TM Deployments [292]: MTN [Congo] Deployed Comviva PCEF/PCRF

Mahindra Comviva announced that its "Mobile Data Platform (MDP) [a package of PCEF, PCRF and Mobile Internet Gateway - see chart below] has gone live with MTN in Congo B. MTN will now be able to offer an unrivalled number of personalized data plans to its subscribers in Congo B. A holistic broadband management platform, MDP will also help MTN to manage, optimize and monetize its data infrastructure. It will provide enriched user experience by employing intelligent bandwidth management techniques, such as dynamic bandwidth throttling. It will provide real-time advice for charges, notifications and credit/usage limits to subscribers on home and roaming networks for bill shock management over all communication channels such as SMS, USSD, Web application".

MTN Congo has more than 1M subscribers.

See "Mahindra Comviva's Mobile Broadband Solution goes live at MTN CONGO B" - here.

Comviva: Deployment in Bolivia Helped Grow Traffic by 200%

   

Comviva announced that its "..  Mobile Internet Gateway (MIG) has helped one of the leading operators in Bolivia to grow its data traffic by more than 200% over the last one year, improving overall data performance and delivering an optimal customer experience"

Madan G. Onkar, Head of Mobile Data Solutions at Comviva said: "Comviva's MIG has helped the operator to provide faster, smoother, highly personalized and consistent mobile web browsing experience to its subscribers in the past few years. The operator has witnessed tremendous growth in their data traffic and expects this growth to continue further to meet the growing demand for mobile data in the region. We are confident that this platform capacity upgrade will help the operator to accelerate content delivery and applications significantly, providing a rich internet experience. This will further lead to an increase in data uptake across their network and deliver higher ARPU".

See "Comviva’s Mobile Internet Offering Spurs Data Traffic Growth for a leading Operator in Bolivia" - here.

Mobixell Wins 10 New Accounts - Sees "regional twists" in MNO Needs

 

Mobixell announced "..  that it has closed an additional 10 mobile Internet platform deals with worldwide mobile operators over a span of just 6 months ... these ten operators chose Mobixell Seamless Access, the company's Mobile Internet Platform because of its strong video optimization and policy driven service orchestration capabilities .. The combined subscriber base for the mobile operators involved in these deals tops 140 million with a combined traffic volume in the neighborhood of 40 petabytes per month".

See "Worldwide Mobile Optimization Trend Supported by 10 New Deals with Mobixell in Only 6 Months" - here.

"This trend is global, but with regional twists. In North America and Western Europe  .. mobile operators are looking to push off capacity investments. .. seeking out video and Web optimization technologies .. In Asia Pacific ..  immediate needs include implementing a unified, policy-driven Mobile Internet Platform with centralized management for all data traffic and services. However, Mobixell finds that mobile operators in APAC are also making it a priority to select platforms with strong video optimization capabilities to be ready when the inevitable data traffic crunch hits their region"

Ericsson to Bundle Vantrix Video Optimization Solutions

 

Vantrix announced that "Ericsson, the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators, to be their partner in video optimization. Under the terms of the agreement, Ericsson will be bundling Vantrix Bandwidth Optimizer with its Multiservice Proxy mobile broadband traffic optimization solution".

See "ERICSSON AND VANTRIX PARTNER FOR VIDEO OPTIMIZATION" - here.
 
Ericsson's Multiservice Proxy "is a multi-purpose, multi-technology network node that can be deployed in fixed and mobile environments. It is the critical link between a wireless or fixed core network and Internet. The main applications include network resource optimization and Value Added Services, such as the optimization of web and multimedia content, content adaptation and ad insertion".

Vantrix Bandwidth Optimizer ensures the best quality of experience using Bitrate Throttling, Adaptive Streaming, Transcoding & Transrating and Smart Caching & Proactive Optimization.

See "Vantrix Launches Video Optimization ROI Tool" - here.

 

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]

Allot: "Operators ask for DPI with Value-added Services"

     

Allot's CEO, Rami Hadar, addressed during the Q3 results conference call today the increase in R&D expenses reported for Q3 ($2.9M compared to $2.4M on Q3 09).

According to Hadar, the company had expedited the development of new Value-added Services for the Service Gateway product, as customers require DPI products to provide additional services beyond the traditional DPI/traffic shaping features.
Allot provides today 3 value-added services in security, URL filtering and video caching. It was also reported that the latter, Allot's Mediaswift, was deployed recently in several projects (see also - "Caching Market: PeerApp OEMs to ALU, Allot and BTI Systems" - here).

Hadar said that the new services, originally planned to be developed during 2011, will probably be announced on early 2011.

NSN: Policy based Traffic Management with Flexi NG + DPI

  

During MWC 2009 Nokia Siemens Networks announced its Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network solution for LTE - see "Nokia Siemens Networks brings LTE one step closer with EPC launch at Mobile World Congress 2009" - here, composed of two products -  Flexi Network Server and the Flexi Network Gateway (NG).

"The Flexi Network Gateway addresses the higher than ever demand for broadband connectivity, combined with the intelligence needed for flexible handling of data traffic according to policy rules of the operator's choice .. Building this new Evolved Packet Core on open ATCA technology allows Nokia Siemens Networks to tap into a hardware supply ecosystem and focus its own efforts on developing specific value added network functionality. Customers will benefit from a more coherent equipment practice across the market, which brings operational synergies."

Since then, the product was mentioned in several customer wins and trials, most recent one was MegaFon Russia - see "Russia tunes in to LTE" - here - but the web site does not have much on the product itself.

