RADCOM Adds Virtual Manager to its CEM Solution

RADCOM announced the ".. launch of MaveriQ Manager, completing the full virtualization of its MaveriQ solution .. With the launch of the MaveriQ Manager, RADCOM has now completed the virtualization of all layers of its MaveriQ solution, enabling the entire solution to reside on Cloud infrastructure. Many Tier I operators are progressing towards virtual architectures, which are proving to be faster and easier to deploy and maintain than traditional network architectures, while also being more flexible and technology-independent"

Related posts - "RADCOM: $3.6M Order for Customer Experience Solution by Tier1 MNO"  - here

 

"MaveriQ Manager is an ETSI-compliant VNF (Virtual Network Function) manager, responsible for communication between RADCOM’s VNF, the orchestration layer, and the infrastructure layer, providing full lifecycle management of the virtualized solution.

See "RADCOM Bolsters Its NFV-Based Customer Experience Management Solution" - here.

RADCOM: $3.5M Service Assurance Deal in Brazil

RADCOM announced the ".. initial phase of a multi-year deal at the approximate amount of $3.5M with a major operator in Brazil .. This tier 1 Brazilian Cellular operator purchased RADCOM’s system to provide service assurance for their Mobile broadband 3G and LTE network. RADCOM offered this operator one solution for different technologies running on the recently announced, powerful cost-effective terabit MaveriQ probes. This operator is experiencing a rapid increase in traffic; consequently, following their own expansion to LTE they purchased RADCOM’s MaveriQ solution and applications to help them continue to provide high quality of service to their customers".

See "RADCOM Generates Strong Momentum with its MaveriQ Solution; Multi-million Dollar LTE Deal in Brazil" - here.

Product Announcements: Ixia, Ulticom, RADCOM, NSN, SAP, DigitalRoute, Avvasi, Centri. Smith Micro

With MWC starting today, the number of product announcements made in the last few days does not allow a separate post for each .. so here is a short digest:

• Ixia Provides Three Times More Network Visibility In Half The Rack Space (here) : Ixia ".. introduced, as part of its Visibility Architecture, its most advanced, highest capacity platform that is designed to provide three times the visibility in half the rack space for enterprise and service provider applications .. Ixia’s newest network packet broker, the Net Tool Optimizer 7300, .. helps service providers and enterprises to improve real-time insights into the data traversing the network".

• Ulticom Diameter Signaling Controller is Virtualization Ready (here): Ulticom announced that "more than half of their Diameter Signaling Controller (DSC) deployments are in Virtualization environments. The Ulticom DSC is being deployed using both traditional dedicated server solutions and in Virtualized environments. As a software solution, Ulticom’s DSC is architected and ideally suited for deployment using virtualization. The product is hypervisor independent and can be scaled dynamically during operation. It has a proven track-record in operational deployments using virtualization and cloud technologies. Compatible hypervisor technologies include VMware, KVM, and Virtual Box.

• RADCOM Rolls-out Enhanced End-to-End VoLTE Monitoring Capabilities (here): RADCOM announced that it has ".. added new Voice over LTE (VoLTE) monitoring capabilities to MaveriQ, RADCOM’s NFV-based network analytics probe. The enhanced VoLTE capabilities allow service providers to monitor the VoLTE service end-to-end across the LTE and IMS domains. MaveriQ continuously monitors VoLTE calls in multiple network areas, including eNodeB, EPC, policy and charging, and in the IMS network itself. With real-time and historical end-to-end call tracing, proactive alarming and KPIs that constantly monitor service QoE, RADCOM’s MaveriQ gives operators clear visibility into all quality aspects of high-speed 4G LTE, VoLTE and LTE-Advanced networks. Providing advanced troubleshooting tools for VoLTE service degradation, MaveriQ assists in achieving VoLTE accessibility, retainability, integrity and availability. The MaveriQ solution has already been deployed in four Tier 1 service provider networks in APAC and LATAM"

• Enhanced Flexi Zone controller powers up indoor, outdoor capacity and coverage, brings Liquid Applications to small cells (here): Nokia Solutions and Networks is "extending its award-winning Flexi Zone architecture, making it the most versatile small cell solution able to cover all deployment scenarios. A Flexi Zone controller application can be added to existing macro-cellular base stations to run a large number of nearby small cells. Flexi Zone’s cluster approach can now be used for indoor deployments. In addition, Flexi Zone controller supports the integration of NSN Liquid Applications to deliver locally-relevant, fast services directly from small cell base station clusters
  The third major development enables the Flexi Zone controller to support the integration of NSN Radio Application Cloud Server functionality to enable Liquid Applications on a cluster of small cells. Radio Application Cloud Server provides processing and storage, together with the ability to collect real-time network data. These features can be exploited by applications to offer context-relevant services that transform the mobile broadband experience. Liquid Applications offers caching and local offload for street level deployments, as well as enabling operators to provide value added services indoors to enterprises and public indoor locations".

