Tango Enables Subscriber Interaction in Africa

Tango Telecom announced a "major upgrade and expansion deal with a leading African operator for its Subscriber Interaction and Self-Care solution. This deployment will increase the operator’s capacity to handle the significant uptake of mobile services by its rapidly growing subscriber base. 

The Tango Telecom Subscriber Interaction and Self-care solution, a key use-case of the Tango Telecom Data Retail Engine (Tango DRE™), enables subscribers to manage and personalise their mobile experience right from their devices without the need for costly customer service intervention. 

Tango Telecom’s solution enables the operator to offer its subscribers a personalised and interactive on-device experience via Smartphone App, USSD, SMS, Web portal, etc. by providing a proven self-care alternative to costly IVR platforms and call centres. 

It allows subscribers to access and manage all aspects of their accounts including balance queries, voucher recharges, credit transfers and subscription management for voice, data and messaging services via easy to use and highly-interactive USSD-based self-care menus. The solution monetises the operator’s self-care traffic by enabling subscribers to discover and subscribe to key revenue-generating content services such as music, news and mBanking". 

See "Enabling the rapid monetisation of mobile services in Africa" - here.

Tata Adds Tango Telecom's PCC to its Hosted Solution

  

Tata communications expands (or changes?) its hosted PCC/DPI offering (see "Tata Communications Builds Hosted Policy Management and Enforcement w/Allot and Openet" - here) with Tango's Telecom Policy Control Solution (as well as Procera's DPI - see Procera's CEO comments here).

Tango announced that "Tango Telecom and Tata Communications announced a collaboration to deliver hosted policy and charging control solutions to mobile network operators (MNOs) .. With an extensive range of revenue-generating use cases available out of the box, the hosted policy control platform enables mobile operators to improve their profitability while enhancing their subscribers’ experience with dynamic, innovative and personalised data services".

See "Hosted Policy Engine launched with Tata Communications" - here.

PCC Deployments [286]: Robi Axiata [Bangladesh] Expands Tango Telecom System

 
Tango Telecom announces a ".. major upgrade and expansion win with Robi Axiata Limited to increase capacity and to provide new and innovative Policy Control use cases such as Dynamic Pricing for Data Services to the operator’s rapidly growing subscriber base .. Tango Telecom’s Policy Control solution enables Robi Axiata’s subscribers to benefit from highly innovative plans and promotions such as tiered service level packages, roaming controls to prevent bill shock, volume and time based quotas, pay-per-use packages and dynamic on-demand self-care options.

   

The new features also include Tango Telecom’s Dynamic Pricing for Data Services giving the operator the ability to price and promote mobile data services dynamically based on cell load, location, time of day, subscriber type and/or subscriber activity

See "Tango Telecom awarded major Policy Control expansion deal by Robi Axiata Ltd" - here.

Tango Extends Cloud-based PCC to the Middle East

Tango Telecom extends the availability of its Policy in the Cloud (see "Tango Telecom Offers Cloud-based Policy Management" - here) to the Middle east (see "Interop Technologies to Offer Tango Telecom's Cloud-based PCC in US" - here). 

The vendor announced ".. the availability of its Policy in the Cloud solution for the Middle Eastern market. The solution offers mobile operators in the region all the benefits of Tango Telecom’s best of breed Policy Control Solution to monetise the growth in mobile data traffic combined with the reduced CAPEX and OPEX and the improved service velocity of a cloud deployment and virtualised model.

See "Tango Telecom brings Cloud-based Policy to Middle East" - here.

Interop Technologies to Offer Tango Telecom's Cloud-based PCC in US

Tango Telecom announced last month its cloud-based PCC (see "Tango Telecom Offers Cloud-based Policy Management" - here).

Now Tango and Interop Technologies announce a "partnership to provide a cloud-based policy and charging control solution to United States-based mobile network operators. The technology enables operators to monetize growing demand for mobile data while optimizing their use of network resources ..  The feature-rich, cloud-based platform enables operators to benefit from quality of service control and other policy services without the CAPEX required for an in-network solution. The highly flexible, standards-compliant technology enables operators to bundle multiple use cases and can be seamlessly integrated with operators’ charging infrastructure. The solution also includes a feature-rich subscriber self-care application that can be customized for individual operators".

