Comverse Acquires Acision for $210M

After selling a major portion of its activity, Comverse is now buying.

The company announced that it has "entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Acision, a privately-held leader in secure mobile messaging and engagement services, based in Reading, United Kingdom. Comverse will acquire Acision for a purchase price consisting of approximately $135 million in cash, 3.13 million shares of Comverse’s common stock [$75M], and potential earnout payments of up to $35 million .. the new company will be led by a team comprised of executives from both organizations under the leadership of Comverse CEO Philippe Tartavull and the company will remain headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, USA.

In addition to offering market-leading Cloud Multi-VAS and IP messaging solutions, the combined company will provide Service Providers, Over the Top (OTT), and Enterprise customers with a wide array of fast-growing mobile monetization, enterprise messaging and digital services in high growth segments .. The combined company’s expanded portfolio will extend into new digital application areas including data analytics, secure enterprise application-toperson (A2P) messaging, credit orchestration, two-factor authentication, and Machineto-Machine (M2M) communication as well as Rich Communication Services (RCS), WebRTC, and APIs for rapid service creation.

See "Comverse Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Acision; Combined Company to Extend Global Leadership in Next-Generation Digital Service Solutions" - here.

Acision Launches Diameter Router

  

Acision enters the fast growing (54% CAGR - here) crowded (here) Diameter routing market. The vendor launched ".. Acision Diameter Intelligent Signalling Controller (DiSC), enabling operators rolling out LTE and Evolved Packet Switched core networks, to dynamically control and manage increasing data traffic to drive efficiencies and protect their revenue streams. Acision DiSC controls 4G LTE Diameter signalling traffic, leveraging dynamic multi-layer routing mechanisms. This enables operators to develop an efficient Evolved Packet Switched Core network based on a future proof architecture, with increased resilience and smart signalling flow control. For example, pre-emptive overload protection helps to maintain the efficiency of Diameter traffic management during unexpected traffic peaks, or so called “signalling storms”. Our Smart Quality of Service (QoS) management also helps to ensure guaranteed signalling channels for the operator’s most valuable subscribers and services under any load conditions".

"Through the advanced Diameter interface control mechanisms, Acision DiSC also enables numerous LTE roaming and interconnect scenarios. With its range of security features, such as connectivity access control, topology hiding, volumetric traffic measurements and conditional protocol validations, an operator is able to ensure connectivity with other service providers regardless of whether their network is any combination of 2G, 3G or 4G, in a secure manner".

See "Acision launches Diameter Intelligent Signalling Controller; enabling operators to have greater control over Diameter based networks" - here.

Research Finds that Mobile Users Want Better QoE!!

    
A new consumer research launched by YouGov and Acision finds that "By competing on service Quality of Experience (QoE), mobile operators have an opportunity to improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn and drive new revenue streams .. The research, which questioned UK consumers .. shows that 77% of users having encountered some form of quality of experience issue using services on mobile broadband .. While overall satisfaction may have risen slightly, operators still face challenges with regard to improving mobile broadband service delivery, with 54% of consumers having experienced slow speeds and 42% having had connection problems .. 77% of consumers who use VoIP on their mobile phone stated that they have encountered problems with the service .. 70% of video users have experienced problems"

"..70% of those questioned stated that they would like to be notified in real-time about network congestion, while another 71% wanted to be notified about large download sizes, which may impact their data usage"

See the press release - here.

Sandvine Partners with Mobixell, Ortiva Wireless and Vantrix

 

Shortly after announcing the partnership with Acision [see "Going for a Service Gateway - The Sandvine Acision Partnership" - here], Sandvine announces that "it has partnered with three global companies for end-to-end media optimization solutions: Mobixell [here], Ortiva Wireless and Vantrix [here and here].. Operators can deploy such solutions with minimal investment due to Sandvine’s patent-pending, advanced, granular method for diverting traffic, which ensures that only appropriate traffic flows are redirected to optimization platforms. Similar solutions based on simple port-based redirection result in considerable network inefficiencies".

See "Sandvine Announces Media Optimization Solutions With Three Partners" - here.

“Sandvine’s traffic redirection technology provides a flexible and reliable way for wireless service providers to deploy media optimization in their networks,” said Ron Garrison, VP Product Management, Ortiva Wireless. “Mobile video optimization amplifies the capacity of the existing network, deferring capex and reducing opex for service providers while at the same time improving their subscribers’ quality of experience.”

Another step in creating a more complete multi-function traffic management solution (rather than independent "boxes" or point solutions) - and video optimization is surly one of more important add-ons to DPI/QoS management (or vice-verse) - preferably under the control of a single policy management entity.

[Dean Bubley] "Why isn't the implicit cost of transporting adverts being paid by their originators or agencies?"

