Tango Claims the Lead in Policy Server Performance

  
Tango Telecom joins the policy server vendors publishing their performance numbers (see BroadHop and Bridgewater/Amdocs). I am not sure if one can compare product performance based on these statements, but transparency and visibility, as we know, are important qualities.

Tango announced ".. the completion of a record breaking Policy performance benchmark on the latest generation of COTS blade servers using Xeon 6 core CPUs .. The Tango iAX™ Data Policy Server achieved sustained performance of over 12,000 PDP contexts established per second per blade, at 70% CPU utilisation. The platform also demonstrated unprecedented scalability, to over 192K contexts/second from a single blade server chassis".

Kieran Kelly, CTO of Tango Telecom, commented: “.. The next wave of policy solutions, as well as offering sophisticated features such as load aware policy and dynamic pricing, must be able to scale way beyond what is currently possible. To put this exceptional benchmark in context, just a single fully equipped blade server, with the Tango iAX™ Data Policy Server, could establish data sessions for over 11M data subscribers in a single minute”.

See "Tango shrinks the world" - here.

PCRF Deployments [95]: Open Mobile [Puerto Rico] Uses Bridgewater to Manage Upcoming LTE Services

     

Amdocs announced that "Open Mobile, a leading mobile operator in Puerto Rico, has selected Bridgewater’s advanced policy and subscriber network control solution, for its new Long Term Evolution (LTE) network ..The Bridgewater solution will enable Open Mobile, a Bridgewater customer since 2007, to rapidly launch new LTE data services such as the creation of volume-based packages with pre-set quotas, real-time subscriber redirection to top-up service quotas, and roaming controls to manage data usage and prevent mobile bill shock. The solution will also allow Open Mobile to manage and monetize mobile data with real-time policy control and improve subscriber transparency with dynamic notifications when service quotas are reached".

According to TeleGeography, 3 MNOs in Puerto Rico are planned to launch LTE services in early 2012 - AT&T, Claro and Open Mobile.


See "Puerto Rico’s Open Mobile Selects Bridgewater Solution for New LTE Network" - here.

SingTel Digital Media CEO: "user experience will become the greatest differentiator for service providers"

  

Now, that Amdocs acquired Bridgewater (here) they started to push the policy management market. 

Dana Porter (picture), VP and Head of Amdocs Global Marketing, posted about the recent Amdocs Asia Pacific InTouch Business Forum, held in Singapore on June.

" .. Amdocs CEO Eli Gelman publically discussed our recent decision to acquire Bridgewater Systems. This acquisition will combine our proven technology with policy management, so that service providers can prioritize services on the network according to the type of customer. For instance, service providers can offer faster broadband speeds to “high value” customers so they remain satisfied and consume more"

Dana brings as an example Singtel's "priority pass" service (here).

  

"During an innovation panel that I chaired at InTouch, Loo Cheng Chuan (picture), the acting chief executive officer of SingTel Digital Media, pointed out that “in a commoditized market, the user experience will become the greatest differentiator for service providers.”

See "Speed, Singapore and Service" - here.

Amdocs Acquires Bridgewater for US$215M, 30% over Market Price

    

The 2nd OSS/BSS M&A this week, and again (from this blog's narrow point of view) for 2 vendors each having its own PCRF product!

Amdocs announced that "it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all of Bridgewater Systems' outstanding common shares .. The transaction is valued at approximately CAD$211 million, or CAD$128 million net of Bridgewater's cash as of March 31, 2011 ..  In addition to product and solution synergies, Amdocs and Bridgewater share numerous top tier customers, including Bell Mobility, Sprint and Telstra".

See "Amdocs Has Signed a Definitive Agreement to Acquire Bridgewater Systems, a Publicly Held Provider of Policy Management and Network Control Solutions" - (here, Amdocs) or "Bridgewater Systems to Be Acquired by Amdocs" - (here, Bridgewater)

Earlier this year, Amdocs had a "soft launch" of its PCRF product (see "Amdocs Launches PCRF" - here). 11 years ago,Amdocs acquired Solect, also a Canadian OSS vendor is in IP communications space, for $1B (here).

Congratulations, Ed and the Bridgewater Team!

Bridgewater: Use Cases for Policy Control

   

A recent post to Bridgewater Systems' blog - "Mobile Get Personal" - presents a number of use-cases for policy management.

See "A Day in the Life: How subscriber, service, and policy controls improve the consumer experience" - here.

The cases are presented by visiting "a ‘Day in the Life’ of a typical mobile user whose network operator has implemented subscriber, service, and policy control technology".

The illustration below tells the whole story .. "To summarize, then, our consumer can access the network and securely shift to Wi-Fi when necessary. He can also track his mobile usage when roaming by setting limits and notifications. The policy application on his device even enables him to receive special offers such as a roaming day pass or top-up. The biggest advantage to him today, however, was his ability to decide which of his apps had bandwidth priority – specifically, ensuring that his customer visit was unhampered by bandwidth issues. The moral of the story is that subscriber, service, and policy control technology benefits the consumer as much as the operator; everyone wins"

Other posts on Policy management use cases - Vodafone (here), Telefonica (here), AT&T (here), Comptel (here), Allot (here)

PCRF - DPI (as PCEF) Compatibility Matrix

3GPP standards-based PCRF (Policy and Charging Rule Function) and PCEF (Policy and Charging Enforcement Function) complaint solutions got lots of attention recently. It seems that most mobile operators, when considering implementing DPI (and other service-aware network elements), will be using this architecture.

Operators are always seeking for non-proprietary solutions. This ensures flexibility when choosing vendors - either as 2nd source or when they will consider replacing the supplier. Using a standard-complaint solution does not necessarily ensure that, but it certainly helps.

In the table below I present a PCRF-DPI (acting as a PCEF) compatibility matrix by the leading DPI and most PCRF vendors. The compatibility indications are based on information found on the respective companies' web sites or press-releases.


In some cases, when a vendor shows a large TEM (such as Cisco) in his technology partners page it may be there because of other reasons, not necessarily for PCRF-DPI interoperability.

I welcome vendors’ representatives to comment and add to the table, by providing a links to official announcements.

Related posts:

• Policy Server Market - Still Small, but Always Optimistic! - here
• EU Helps Preventing Mobile Bill Shock - here
• Venezuela’s Movistar Deploys Volubill PCRF - here
   

PCRF Vendor	PCRF Product	Allot	Arbor	Cisco	Procera	Sandvine
724 (Mobixell)	X-treme Framework Platform (XF)	●		●
Bridgewater	Policy Controller/PCRF		●	●		●
Broadhop	Service Management Engine
Camiant	Multimedia Policy Engine	●	●	●	●	●
Comptel	Comptel Policy Control™
Ericsson	Service-Aware Charging and Control (SACC)
Flash Networks	POLICY MANAGER
FTS	Leap™ Policy Control	●				●
HP	HP Policy and Charging(IUM)	●
Huawei	Open Control & Charging Gateway (OCG)	●
Kabira (Tibco software)	Policy Server			●
Openet	FusionWorks™ Policy Manager			●		●
Redknee	Policy Manager (PCRF)			●
Starent (Cisco)	Policy and Charging Control
Telcordia	Telcordia® Real-Time Policy
Volubill	CONTROL-IT Policy Manager
ZTE	ZXUN RCP	●