Source: "White Labelled Self-Care App" - Interop Technologies

See "Tango Telecom partners with Interop Technologies" - here.

Tango Telecom Offers Cloud-based Policy Management

Tango Telecom announced the "..availability of its cloud-based Policy Control solution for the North American market. Cloud-based policy control by Tango Telecom offers carriers all the benefits of a best of breed policy solution to drive mobile data revenues while reaping the cost and resource savings of a cloud deployment model .. Cloud based service deployment allows carriers to concentrate on operating profitable services and not on deploying and running hardware and software installations. Tango Telecom’s Policy in the Cloud can be managed remotely by the carrier’s own technical team or the company also offers a fully managed service when required".

See "Tango Telecom delivers Cloud-based Policy to CCA members" - here.

Diameter Signaling Router Product Page Updated

The Diameter Router Product page [here] was updated. Two vendors added to the table: 

• Elitecore Technologies with its ELITEDSC product
   
• Tango Telecom with the Diameter Signaling Controller product

 

PCRF Deployments [212]: Network Norway Tries Every Possible Use-case w/Tango Telecom

Tango Telecom announced the ".. successful trial deployment of its cloud-based Policy Control solution with Network Norway"

Tor Anders Braun, Head of Services and Core Network, Network Norway said: “We chose Tango Telecom for this cloud-based trial because of the comprehensive nature of their product and the large number of use cases supported including sophisticated app-based self-care as well as QoS management, Turbo Boost and advanced Data Plan and Bundle management. They have proven to be a fast, flexible and capable supplier and we are very pleased with the speed with which they integrated with our other network elements and demonstrated a very impressive end to end solution”.

Network Norway is part of the Tele2 Group, with 1.2M subscribers in Norway. See also - "Networks Norway Uses Flash Networks for Video Optimization" - here.

See "Tango Telecom enables Leading Norwegian Operator to support Policy in the Cloud" - here.

Tango Telecom's Policy Manager Helps MNOs to Retain Roamers

Tango Telecom announced that its "Local Breakout solution will comprehensively and cost-effectively enable operators to comply with the EU Roaming Regulation  due to come into effect in July 2014".

"The new regulation [see "Council adopts new roaming rules" - here] will allow intra-European Union roamers to purchase their roaming service from a different provider to their home network service. Tango Telecom’s Local Breakout solution (LBO), which is based on its Policy Control platform, ensures that operators will be able to attract and retain valuable roamers to their networks by offering international data roaming at local data access rates"

Dr. Colm Ward, CEO, Tango Telecom, said: “We know that currently over 60% of smartphone and tablet roamers do not turn on mobile data access when roaming and that the 40% of roamers who do access data use significantly less than at home. This means that the impending EU regulation is an opportunity for operators to benefit from the huge untapped revenue potential of the data roamer. Rather than wait until 2014, operators should look to seize advantage now by being first to market. There is a very compelling business case”.

See "Tango Telecom provides operators with comprehensive solution to pending EU Roaming Regulation" - here.

[Update 60: Tango <-> Cisco, ipoque] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

Tango Telecom updated me that it "has successfully integrated our PCRF with both Cisco and Ipoque’s DPI solutions".

The PCRF-DPI matrix [here] was updated accordingly.

Tango Claims the Lead in Policy Server Performance

  
Tango Telecom joins the policy server vendors publishing their performance numbers (see BroadHop and Bridgewater/Amdocs). I am not sure if one can compare product performance based on these statements, but transparency and visibility, as we know, are important qualities.

Tango announced ".. the completion of a record breaking Policy performance benchmark on the latest generation of COTS blade servers using Xeon 6 core CPUs .. The Tango iAX™ Data Policy Server achieved sustained performance of over 12,000 PDP contexts established per second per blade, at 70% CPU utilisation. The platform also demonstrated unprecedented scalability, to over 192K contexts/second from a single blade server chassis".