   

Dean Bubley posted a challenge to the traffic optimization vendors and mobile carriers on his Disruptive Wireless blog - "it surprises me that the compression & optimisation specialists (Bytemobile, Openwave, Vantrix, Acision et al) don't target adverts and spam as "low hanging fruit". Ad-blocking as a service would reduce users' bills, speed up their browsing and could be configurable / opt-in like the PC browser add-ons".

See "Will advertisers be made to pay for mobile data use?" - here.

Not a easy question in light of Net Neutrality and the ability of carriers to insert ads (see "[WSJ] Carrier Ad-Insertion Returns!" - here). After all, it is not just the advertising industry that profits from a free distribution system built by the carriers, but so are all content providers.

Going for a Service Gateway - The Sandvine Acision Partnership

  

Sandvine announced today that "it has partnered with Acision, a world leader in mobile data.  The Sandvine-Acision partnership provides operators with detailed traffic insight and capabilities such as traffic flow control, subscriber control, service creation and differentiation, as well as intelligent content optimization for mobile networks."

See "Sandvine Announces Global Partnership With Acision" - here.

It makes sense that the different features and services offered now by DPI and mobile gateway vendors will consolidate into a single solution to reduce complexity and traffic latency while enjoying accurate application and subscriber awareness. DPI vendors are offering some of the gateway features today (they usually call it Value-added Services or eco-system) and the Sandvine-Acision partnership looks like a good first step for creating best-of-breed solution. I believe that this will lead for both product tighter consolidation (single chassis) as well as M&A in this space - creating a strong solution against competitive GGSN offerings.

The Sandvine-Acision partnership offers solutions such as:

• Selective Video and Web optimization that manages data traffic peaks and increases quality of experience [Acision]
   
• Traffic optimization that ensures fair usage for all network subscribers using flexible real-time policy control  [Sandvine]
   
• Policy Management and real-time rating which enables operators to differentiate their offerings, tailored to meet the demands of their specific market segments 
   
• Business intelligence that provides detailed insight and visibility into subscriber consumption and application analysis [Sandvine]

PCRF Deployments (35): Telefónica Group Selects Acision/Tekelec

   

Acision announced that "it will be working with Telefónica Group, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, to install key elements of Acision Broadband Mobility Suite [chart below] for policy management. As part of the deal, which will be rolled out in Europe and Latin America, Acision will provide a sophisticated policy engine including Tekelec’s Policy and Charging Rule Function (PCRF) platform"

See "Telefonica Selects Acision Broadband Mobility Suite for Intelligent Policy Control" - here.

Note that no specific deployments have been mentioned so it is very possible that Acision/Tekelec/Camiant are not the only platforms to be used by Telefonica subsidaries (see "Telefonica Spain Upgrades to Openwave Integra" - here).

Rory Buckley, Chief Executive at Acision, said: “By deploying Acision Broadband Mobility Suite, Telefónica will have full policy capabilities to help it manage and control all aspects of its mobile broadband traffic, while delivering an improved quality of experience and offering differentiated services and pricing plans that meet individual customer’s needs and drive up mobile data profitability.”

Acision Raised $100M; Comverse Lost $1B in 3 Years

A recent funding round by Acision provides us with some insights to the mobile data equipment market size and opportunity - "Acision .. is pleased to announce it has agreed a $100M package of new funding to enable the company to take full advantage of the opportunities created by the mobile data revolution. The new investment was led by existing shareholders Access Industries, with funding also provided by co-shareholders International Investment and Underwriting (IIU) and Atlantic Bridge."

See "Acision Secures Additional Investment to Support Growth Strategy and Address Market Opportunities in Mobile Data" - here.

In parallel, after years of financial troubles and reporting silence, Comverse Technology (holding company for Acision competitor, Comverse) published its annual report for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006 showing accumulated loss of close to $1B.

The results for the group, and its Comverse subsidiary were:

QoS Announcements: Acision Video Optimization - Scalable Transrating, Transcoding and Caching

  

Acision announced the "launch of Acision Media Optimiser, a key enhancement of the Acision Broadband Mobility Suite. While safeguarding the Quality of Experience for video users, Acision Media Optimiser reduces data traffic peaks by up to 50%, through a unique, affordable, scalability approach, which uses a fraction of the hardware footprint found in most legacy products."

See "Acision Launches Acision Media Optimiser to Provide High Quality and Affordable Video Optimisation for Mobile Operators" - here. 

I agree with the main advatage Acision is presenting. Many of the video optimization solutions have scalability problems, as lots of computing power is needed in order to support the foreseen number of concurrent streaming video sessions - which are growing exponneiialy (see - "Allot: Mobile Traffic Grew by 68%, Video Streaming by 92%" - here). Adding the cache feature is a good advantage as well.

