Xura Launches a Signaling Security Solution

Xura (Comverse/Acision) announced the ".. availability of its Signaling Fraud Management System, built to protect mobile operators’ signaling networks from sophisticated exploits and security threats .. With a tightly integrated firewall and analytical module, Xura’s Signaling Fraud Management System provides mobile operators with advanced, real-time detection of malicious traffic alongside smart prevention mechanisms.

• Xura Signaling Fraud Management features an easy to control graphical user management interface that provides real-time views of detected security threats, blocked or suspicious activity, top attack targets and raises alarms in real-time for detected risks.
   
• In addition, the system has a world-class analytics engine that provides high performance data collection and real-time streaming analysis of incoming traffic. This advanced detection means operators can filter malicious messages and report on detected, blocked traffic.
   
• The solution also helps discover new fraudulent patterns, including attack source, types of attacks and attack targets. A flexible query module enables security teams to explore details of the captured traffic, to simplify and automate investigation efforts for the detected outbreaks. Lastly, native virtualization of the solution supports operators with hardware independence and plays a part in any ongoing NFV strategy. 

See "Xura announces availability of its Signaling Fraud Management System - detecting and preventing fraud on mobile operator’s core networks" - here.

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.

PCC Deployments [315]: Play[Poland] Selected Comverse

Comverse announced that "Play (P4) has selected the Comverse ONE Converged Billing & Active Customer Management solution to support expansion of services and functionalities for its advanced 4G/LTE network serving a rapidly growing subscriber base.

.. Upgrading to the new Comverse ONE product line addresses specific key Play requirements, such as: LTE Enablement ..  Virtualization and:

• Advanced Personalization Real-time marketing capabilities including flexible event based notifications for greater personalization, increased upsell opportunities, enhanced policy enforcement
   
• Rapid Time to Market: Native Diameter, advanced ordering workflow engine, reduced level of customized code for efficient support of new charging models and rapid response to future market needs at lower cost".

Play, is a consumer-focused mobile network operator in Poland with over 10.9M subscribers. During Q1 2014, Play continued fast roll-out of 4G LTE network, which reaches 30% of population. 

See "Play Poland (P4) Selects Comverse ONE Converged BSS to Power Real-Time Service Capabilities, New LTE Functionalities" - here.

PCC Deployments [269]: CTM [Macau] Selected Comverse

 

Comverse announces that "CTM Macau has selected Comverse .. and Tata Consultancy Services .. as partners for a business transformation that will redefine the user experience, facilitate monetization and reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) ..  The Comverse ONE® Converged Billing and Active Customer Management solution, including Policy Management and enhanced with long-term Operational, Advisory and Managed Services will facilitate consolidation of multiple lines of business and BSS systems to deliver convergent charging, optimized operations and advance CTM’s ambitious growth plans".

At the end of 2012 CTM had 745K mobile subscribers (18% increase compared to 2011), and 165K mobile broadband subscribers (34% increase compared to 2011). Macau has a mobile penetration rate of 275%.

See "CTM Macau Partners with Comverse, TCS to Transform Operations, Unleash a More Engaging User Experience" - here.

[Vendor Review] Comverse's New Analytics Supported Policy Creation

Just before they leave to MWC, I met two of Comverse's Mobile Internet marketing team - Inbal Ben Ami, Product Marketing Manager, and Haim Rapoport (pictured), AVP Product Marketing.

I used the opportunity for a short brief on Comverse mobile internet business, and to learn more on the new products Comverse will be presenting in Barcelona this year.

Comverse Data Management and Monetization business (formally MIH - Mobile Internet Hub), offers all components of traffic management - from a PCEF (figure 1) with DPI (by ipoque - here), filtering and optimization, through PCRF, to a convergent billing system (Comverse ONE), with full integration between all systems (see figure 2 - 3GPP Sy "and beyond" support for billing-policy management integration).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Comverse is financially strong - with revenues $675M  (Q4 '11-Q3 '12), $250M in cash and no debt. Comverse internet business is no longer focused on the mobile market only, but addresses the fixed market as well, with the PCEF/DPI and policy management offering.

