plan to do so by the end of 2016. A surprisingly high 32 percent of operators surveyed plan to deploy policy via a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform by the end of 2016

See "Vendor shakeup expected in policy management market as operators seek more flexible solutions" - here. 

[TheDeal]: Procera for Sale; Sandvine is a "Better Buyer than Allot"

Procera trade on Friday - volume 4.2X average

TheDeal (see video below) reports that "Procera Networks  under attack from activist shareholders, has tapped Stifel Financial Corp. to shop the business, according to three sources familiar with the situation. 

For the Fremont, Calif.-based network equipment maker, the move comes after investor Ronald Chez in October urged the board to evaluate strategic alternatives, including a sale. Chicago-based hedge fund Castle Union LLC joined Cehz about a week later and disclosed its 5% stake in Procera, arguing that the company is undervalued and should be sold. Castle Union subsequently increased its stake to 6.6% in December [here]. 

'They're not distressed, but they're losing share,' said an industry source about Procera.'They're the third player in a three-man race.' In the communications equipment space, Procera competes with Hod Hasharon, Israel-based Allot Communications Ltd. (ALLT) and Waterloo, Ont.-based Sandvine Corp. (SVC). 

Toan Tran [pictured], a managing partner of Castle Union (one page Web site), told The Deal in October that he believed Procera could be sold for $12 per share or more and that it could garner interest from strategics such as Sandvine, Allot, F5 Networks Inc. (FFIV), Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and Ericsson Inc. (ERIC). He also said that of the two players Procera directly competes with 'Sandvine and Allot' the former would be a better buyer because Allot and Procera would be a tough cultural fit. 

Sources said Procera's recent board shift could bode well for a sale. The company appointed Tom Sapanos as new chairman in October [here], and the person he replaced, Scott McClendon, was known to be against selling Procera.

Procera's stock hit a high of $20 range in 2012. On Friday, shares finished at $9.15, a 5% rise from Thursday and up 28% for the year thus far. Castle Union told The Deal last month that it will launch a proxy fight and nominate at least four board members if Procera doesn't publicly start a strategic review process by the end of January"

See "Networking Company Could Sell to Allot, Sandvine, F5, Cisco or Ericsson" - here.