Kieran Kelly, CTO of Tango Telecom, commented: “.. The next wave of policy solutions, as well as offering sophisticated features such as load aware policy and dynamic pricing, must be able to scale way beyond what is currently possible. To put this exceptional benchmark in context, just a single fully equipped blade server, with the Tango iAX™ Data Policy Server, could establish data sessions for over 11M data subscribers in a single minute”.

See "Tango shrinks the world" - here.

PCRF Deployments (64): Tango Telecom PCRF used for QoS based Pricing Plans

   

Tango Telecom announced "the successful deployment of its Mobile Data Charging & Policy Control Platform (iAX™ Data) with a leading APAC carrier .. Tango Telecom’s iAX™ Data platform [covered - here]  was used by a mid-tier APAC carrier to launch an unlimited data plan to its prepaid subscriber base while sustaining profitability by varying quality of service (QoS)

.. In order to manage this growing appetite for these bandwidth-hungry data services, yet insure that revenues are increasing at a similar pace, the carrier used a tiered service-level plan, which allows for adjusting QoS download speed and implementing Fair Usage Policies .. By dynamically controlling QoS on a per-subscriber basis, Tango Telecom’s Data Charging and Policy Control Platform enables carriers to offer innovative service and pricing plans to encourage spending, yet still increase profits".

See "Tango Telecom Enables Mid-Tier APAC Telco to Increase Profits on Mobile Data Services" - here. It was released during the Rural Cellular Association (RCA) show held in Las Vegas between 17-20 April.

[Update 26 - Tango Telecom] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

  

Tango Telecom was added to my growing list of PCRF vendors. Few days ago the company announced the "the general availability of Release 3 of the Tango Telecom Policy Controller (PCRF) with enhanced features to support 4G networks and deliver enhanced QoS control".

See "Operators set to beat the capacity crunch with Tango Telecom’s Policy Controller"  - here.

The Tango PCRF offers operators, across all types of networks, the following key benefits:

• dynamically manage fair usage of network capacity in real-time – maintaining quality of service for all subscribers
• protect subscribers from ‘Bill Shock’, enabling them to set personalised limits, controls and notification thresholds
• enable subscription, casual use and on demand packages
• provide real-time intelligent tiered service level plans – prioritising access for premium subscribers
• use deep packet inspection capabilities to enable the personalisation of services, plans and applications
• implement advanced subscriber managed gating features including parental control
• provide enhanced support for 4G technologies such as LTE and WiMAX

See more - here.

The company has partnership with other players in this space, including Comptel (here) - "Comptel Corporation acquired 20% of the company in March 2002, as part of a partnership and OEM agreement".

PCRF Vendor	PCRF Product	Allot	Arbor	Cisco	Procera	Sandvine
Alcatel-Lucent	5780 Dynamic Services Controller (DSC)
Alepo	3GPP Policy and Charging Rules Function
Aptilo Networks	4G service management platform
Aradial Technologies	Aradial Mobile/APC	●		●
BandWD	BwDRC - Dynamic Resource Control	●		●		●
Bridgewater Systems	Policy Controller/PCRF	●	●	●		●
Broadhop	Quantum Policy Server	●	●	●	●
Comability	ComAbility neXus			●
Comptel	Comptel Policy Control™			●	●
Cisco (Starent)	Policy and Charging Control
Digital Route	MediationZone Policy Control
EliteCore – NetVertex	Netvertex (PCRF)
Ericsson	Service-Aware Policy Controller (SAPC)
Flash Networks	POLICY MANAGER
FTS	Leap™ Policy Control	●		●		●
HP	HP Subscriber, Network and Application Policy	●
Huawei	Open Control & Charging Gateway	●
Kabira (Tibco software)	Policy Server			●
Mobixell (724)	X-treme  Framework Platform (XF)	●		●
Nokia Siemens Networks	PCS 5000	●		●		●
Openet	FusionWorks™ Policy Manager			●		●
Orga Systems	Next Generation Control Point
Redknee	Policy Manager (PCRF)			●		●
Roox	Smart Traffic Management
Tango Telecom	iAX™ Data
Tekelec (Camiant)	Multimedia Policy Engine	●	●	●	●	●
Telcordia	Telcordia Bandwidth Manager
Volubill	CONTROL-IT Policy Manager
ZTE	ZXUN RCP	●