CDN Deployments [352]: Wind [Italy] Selected ALU's Velocix (Joins Telus, Oi and TWC)

Alcatel-Lucent announced it is to "..provide Italy’s Wind Telecomunicazioni with content delivery network technology to support the launch of new video and TV services for its fixed and mobile subscribers. The provision of Alcatel-Lucent’s Velocix Content Delivery Network platform will enable Wind’s customers to manage video traffic on its network, providing an optimized experience for customers regardless of the device they use to access content". 

".. Alcatel-Lucent will deliver its Velocix 7810 Digital Media Delivery Platform, the market leading on-net Content Delivery Network system, used by some of the largest operators in the world, including Telus, Oi and Time Warner Cable, among others"

Related post - "Who is Using ALU's Velocix Solution?" - here.

Wind had 21.6M subscribers at the end of 2014. 

See "Alcatel-Lucent content delivery network technology selected by Wind to support its launch of premium video and TV services in Italy" - here.

PCC Deployments [325]: Oi [Brazil] Trialed Renkee Virtualized Solution During 2014 FIFA World Cup

Redknee Solutions announced that Oi has "..successfully trialed Redknee’s suite of virtualized billing, charging and policy management solutions to drive roaming subscriptions and to ensure high quality wireless connectivity for those attending one of the largest sporting events in the world, the 2014 FIFA World Cup. With Redknee’s highly flexible and scalable solution, Oi was able to better monetize its Wi-Fi investment and enhance the customer experience. 

Redknee’s Wi-Fi Monetization and Offload solution enabled Oi to reduce time to market to launch new services, improve the user experience, and extend revenue streams into new business lines, such as Wi-Fi connectivity at major sporting events. 

[Related post: "Oi [Brazil] Uses Aptilo to Create a Public Wi-Fi over Home/SMB Routers" - here]

Redknee’s partnership with Oi emphasizes the confidence leading communications service providers (CSPs) have in Redknee’s ability to support their monetization strategies. With an aggressive timescale, Redknee’s solution was implemented in less than five weeks". 

See "Redknee Enables Oi to Successfully Leverage Virtualization" - here.

[ABI]: 10.5M Wi-Fi Hotspots by 2018 to Maximize Coverage

A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], Research Analyst, ABI Research finds that "Worldwide Wi-Fi deployments reached a total of 4.2 million hotspots in 2013, and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 15.0% between 2013 and 2018, to exceed 10.5 million .. The number includes Wi-Fi hotspots deployed by mobile and fixed-line carriers as well as third party operators .. Wi-Fi helps to offload 3G/4G mobile Internet users to Wi-Fi networks, which is a more cost-effective method for both mobile carriers and mobile users.”

In Asia-Pacific, China alone has deployed 620,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, of which 420,000 have been built by China Mobile, followed by China Telecom with 128,000 hotspots, and China Unicom with 72,000. 

In Latin America, Brazil’s carrier Oi [see "Oi [Brazil] Uses Aptilo to Create a Public Wi-Fi over Home/SMB Routers" - here] has completed its target of 500,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of 2013, ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

.. Wi-Fi also represents a good opportunity for fixed-line operators to join in the mobile broadband field. The UK fixed-line operator BT with 200,000 of Wi-Fi hotspots (excl. homespots) is also providing Wi-Fi roaming services to mobile operators and other Wi-Fi providers"

See "Global Wi-Fi Hotspots Will Grow to 7.1 Million in 2015 as a Method to Offload Traffic" - here.

DSC Deployments [290]: Oi [Brazil] Selects F5/Traffix

F5 Networks announced that "Oi selected the F5®Traffix™ Signaling Delivery Controller™ (SDC™) to meet the Diameter signaling management demands of their LTE network.

Tom Carter, VP Worldwide Sales, Carriers and Service Providers, F5 said: “F5’s signaling solutions have been deployed by more than 30 operators around the world We view this as a result of F5 offering the most mature routing, load distribution, and Diameter signaling capabilities on the market”

Oi has "46.3 million clients in the segment of personal mobility, of which 38.0 million pre-paid and 5.3 million post-paid users and 9.0 million users in the business/corporate segment, including fixed and mobile telephony and broadband"
See "Oi Selects F5 Diameter Signaling Solution" - here.

Oi [Brazil] Uses Aptilo to Create a Public Wi-Fi over Home/SMB Routers

Aptilo Networks announced that "Brazilian telecommunications provider Oi  has deployed the Aptilo Service Management Platform™ (SMP) .. Homes and small-to-medium businesses share Oi’s vast copper xDSL network and have Wi-Fi-capable routers. Oi is using the excess capacity in those residential and business locations by adding an additional SSID for their public Wi-Fi service. In this way Oi creates a huge Wi-Fi footprint and can automatically – through the SIM authentication in the Aptilo Service Management Platform – offload mobile data traffic to their xDSL pipeline from anywhere in the country. 

