TM Announcements: GreenPacket Enhances Offloading with Policy Control

Last week I published an analysis by Telesperience, concluding that "Mobile offloading: not being done very smartly" (here). It seems that Greenpacket also noticed the need for smarter management of the offloading process and developed the missing piece.

The Malasyan based vendor announced that it "..has enhanced its robust Intouch Connection Management Platform (ICMP) to comply with the 3GPP-defined standard for networking connectivity function, namely the Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF). The enhanced ICMP now enables mobile operators to dynamically offload subscribers from congested cellular networks to WiFi networks using intelligent switching rules based on operator’s network management policies and controls"

See "Greenpacket Launches 3GPP-ANDSF Compliant Dynamic Data Offload Solution" - here.

"Being 3GPP-ANDSF compliant, the ICMP has been fully tested with leading Policy Charging and Rules Function (PCRF) systems and will work universally with any 3GPP compliant PCRF node on mobile operator’s networks"

Kelvin Lee (picture), Senior General Manager of Greenpacket said: “As the ANDSF-ICMP is embedded into the subscriber’s devices, mobile operators can now collect real-time information about the subscriber’s network conditions, including WiFi networks. Without ANDSF, mobile operators would have lost visibility of their subscriber’s activity once they switch to WiFi.”

Background - "Juniper Research: By 2015 63% of Mobile Traffic will be Offloaded to a Fixed Connection" - here.

European Carriers Ask [Again] to Charge Content Providers [Google]

 

Source: FT.com

The issue of peering agreements between the larger content providers (Google et al.) and the major European carriers was raised again (see previous activity below).

Maybe it was recent US conflict between Comcast and Level3 (here) that brought up this issue again in Europe - but anyway the Financial Times reports that "Leading European telecoms companies want to levy significant charges on Google and other online content providers through an overhaul of the regime governing how data travel over the internet .. Operators in Europe complain that they are contending with an explosion of data on their networks, much of which comes from US sites such as Google’s YouTube video service .. The problem for the operators is that while some content providers may be willing to pay for prioritised delivery of their material, Google – a vocal exponent of net neutrality – is unlikely to be among them"


See "Europe telecom groups target Google" - here.

• Elie Girard (picture), France Telecom’s head of strategy said “our current peering agreements are no longer viable. If the Internet is to continue to develop sustainably, we need to set charges linked to the amount of traffic that goes through our networks.”
   
• Telefonica’s chairman Cesar Alierta said: “All the peering agreements are going to change, which means [online content providers] will have to pay for traffic.”

Background: This is not for the first time:

•  "Telefonica CEO: "Google and Yahoo! use networks for free, which is good news for them and a tragedy for us" - here
• Deutsche Telekom CEO: OTT providers should pay for High Quality" - here 
• "French Government: Google and Foreign OTTs to Pay for Networks Usage" -here)