• SAP and DigitalRoute Join Forces to Enrich Customer Experience for Telcos (here): SAP AG  today announced a "..significant expansion of its relationship with DigitalRoute .. The targeted result is an enhanced solution that shall bring together data from both operational and business support systems (OSS and BSS), providing unique insights that are expected to help communications service providers (CSPs) navigate toward monetizing their Big Data in today’s stormy market conditions".

• Avvasi Launches “Xperium Video Minutes” (here) Avvasi announced the launch of its “Xperium Video Minutes solution .. Xperium Video Minutes allow networks, for the first time, to measure and manage a video’s quality in real time and to charge for video traffic on a duration basis, rather than by volume (megabytes). This innovation has the double benefit of simplifying the usage, consumption and purchase of video services, while providing a new revenue stream for network operators".

• CENTRI Technology’s BitSmartCX Solution Ready for Wireless Operator Integration (here): ".. On the heels of completing successful trials in Latin America of its BitSmartCX solution, CENTRI Technology announced that its flagship product is now ready for wireless operator integration. Designed to help mobile network operators intelligently optimize and manage the flow of data across their networks in real-time, CENTRI’s BitSmartCX reduces the need for operators to invest in additional network infrastructure while lowering backhaul, spectrum and transport costs".

• Smith Micro and Amdocs Validate ANDSF Interoperability for Seamless Wi-Fi Access and Traffic Optimization (here): Smith Micro Software announced the "successful completion of interoperability tests between the Amdocs Smart Net intelligent offload solution and the Smith Micro NetWise® traffic management client. Amdocs used Smith Micro’s NetWise I/O toolkit to validate ANDSF interoperability that would enable seamless Wi-Fi offload and traffic optimization over heterogeneous networks".

RADCOM: $3.6M Order for Customer Experience Solution by Tier1 MNO

RADCOM announced that it "received new orders amounting to 3.6 million dollars with a tier 1 operator in Asia. This is an expansion of an existing deployment with this operator. RADCOM’s Customer Experience solution enables this service provider to provide its customers with extremely high quality service on their mobile devices .. With these new orders, RADCOM will provide this customer with an expansion of dozens of gigabytes to its existing RADCOM Quality of Experience system, monitor its LTE network and enhance the service provider's marketing analytics capabilities".

See "RADCOM Wins 3.6 Million Dollar Deals from Asian LTE Provider" - here.

Sandvine Partners with RADCOM for "true mobility awareness"

In a post I had in early 2012, I presented Sandvine's "Mobility-aware Traffic Management Analytics and Enforcing" (here), quoting Sandvine's CTO saying that "Sandvine interoperates with 3rd party partners, such as RAN-based probes, to get the cell (or sector) handovers updates. Sandvine will expose the partners soon".

So the time has come, and Sandvine announced it has "partnered with RADCOM to deliver the only network policy control products with true mobility awareness. Sandvine’s Fairshare Traffic Management product, integrated with RADCOM’s QiSolve solution, offers a dynamic control system that utilizes real-time subscriber location indicators to precisely maximize network utilization and quality of experience. Sandvine’s empirical data demonstrates that traffic management products without real-time location awareness may “lose” up to 20 percent of users in an hour, and mismanage traffic as a result".

Indeed, most location-aware traffic shaping solutions are only aware of the initial location of the subscriber at connection time and do not support mobility. Therefore they may make the wrong conclusions about cell congestion and do not set the right policies to avoid congestion (or avoid setting the right policies..). 

Nevertheless, similar partnerships were established by RADCOM with PCRF products from Amdocs (here) and HP (here).

Sandvine’s Fairshare Traffic Management product recently measured, using RADCOM’s QiSolve solution, the movement of over 20,000 mobile data subscribers in a major North American city to understand and predict sector-based congestion. Over the course of the hour, roughly 20 percent of users were still engaged in the same data session but had moved to a second cell sector. No two sectors have an identical congestion profile at a moment in time".

See "Sandvine’s Integration With RADCOM Offers Real-Time Mobility Awareness To Manage Mobile Traffic Accurately" - here.

RADCOM Wins PCRF-Integrated LTE Monitoring Project for Tier1

RADCOM announced the ".. initial phase of a multi-million dollar, multi-year deal with a Tier 1 Asian operator. RADCOM’s end-to-end LTE monitoring solution will provide service assurance for one of the largest planned LTE deployments in the world .. The ability to provide a real time feed to policy control components in the network using the QiSolve application was a major advantage for RADCOM in this deal, as it allows the service provider to maximize on RAN (Radio Access Network) monetization, as they expand network coverage".

In the recent months, RADCOM announced integration with two PCRF vendors: Amdocs (here) and HP (here). However, the company says that the PCRF vendor for this project is not one of the two and while they cannot disclose the name, "is one of the leading providers in this area".

See "RADCOM wins a Multimillion Dollar LTE Deal" - here.

