Ruckus Adds Policy Management; Buys Comability's IP

 

Doron Givoni

Director, Engineering

at Ruckus Wireless

Last week I mentioned Ruckus Wireless in a post about policy management for Wi-Fi networks (see "Smarter PCC Solutions Open the Door for Wi-Fi Charging" - here). We did not have to wait long to understand the sudden interest Ruckus shows in PCC.
  

Guy Grimland reports to The Marker that Ruckus is buying Comability’s intellectual properties (see "Policy Vendor ComAbility Closes Down"- here), which will be the foundation for its new R&D center in Israel. Comability focused on policy and subscriber management software for carriers Wi-Fi networks (covered - here).

 
According to the Comability's court assigned receiver, Yoav Kfir, at least 4 former Comability employees, including the CEO, Doron Givoni (pictured), are now employed by Ruckus. The company posted a couple of R&D jobs on Linkedin (here)

See the The Marker story here (Hebrew). See also - "KDDI to Deploy 120,000 Wi-Fi Offload Hotspots" - here

Policy Vendor ComAbility Closes Down

   

After having 36 PCRF vendors on my matrix (and there probably more out there), we now see the number of vendors shrinking. Telcordia (here) and Bridgewater Systems (here) were acquired by vendors that already had a policy offering, and now one of the smaller players is closing down.

Batya Feldman reported to Globes yesterday that "Ten days ago, Israeli start-up ComAbility closed down, and its 25 employees were laid off. On Thursday, the Tel Aviv District Court appointed Yoav Kfir of VAR Management as temporary receiver"

See "Subscriber management co Comability closes down" - here.

ComAbility (covered here) focused was on subscriber management systems for Carrier Wi-Fi services. Its customer base includes Swisscom, Turk Telecom and Turkcell. 

The Hebrew version (here) quotes the receiver, Yoav Kfir (pictured), saying that - "ComAbility has assets, technology and paying customers; we believe we can either revive it, sell the company or its assets".

Anyone interested - you know whom to call.

Yankee Group - Who are the Policy Management Leaders?

  
A new report from the Yankee Group determines the key vendors in the policy management market, one of "functions necessary to provide the next-generation experiences customers demand"

According to Yankee - "Key vendors include Openet, Volubill, Comptel, Telcordia , Tekelec[Camiant], Bridgewater Systems and Comverse" [As this is not an alphabetic order, does it show the market share ? click on the names to see my previous coverage of each vendor]

See "Yankee Group Lists the B/OSS Vendors Most Likely to Deliver a 4G Experience" - here.

"4G networks won't run themselves," said Susan McNeice, VP of research at Yankee Group and author of the report. "A complex mesh of people, process and technology is required to fulfill the operations mission. Even before operators deploy true 4G networks, customers are voting with their purchases that they want a next-generation relationship with their provider. That means a 4G experience from B/OSS is not an oxymoron; it's mandatory."

See also "Infonetics Research: Policy Servers Market to reach $471M in 2010 ; Bandwidth Management is the leading Driver" - here and a list of policy management vendors and their compatibility with DPI based policy enforcement devices - here.

[Update9 - ComAbility] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

   

ComAbility is added as the 20th PCRF vendor on my list. The table reflects the information received from the company, and the company is working on integration with an additional DPI vendor, as well as supporting other network elements.

"The ComAbility neXus distributed, Telco-grade subscriber and services platform is a policy solution featuring a stateless core engine that ensures performance, scalability, reliability, and automated service provisioning and troubleshooting capabilities. neXus applies a bottom-up approach for seamlessly integrating network devices which streamlines support for a rich portfolio of pre-integrated policy use cases. Simplified policy control enables Service Providers to provide extensive subscriber services through a Web-based management GUI or to offer subscriber self-service through a customizable, online portal. Among the many services available through the neXus platform"

PCRF Vendor	PCRF Product	Allot	Arbor	Cisco	Procera	Sandvine
724 (Mobixell)	X-tremeFramework Platform (XF)	●		●
BandWD	BwDRC- Dynamic Resource Control
Bridgewater Systems	PolicyController/PCRF	●	●	●		●
Broadhop	Quantum Policy Server		●	●
Camiant (Tekelec)	Multimedia Policy Engine	●	●	●	●	●
ComAbility	ComAbility neXus			●
Comptel	Comptel Policy Control™			●	●
Ericsson	Service-Aware Charging and Control
Flash Networks	POLICY MANAGER
FTS	Leap™ Policy Control	●		●		●
HP	HP Policy and Charging(IUM)	●
Huawei	Open Control & Charging Gateway	●
Kabira (Tibco software)	Policy Server			●
Nokia Siemens Networks	PCS 5000	●
Openet	FusionWorks™ Policy Manager			●		●
Redknee	Policy Manager (PCRF)			●		●
Starent (Cisco)	Policy and Charging Control
Telcordia	Telcordia Bandwidth Manager
Volubill	CONTROL-IT Policy Manager
ZTE	ZXUN RCP	●