Aptilo’s wireless service management platform was easily integrated into Oi’s mobile and fixed broadband core, with SIM authentication and policy lookups conducted using SOAP/XML. Options for EAP/SIM authentication, MAC address and WISPr authentication all for the same user are enabled; the network intelligently selects the best authentication method available".

At the end of March 2013, Oi had (see charts below) 18.5M residential customers of which (5.25M broadband customers) and 604K broadband business customers.


See "Brazil’s Largest Telecom Operator, Oi, Taps Aptilo for Service Provider Wi-Fi" - here.

Facebook Offers Free Messaging Through 18 MNOs

While offering free Wikipedia ("Wikipedia Zero" - see "VimpelCom - Free Access to Wikipedia" - here) maybe considered a true innocent move with real educational intentions, the new step by Facebook is different, and may call for more countries to consider their Net Neutrality rules.

Facebook announced in a blog post a "partnerships with mobile operators to provide free or discounted data access to Facebook messaging for their subscribers. Through this promotion, free or discounted data access will be available in the coming months on Messenger for Android, Messenger for iOS and Facebook for Every Phone, which is now optimized for chat.

"This promotion will be available from more than 18 operators in 14 countries. Operators committed to special pricing for Facebook messaging include TMN in Portugal, Three in Ireland, Airtel and Reliance in India, Vivacom in Bulgaria, Backcell in Azerbaydzhan, Indosat, Smartfren, AXIS and XL Axiata in Indonesia, SMART in Philippines, DiGi in Malaysia, DTAC in Thailand, Viva in Bahrain, STC in Saudi Arabia, Oi in Brazil, Etisalat in Egypt, and Tre in Italy".

See "Discounting Data Access to Messaging on Mobile" - here.

Latam MNOs to Implement Bill Shock Prevention by H1 2013

Following the voluntary agreements or regulation in the EU, US, Australia and Globally, Bill Shock Prevention and transparency comes to Latin America.

The GSMA announced that "..more than 40 Latin American mobile network operators (MNOs) have launched a data roaming transparency scheme in the region that will provide consumers with greater visibility of their roaming charges and usage of mobile data services when travelling within the region and abroad. The initiative is supported by operator groups including America Movil, Antel, Entel Chile, Millicom, Oi, Orange, Telecom Italia and Telefonica .. All national Latin American operations of the above listed MNO groups have agreed to implement these data roaming transparency measures starting now, with full completion by end of the first half of 2013".

See also "[iPass] 43% of Mobile Workers Experienced Bill Shock; Prefer Wi-Fi Over 3G" - here.

See "GSMA Latin America Launch Data Roaming Transparency Scheme" - here.

[WSJ] Carrier Ad-Insertion Returns!

 
While the FCC goes back to its Net Neutrality plans (see "FCC Moving on Net Neutrality?" - here), the Wall Street Journal had a front page (at least in its iPad edition) story on ad-insertion, or behavioral advertising, a revenue generation opportunity for carriers

I covered this space in the past, about companies that disappeared (Nebuad & Phorm - here and here) and those that are still there (Xerocole - here, Kindsight - here). The basic concept was targeted advertising, based on subscribers’ behavior with revenues shared by the vendor and the carrier.

DPI is needed for the ad-insertion process in order to analyze subscribers' traffic and make it more efficient by re-directing only relevant traffic to the behavioral processing. Privacy problem, and lack of disclosure made some of the players go away - and brought an investigation against BT that was secretly using Phorm back in 2006 (see "BT's Phorm trial lands UK Government in court" - here).


Source: Wall Street Journal



Now, the Wall Street Journal (see "Shunned Profiling Method On the Verge of Comeback" - here) reports that business sees a comeback (following Japan? - here). I guess the choice of the word "profiling" (not allowed in the US) shows the authors' sentiment for the move. Some quotes, from a rather long article:

Now, two U.S. companies, Kindsight Inc. and Phorm Inc., are pitching deep packet inspection services as a way for Internet service providers to claim a share of the lucrative online ad market.

Kindsight and Phorm say they protect people's privacy with steps that include obtaining their consent. They also say they don't use the full power of the technology, and refrain from reading email and analyzing sensitive online activities Two large ISPs in Brazil—Oi, a unit of Tele Norte Leste Participacoes SA, and Telefonica SA—currently have deals with Phorm 

Mr. Gassewitz [top picture] says six ISPs have tested Kindsight's security service on subscriber groups as big as 200,000. Mr. Gassewitz says, "There was no profiling occurring, no advertising occurring, no data collection occurring."

Oi's Mr. Pedro Ripper, Oi's strategy and technology believes that the technology's time has come. "The Internet is becoming more and more a platform to deliver very targeted messages," he says. As for deep packet inspection, "Everyone is going to get there. It's just a matter of timing"