Nevertheless, in a presentation posted to NSN's Japanese site (here), we can find a slide (see below), describing how Flexi NG, with DPI support, may implement intelligent traffic management policies (more on NSN's PCRF product, PCS-5000, here).

Little help on translation (courtesy of Google Translate):

• Title - Value Innovation - Advanced Solution (Deep Packet Inspection)
• 2nd line -policy "triggers" - location, time, applications accessed, device type, network access type and volume balance
• In the network elements diagram - operation and charging elements
• The last line is the policy action list, including: QoS priority control, bandwidth allocation, service control, reporting, port re-direction (?), charging, optimization, filtering and security

 

QoS Deployments (29): Telefonica Spain Upgrades to Openwave Integra

   

Openwave announced today "that Telefónica España .. has selected Openwave Integra, a next generation traffic mediation and policy management solution designed to allow Telefónica to effectively manage, monitor and monetize mobile traffic .. to accommodate mobile data traffic that has increased by nearly 80% since calendar year 2009"

See "Telefónica España Selects Openwave Integra" - here. See also "Sandvine - Who is the Global DSL/Mobile Customer with 20 Properties?" - here.

Additional Openwave deployments: Du (UAE, here), Alfa (Lebanon, here).

Source: Openwave - Integra Datasheet

Intriguing [DPI] Triangle - Tekelec, Genband, Procera

  

A small detail in Procera's reporting to the SEC (here) in connection with the appointment of Genband's President and CEO, Charles D. Vogt to its board of directors caught my attention this morning. The address for Mr. Vogt shows as Tekelec's address in Calabasas, CA. This probably has historical roots - since his days in public Tekelec (up to 2004) - after which he left to privately held Genband.

However, this made me thinking about the recent M&A activities in the Traffic management space- DPI and policy management, associated with these 3 companies:

• Vogt was President and CEO of Taqua, which was acquired by Tekelec in March 2004.  Before joining Taqua, Vogt held executive leadership positions at Santera Systems which was acquired by Tekelec in 2005
   
• 3 years ago, Genband acquired from Tekelec both companies (Santera Systems and Taqua - see "Tekelec and GENBAND Sign Agreement for Sale of Tekelec's Switching Solutions Group" - here).
  
  "Charles D. Vogt, President and CEO of GENBAND said “The combination of the two companies creates an enviable gateway and applications product portfolio and enables GENBAND to strengthen our relationship with our existing customers and business partners.”
   
• Earlier this year, Tekelec acquired Camiant, a leading Policy Management vendor, commonly deployed with DPI devices (see "Tekelec CTO on DPI Plans" - here)
   
• Last week, Genband signed an OEM agreement with Procera (see "DPI Market: GENBAND OEMs Procera" - here)

So - is all this part of a grand plan from Genband to build with ultimate IP gateway possibly with some involvement of Tekelec?

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

Mobile Internet Gateway - Functions Explained

   

Following my announcement on creating the Mobile Internet Gateway Function Matrix (here), please find below a short description of the different gateway functions to be covered by the matrix.

Please note that some of the functions may be interrelated (like DPI and traffic steering, or tiered services and quota). Also, we can expect different levels of support in most functions (e.g. video optimization or DPI) and different levels of integration (single/multiple devices, integrated management, single policy view etc).

Nevertheless, I will start by the highest level: whether the function is part of the vendor's offering or not. As a ground rule, I will indicate a function as supported only if it is clearly presented in the vendor's web site. Again, vendors are invited to send their information to me directly.

Category	Function/Service	Description
Content Management	WAP gateway	Translation of web pages to WAP format
	Content Adaption	Transforming web pages to adapt to the subscriber’s end-device capabilities
	URL filtering	Block access to certain categories of web sites (by subscriber)
	URL black list	Block access to illegal sites, including synchronization with black lists providers (such as the IWF)
	Content caching	Cache content locally – Web, Video or P2P shared files
Optimization	Data acceleration	Accelerate data traffic by optimizing the TCP or application layers
	Video Optimization	Optimize video traffic – including control of coding, size, resolution and pace
Service Management and Charging	Advice of use/bill shock prevention	Advise subscriber when reaching account limits
	Tiered services	Enforce traffic, content and security management polices per subscriber
	Quota control	Measure and enforce maximum volume of traffic consumed by a subscriber over a specific period of time
	Content charging	Analyze web traffic and report access to chargeable content
	CDR generation	Generate Call Detail Records with usage information by application and subscriber
Traffic Management	DPI	Per-Flow Deep Packet Inspection (“layer 7”) for accurate identification of the flow’s application and application-level information
	Traffic shaping	Enforce bandwidth management policies including blocking, allocating minimum or maximum bandwidth or priority
	Network intelligence	Collect, export and report network activity
	Traffic steering	Efficiently steer flows among the different services, based on subscriber’s service plan and application type
	Compliance with 3GPP PCRF	Support 3GPP interface with PCRF systems
	VoIP quality monitoring	Collect, analyze, calculate, export and report VoIP (voice and video) quality parameters including MOS per subscriber, VoIP Service and location
	Cell awareness	Consider, for traffic shaping and ad-insertion the subscriber location and path to the network
Security	Anti-Virus/worm detection	Detect and block or quarantine malware on traffic
	Outgoing SPAM detection	Detect and block or quarantine outgoing SPAM activity on subscriber level
	DDoS prevention	Detect and block Distributed Denial of Service attacks
	Session boarder control (SBC)	Support SBC functions
	Ad-insertion	Analyze subscribers' traffic and insert personalized ads