Encouraged by Infonetics Research report, showing that the two most important selection criteria for policy management systems are "Flexibility of rules engine" (96%) and "performance scalability across complex use cases and session/subscriber growth" (88%), Comverse decided to increase the usability of its PCRF rules creation and editing.

On top of the existing graphical rule editing tools provided to the marketing people designing new products (here, figure 3), Comverse adds analytics to assists marketers in their work - "Analytics Supported Policy Creation", they call it. Now, when a new service plan is created, the analytics function may advice on the popularity of the rule defined (figures 4 & 5).

Comverse clarified that the analytics function is not yet commercially available.

Figure 3

Figure 4

 

Figure 5

PCRF Performance: Openet vs. Comverse Vs. Others

Both Openet and Comverse provided some information on their PCRF product performance. Both vendors show the same performance on the system (chassis) level, 200,000 TPS (assuming similar test definitions conditions and methods were used).

Some other vendors provided their numbers earlier - Tango Telecom, BroadHop (now Cisco) and Bridgewater Systems (now Amdocs) - each claiming to have the best results.

See below a short comparison of all tests published so far. Test scenarios,conditions and hardware configuration/cost are not the same in all tests. Probably even the definitions of TPS (or PDP contexts setups by some vendors) are not equal as well.

See also "Heavy Reading - '[performance boosted] policy management can play a vital role a telco’s overall product and service strategy'" - here.

Vendor	Date Published	Tester	System Performance (TPS)	Subscribers/ System	Blade Performance	Blog Post
Openet	Jan 9, 2013	Internal	200,000		25,000
Comverse	Jan 9, 2013	EANTC	200,000	31.5M	15,000
Tango Telecom	February 6, 2012	Internal	192,000		12,000	Here
Cisco (BroadHop)	November 17,2010	EANTC	28,000	20M		Here
Amdocs (Bridgewater)	September 15, 2010	EANTC				Here

Back to the recent announcements:

Openet announced that "Technical innovation by Openet engineers related to protocol handling, core processing, and memory utilization have achieved up to 100 percent performance improvement:

• More than double PCRF performance. Openet engineering advances achieved more than 200,000 TPS within a single policy system in lab testing. This measurement includes the in-memory database interaction and represents more than double performance versus any other policy product on the market.
   
• More than 25,000 TPS per blade for rating decisions. Openet’s product ecosystem includes real-time charging integrated with policy, essential to help operators create, manage and support modern business models.
  
  See "Openet Technical Breakthroughs Exceed Performance Standards" - here.  

Comverse provides test results "Conducted by the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) ..Test results indicate that the DMM Policy Manager is distinguished by having the highest independently proven transactions per second (TPS) figures in the industry per single chassis: 

• Verified 31.5 million simultaneously active subscribers in a single DMM Policy Manager chassis
   
• Measured more than 200,000 transactions per second in a single DMM Policy Manager chassis in all scenarios, including advanced LTE use case
   
• Support of 15,000 TPS per blade with linear scalability
   

         See "Independent Testing Confirms Comverse Mobile Internet Performance Leadership" - here.

[Update 61: ipoque <-> Comverse] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

ipoque ORX-10G

DPI vendor ipoque updated me that its PRX policy enforcement products are compatible with Comverse's PCRF. The PCRF-DPI matrix [here] was updated accordingly.

See also "DPI – Recent Product Announcements, New Player" - here.

[Analysys Mason]: Policy Management and Billing/Charging Systems to Converge

 
Article by Justin Van Der Lande (pictured), Senior Analyst, Revenue Management research programme, Analysys Mason concludes that "Policy management solutions were originally deployed to provide a protection function for networks. Increasingly, these solutions are being used in different ways to create and support new service offerings for service providers".

"The move by Amdocs to purchase Bridgewater Systems in 2011 was a clear reaction to this trend [tiered pricing], and is supported by other strong BSS vendors such as Comverse, Orga Systems, Netcracker (Convergys), CSGi and Oracle. These vendors are also joined by network equipment providers, such as Ericsson, Alcatel Lucent and Huawei, which are able to support solutions for both network- and billing-based deployments. Specialist vendors also still provide some standalone policy management solutions to the market".