Allot Integrates RADCOM's VoIP QoE Solution

    

Allot Communications and RADCOM (see "RADCOM - $2.2M Deal for LTE Service Assurance" - here) announced a ".. joint Voice-over-IP (VoIP) Quality of Experience (QoE) solution. The joint offering, which has already been selected and deployed by a leading telecom service provider in South America, embeds RADCOM’s VoIP QoE monitoring technology into the Allot Service Gateway platform .. Conducting simultaneous real time analysis and correlation of both media streams and VoIP signaling protocols, the system provides a comprehensive solution for monitoring VoIP services"

    

Allot's Service Gateway

Allot updated me the solution was built according to a customer specification and they could not disclose much, such as the list of VoIP protocols or applications supported. The joint solution is based on "a blade on the Allot Service Gateway running RADCOM software .. there are additional parts to this solution that are running externally .. We support the list of VoIP applications that the customer ask us to support .. there was some integration work done on the management side".

Nevertheless, "It is part of the Allot solution offering, however it’s not a full OEM product yet".

See "Allot and RADCOM Partner to Provide VoIP Quality of Experience Monitoring" - here.

RADCOM - $2.2M Deal for LTE Service Assurance

RADCOM announced it has "recently expanded its coverage of the mobile data network of one of its customers, a major South American cellular operator, to provide service assurance for new sites and speeds that this customer is offering. RADCOM is already monitoring this customer’s mobile data and SS7 network, and this $2.2 million deal is the third expansion of RADCOM’s deployment for this operator .. RADCOM currently monitoring over 100 Gbps. After this current expansion, RADCOM now covers the service provider’s LTE domain".

See "RADCOM Closes a $2.2 Million Deal for Mobile Data Monitoring and LTE" - here.

RADCOM and HP Offer Policy-based, Cell Congestion Optimization Solution

 
RADCOM continues to expand its partnerships with policy management vendors with its RAN congestion probes. A month after announcing a joint solution with Amdocs (here), the service assurance provider announced a similar partnership with HP.

"RADCOM’s Omni-Q Service Assurance platform and HP Subscriber, Network and Application Policy (HP SNAP), in conjunction with Policy Enforcement and Video Optimization platforms (see below), monitor cell and Radio Access Network (RAN) congestion ..  available for demonstration in HP’s Solution Center, RADCOM’s probe-based Omni‑Q provides real-time QoE monitoring and cell congestion detection information to HP SNAP. HP SNAP orchestrates congestion resolution by managing Video Optimization and Policy Enforcement elements, using standard 3GPP interfaces, thus, reducing the bandwidth consumption for applications being used by subscribers in the congested cells".

HP SNAP is integrated with a number of policy enforcement ("HP SNAP <-> Sandvine/Cisco/Procera")- here) and video optimization  ("Mobixell Explains its Joint Solution with HP" - here) vendors.  

See "RADCOM Reveals Cell Congestion & RAN-Aware Video Optimization Solution" - here.

NI Deployments [202]: Algar Telecom [Brazil] Uses RADCOM to Improve QoE

   

RADCOM announced it has been selected to "..monitor the complete mobile network of Brazilian operator, Algar Telecom (previously CTBC). RADCOM’s Omni-Q Service Assurance Solution will monitor voice and data services of Algar’s traffic to improve network Quality of Service & Experience. In the initial implementation of RADCOM’s system, Algar Telecom determined that RADCOM could help provide better Quality of Experience to their customers, by identifying potential problems on the Algar network".

At the end of September 2012, Algar had 684,000 revenue generating mobile subscribers, of which 82,000 had mobile broadband access.

See "RADCOM Selected to Monitor Algar Telecom’s Mobile Network" - here.

RADCOM and Amdocs Joint RAN Monetization and Cell Congestion Control Solution [in detail]

RADCOM and Amdocs announced that they have ".. jointly developed, successfully tested and deployed on a trial basis a Radio Access Network (RAN) monetization and cell congestion control solution for LTE networks .. The solution enables service providers to monetize the RAN by offering promotions to subscribers when cells are under-utilized. It also enhances and automatically resolves cell congestion by applying RAN-aware policy to subscriber sessions".

"Based on RADCOM’s Omni-Q probe-based Service Assurance platform and the Amdocs Policy Controller, the solution was successfully deployed in a trial LTE (4G) network at a tier-1 service provider in the Asia/Pacific region. The solution can also support UMTS and CDMA networks"

RADCOM provided me with additional information on the joint solution:

• The solution used in this LTE networks used probes that monitored S5, S11, S1-U and S1-MME interfaces. In UMTS networks, similar functionality is achieved by monitoring Gn, Iu and Iub interfaces. In CDMA networks, A10/A11 interface is monitored [See chart]
   
• The PCRF controls the traffic for congested cells via any 3rd party PCEF over 3GPP Gx interface. A number of different PCEFs were used in the trial.
   
• The probe measures QoE at the subscriber and application level and uses these measurements to determine congestion on a sector and cell level. The rate of updates to the PCRF is configurable and typically sent every 30 seconds or less

See "RADCOM and Amdocs Develop RAN (Radio Access Network) Solution Enabling Service Providers to Monetize Data Usage, Relieve Cell Congestion on LTE Networks" - here.