Marco Wanders, Executive VP Mobile Broadband at Acision, says “Legacy optimisation solutions.. are economically unsustainable, as they require large server farms to deal with projected video traffic levels and are highly intrusive to content. Acision’s unique, subscriber aware video optimisation solution overcomes these drawbacks of legacy solutions, by providing content transparency and the lowest hardware footprint offered in the market today, reflecting a substantially lower total cost of ownership for the operator."

"Video shaping reduces video traffic in a highly efficient manner, without altering the content. Acision’s leading transrating and transcoding technology can be applied when required as well as off-line, providing operators full control over video Quality of Experience. Intelligent caching reduces internet traffic and saves transcoding resources by delivering transcoded content directly from the cache."

 

Related posts:

• 84% of Mobile Broadband UK Consumers Experienced QoS issues - here
• DPI Announcements - Acision Broadband Mobility Suite  - here
• [Wireless Week] Does Video Optimization Solve Mobile Data Congestion?  - here
• QoS Deployments (28): Networks Norway Uses Flash Networks for Video Optimization  - here
• Bytemobile Sees Optimization as Must Also for Next Generation Networks - here  

 

84% of Mobile Broadband UK Consumers Experienced QoS issues

 

"New consumer research .. by YouGov and Acision .. again reinforces the Quality of Service (QoS) challenges operators are facing with their mobile broadband services today. The research, which questioned UK consumers about their mobile broadband experience on smartphones, laptops and other mobile handsets found that, despite the rising popularity of mobile broadband:

• 84% had experienced Quality of Service issues
• Slow speeds are amongst the most encountered problem (67%)
• poor network coverage (49%)
• inability to get connected (45%) and
• connection loss (40%)."

See "UK consumers show broad support for increased fairness, content adaptation and service differentiation policies across mobile broadband services" - here.

"Steven van Zanen, senior vice president marketing, mobile broadband, at Acision, said: “When reviewing the research, we identified three key areas where operators can deploy capabilities to raise QoS levels:

• Defining fairness .. once aware of the issues surrounding the fair distribution of bandwidth, consumers responded positively to the option of allowing sophisticated fairness policies if this helped to improve the overall service.
   
• Content optimisation is a second area where operators can improve user experience
   
• The cost of offering high-quality mobile broadband at flat fees is becoming increasingly difficult for operators and making it hard for them to recoup investments and operating costs. However, analysis of user spend on mobile broadband demonstrates a very wide range of spend levels. This provides ample space for differentiated packages and pricing points, which can be set by operators and enables fairness for all.

Great to see such a perfect match between the general consumer opinion ("The research was carried out by YouGov, the international market research agency between 08/06/2010 and 10/06/2010 .. from a representative sample of 1,073 mobile broadband ") and the sponsor offering!

Related post "DPI Announcements - Acision Broadband Mobility Suite" - here.

Mobile Internet Gateway - Product List

My "Mobile Internet Gateway Function Matrix" (here) project continues. This time I present the list of vendors and their gateway product.

In the next step I will start to map the gateway functions (here) for each product.

Again, vendors are invited to send additional information to me directly.

Company	Product / Solution
Acision	Acision Broadband Mobility Suite
Allot Communications	Allot Service Gateway
Bytemobile	Unison Mobile Internet Platform
Comverse	Mobile Internet HUB
Cisco	Cisco Content Services Gateway
Ericsson	SASN – Service Aware Support Node
Flash Networks	HARMONY GATEWAY
Huawei	Wireless Integrated Service Gateway
Mobixell (724 Solutions)	Seamless Access
Nokia Siemens Networks	Browsing Gateway/ Open Multimedia Gateway
Novarra	Vision™ Mobile Internet & Multimedia Suite
Openwave	Traffic Mediation
Radware	Mobile Internet Service Delivery

DPI Announcements - Acision Broadband Mobility Suite

Next week's CTIA show brings some announcements - this time let's look at what Acision will be demoing.

Like many other vendors in related spaces, Acision is also addressing the traffic management aspect of mobile internet or as they say "enabling operators to gain control over their network utilization, while simultaneously increasing mobile broadband revenue and profit per gigabyte " (press release - here). All trendy keywords are there - "policy management and enforcement, web and media optimization, service allowance and bundle management, charging, location-awareness and VAS "

Some of the announced features, such as the following, require the use of DPI. I don’t see more detailed product information at the site nor list of technology partners providing these features, though.

• "Bundles where two devices, such as a laptop and a mobile phone share the same package" - this is a requirement from many mobile operators, trying to prevent customers abusing the service terms
   
• "Packages that exclude data-intensive applications that put high pressure on the network, like P2P downloading" - Requires DPI to identify, accurately, P2P.  

See an interview with Acision's Steven van Zanen, VP of Product Marketing, made last month at MWC.