The chart below "..depicts the three significant areas that have evolved to create policy management. In a recent survey carried out by Analysys Mason, the industry is expecting that over 50% of the use of policy management will be in conjunction with charging solutions. This percentage is expected to increase over time as new broadband networks come to market and costs of implementation must be recovered through better data charging".

See "Will policy management become just a function of billing systems?"  - in Analysys Mason's "TELECOMS PERSPECTIVES" - here.

Winners of the Broadband Traffic Management Congress Awards

The Broadband Traffic Management Congress, now on its 4th year, announced the winners awards (see the short list - here - link below lead to relevant posts):

1. Best Signaling Solution for Traffic Management: Tekelec 
2. Best Use of Traffic Management for Improving Customer Experience: Huawei
3. Best Content Optimization Tool for Managing Video Traffic on Mobile Networks: Flash Networks
4. Best Mobile Offload Solution for Enhancing Customer Experience: Aptilo 
5. Most Innovative Tool for Driving Real-Time Intelligence: Avvasi
6. Best Real Time Charging Platforms for Customers: Comverse 
7. Most Effective Solution for Integrating RAN-Awareness into Policy Management: Commprove
8. Best Integration of Traffic Management into OSS/BSS Architectures: Comverse 
9. Most Innovative New Service Launch Enabled By Traffic Management: Procera Networks

[Infonetics]: Operators Say they Need to Replace Convergent Charging Systems

An operator survey conducted by Shira Levine (pictured), directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy, Infonetics Research, shows that "Skyrocketing mobile growth has led to a dramatic increase in mobile transactions, driving some convergent charging systems to the limit and, in many cases, driving operators to replace the systems they already have in place ,, New service offerings and hybrid (prepaid and postpaid) accounts are highly rated applications driving convergent charging system deployments .. 'Supporting marketing initiatives' topped the list of business drivers behind respondents' convergent charging investments".

"In an open-ended question asking operators who they consider to be the top three convergent charging solution suppliers, operators most often named Amdocs, Ericsson, and Huawei".

In June Infonetics forecasted that carriers will spend $14B on convergent charging over next 5 years - see "Comverse, Huawei and Ericsson Lead Convergent Charging Market ($14B/5years)" - here. 

See "Operator survey: Scalability, reliability trump price in convergent charging market; Amdocs, Ericsson shine" - here

[Infonetics]: Comverse, Huawei and Ericsson Lead Convergent Charging Market ($14B/5years)

  

A new research by Shira Levine, directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy, Infonetics Research concludes:

"Comverse narrowly regained the revenue lead in the fast-growing and hyper-competitive convergent charging market, with Huawei and Ericsson close behind, and Amdocs ramping up its market share over the past year .. We expect operators to spend a cumulative $14 billion over the next 5 years on convergent charging software and services .. Many are integrating their solution portfolios with policy management capabilities to enable flexible service bundles that better tie the amount of bandwidth consumed to the price charged".

Related guest posts: "Why Not a Single Vendor for Policy and Charging Controls?" (here) vs. "Policy and Charging: The Value of Independence" (here).

Infonetics forecasts $3.9B revenues for the convergent charging market in 2016 (see chart); previous report (here) forecasted $3.2B for 2015.

See "Carriers to spend $14 billion on convergent charging over next 5 years; Comverse regains lead" - here.

PCRF/DPI Deployments [125]: Hutch Telecom [Sri Lanka] Selected Comverse to Enable Monetization

  

Comverse announced that "Hutch Telecom Lanka, part of the Hutchison Whampoa Group, selected the Comverse Mobile Internet Data Management and Monetization (DMM) solution for the network’s rapidly growing data traffic, accelerating implementation of new plans and offerings to enrich the user experience and generate new revenues in Sri Lanka"

" .. The comprehensive solution selected by Hutch Telecom Lanka includes a pre-integrated DMM PCRF Policy Manager with the DMM DPI Traffic Manager [see here about Comverse DPI] and the DMM Application Gateway. .. Pre-integration with Hutch’s existing Comverse Real-Time Billing makes the solution truly end-to-end for rapid creation of data monetization plans facilitating lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and accelerating time to market." (see also "Comverse Adds Policy Creation Graphic Tool; Integrates with Billing" - here).

See "Hutchison Telecommunications to Optimize Mobile Internet User Experience with Comverse Data Management and Monetization" (here)

PCRF Announcements: Comverse Adds Policy Creation Graphic Tool; Integrates with Billing

 
Comverse announced ".. Mobile Internet Data Management and Monetization (DMM) Policy Studio to help service providers streamline the creation and implementation of data plans to improve the user experience and drive data revenues .. The DMM Policy Studio is designed to significantly accelerate creation, testing and implementation of customer-centric plans and innovative approaches to marketing by speaking the language and sharing the mindset of operator marketing teams. The attractive self-explanatory graphic interface [see screenshot below] can enable even the most non-technical marketers to begin rolling out superior revenue-accelerating data plans intuitively and quickly – with practically no learning curve".

Using the Policy Studio, the CSP marketer can choose from a multitude of segmented plan templates .. divided to categories .. Examples are Basic Tiering, Prepaid Experience, Parental Services, Upsell, Sharing, Priority Services and Two-Sided Models with OTT Providers.

Like previous announcements from HP, Openet and Amdocs, Comverse also emphasizes its combined policy management-billing/charging integration - "Tight linkage between policy management / policy enforcement and Comverse ONE® BSS differentiates the solution with a unified approach that can boost agility — expanding the range of functionalities and policy-based services while reducing costs"

See "Comverse Introduces Mobile Internet Data Management & Monetization Policy Studio to Accelerate Creation of Revenue-Boosting Data Plans" - here.

[Update 52: Volubill-Ipoque] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

   
Volubill and ipoque announced that "..the companies have partnered to provide PCRF and PCEF solutions for fixed and mobile operators. The partnership will create a best-of-breed solution that gives network operators a better understanding of network traffic required to deliver more dynamic and contextualized data service plans .. Volubill's VBS policy and charging control is integrated with ipoque PRX Traffic Manager for Policy Enforcement .. The pre-integrated solution, which is already integrated within key Volubill and ipoque customer accounts".

The DPI-PCRF matrix (here) was updated, and now includes ipoque as a DPI vendor. The company updated me that in addition to Volubill, they also interoperate with Comverse (related post - here), and "..there will likely be two to three more announced within the next couple of months".

See "Volubill and ipoque Partner to Deliver Real-Time Policy Management and Policy Enforcement Engine for Communications Service Providers" - here.

[Update 48: Allot PCC Partners - Comverse, Oracle] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

       

Based on Allot's partners list (here), I am adding Comverse and Oracle as compatible PCC solutions to Allot's DPI.  For both, this is the first publically announced DPI partnership.

Allot also lists CJSC Peter-Service as a PCC partner.

See also "Comverse Adds PCRF Interfaces to its Policy Manager" - here and "Oracle Launches PCRF" - here.

Unrelated to the above, but still interesting - "Amdocs and Oracle After Comverse Billing" - here (Amdocs, through Bridgewater, is also a partner of Allot).

[Infonetics]: Convergent Charging Market to Reach $3.2B by 2015

    

Infonetics Research says that "The global convergent charging market, including software and services, is on track to surge 42% in 2011 over 2010 to $1.26 billion .. forecasts the convergent charging market to grow to $3.2 billion by 2015 .. Top 5 convergent charging vendors by 2010 global revenue: Telcordia [acquired by Ericsson], Comverse, Huawei, Ericsson, Amdocs".

Shira Levine, directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy at Infonetics Research, adds that "Smaller software suppliers such as Comptel, Volubill, and Orga Systems have gained traction in emerging markets with their integrated solutions that include charging policy and subscriber management functionality"

Nevertheless, Infonetics remain consistent with its previous statements on the need for integrated control-plane solutions (for example for the policy management market - here) - "However, these vendors face intensified competition from larger IT and billing players like HP, SAP, Oracle, CSG, Amdocs, and Convergys that are taking a more converged approach to charging by incorporating adjacent functionality".

See "Convergent charging passes the billion-dollar mark in 2011, up 42%" - here.

[The Marker]: Amdocs and Oracle After Comverse Billing

  

A year ago there were several rumors of possible acquisition of Comverse by ZTE/Huawei (here) or Oracle/Platinum  (here, here). Since then Comverse re-started itself ("Comverse 3.0" - here) has managed to fix its Nasdaq trading status, but the rumors of its acquisition keep coming back.

Ram Ozeri reports to the news site The Marker that "The candidates for Comverse billing units acquisition are Amdocs and Oracle" (here, Hebrew). Both did not comment.

The publicly traded company (Comverse Technology Inc - NASDAQ:CMVT, market cap of $1.35B) has also holdings in other companies, mainly in Verint (NASDAQ:VRNT, market cap of $1.02B). Its "Comverse Segment" (see H1 2011 financial results below) includes several product lines, major ones being billing, Value-added Services and mobile internet products (PCRF/PCEF - here, here).

From the above and other reports it is not clear if the holding company is selling the whole segment or just its billing unit.

Recently, both Amdocs and Oracle have invested in Policy Management (PCRF) products - Amdocs acquired Bridgewater Systems (integration to be announced today - here) and Oracle launched its own product (here and here). Of course, the PCRF market is much smaller than billing.

 

DPI Announcements: Comverse Adds Policy-Aware Congestion Control solution

       

Comverse announced it has enhanced its Mobile Internet Hub product with a Congestion Control solution (see "Comverse New CEO to Continue with the "Comverse 3.0" Plan" - here).

" .. Linking smart detection and dynamic policy decisions with effective congestion control actions enables enforcement of congestion policies [here] based on multiple parameters: congestion severity level, traffic/device type, time of day, subscriber data plan, etc. Real-time measurements and smart traffic heuristics facilitate identification of congested cells and heavy users; optimal congestion control policy is then efficiently enforced with pinpoint accuracy where needed — utilizing DPI [here], video optimization and QoS modification capabilities".

See "Comverse Policy-Aware Congestion Control Solution Puts Mobile Internet Users in the Fast Lane" - here.

Clare McCarthy (picture; see also here), Principal Analyst at Ovum, said: ".. To address advanced use cases like congestion management, it is critical for operators to adopt a proactive approach that integrates detection, policy and enforcement. An effective congestion management solution with DPI and video optimization capabilities puts operators in a position to alleviate the load on network capacity while delivering an excellent user experience".

See my coverage of competitive solutions from Volubill (here), GENBAND (here), BroadHop/CommProve (here), Allot (here),  Openet (here) and Sycamore (here).

Infonetics: Policy Management Market, Driven by Wireless Congestion, is Congested

   

Last month Infonetics Research published its semi-annual report covering the policy management market (here). Shira Levine, the analyst behind the report was interviewed to Susana Schwartz (picture) of Connected Plant and added some more details:

"Because of that growing demand, there are many players now entering the policy market, with Openet now ranking as the top player in what is becoming a very hotly contested area. It’s incredibly tight, as the top players are all within one million dollars of each other .. Bridgewater and Tekelec as other top players ..You have so many different vendors now getting into policy as the need for integration with real-time charging grows. You have Comverse and Amdocs, and IT players like HP"

"There are more and more investments in policy solutions driven by certain use cases built around campaign management, loyalty programs, acquisition-and-retention initiatives, bill shock, or the desire to do more creative charging and bundling of over-the-top services like Netflix or YouTube with certain QoS guarantees"

See "Managing exploding wireless, over-the-top usage drives policy market" - here.

Comverse Adds PCRF Interfaces to its Policy Manager

  

Comverse has recently upgraded its Central Policy Management product (here - part of the MIH - Mobile Internet Hub - see chart below) with 3GPP PCRF interfaces - "The MIH Policy Management solution is compliant with 3GPP PCRF standards (Release 9) and is open for standard integration with external network elements where required".

In accordance with the above, the company says that it is in the process of doing interoperability tests (IOT) with two DPI vendors, in addition for supporting its own DPI product (see "DPI – Recent Product Announcements, New Player" - here).

See also a recent deployment announcement - "UCell [Uzbekistan] Selected Comverse for QoE and Personalization" - here.