[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.

Ericsson Updates: SSR (w/DPI) Scheduled for Q4; 85 PCRF Customers

    

The slides below are taken from the presentations made by Håkan Eriksson, Group CTO and President of Ericsson Silicon Valley and Jan Häglund (pictured) VP and Head of Broadband and Internet, Ericsson Networks during Ericsson's North American Analyst Forum held on August 30 in San Jose, CA.

The slides relate to the recently announced Smart Services Router (see "Ericsson Smart Services Router to Include DPI and Video Caching" - here), a major building block in Ericsson's "Service Aware Network", described by Mr. Eriksson.

Ericsson's policy management (now enhanced with Telcordia portfolio) has 85 contracts. 
   

Ken Rehbehn, Yankee Group Mobile Wireless Industry Analyst provided live blogging during the event - and tweeted some of Mr. Häglund statements:

• Policy control activity largely in SE Asia (helping operators w/ innovative charging approaches) 
• 1st Smart Services Router coming 4q11 as planned - 16Tbps
• Smaller versions (10slot/6slot) of Smart Services Router coming in 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ericsson to Buy Telcordia for $1.15B

 
It took almost 6 months since the rumors were spread (see "Telcordia for Sale" - here) to today's announcement by Ericsson - "that it has reached an agreement with Providence Equity Partners, LLC and Warburg Pincus to acquire 100 percent of the shares of Telcordia, a global leader in the development of mobile, broadband and enterprise communications software and services, for USD 1.15 billion. Closing anticipated to Q4 2011 with full effect Q1 2012."

See "Ericsson to acquire Telcordia" - here. Telcordia was sold to its current owners by SAIC more than 6 years ago (Nov '04) for $1.35B (here).

The PCRF angle - both vendors have a PCRF product - Telcordia's Real-Time Policy and Ericsson's Service-Aware Policy Controller (SAPC). Maybe the quote below hints which is going to stay:

"One of the main challenges for operators is how to handle the growth in mobile and fixed broadband traffic, as well as the new types of connected devices, services and applications and the high expectations on user experience, while at the same time increasing the efficiency in business and operations. OSS and BSS are critical areas to handle this challenge and to simplify the processes that support the business. They drive the customer experience and serve as the engine to monetizing traffic, offerings and products that operators sell. All in all, these systems are crucial to create the experience users expect in a cost efficient manner .. The deal creates the leader in Service Fulfilment, Service Assurance and Network Optimization and gives Ericsson a leading position in real-time charging and significant capabilities to support operators end to end. The combination will address the needs of Communications Service Providers to deliver mobile broadband and operational transformation to their subscribers".

Telcordia: "the challenge to operator is to become part of the data value chain"

  
Grant Lenahan, VP & Strategist, Telcordia discusses the challenges mobile operators are facing with mobile broadband services.
See an interview with Todd Townsend, Light Reading, here or below.

Telcordia for Sale

    

The Wall Street Journal reports that Telcordia, one of the PCRF vendors I follow, (see "New PCRF from Telcordia" - here) " .. has been put on the sales block by its private-equity owners and could fetch between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in an auction, according to people familiar with the matter"

 

See report by Anupreeta Das and Dennis K. Berman - "Telcordia Is Up for Sale" - here.

"Telcordia's owners, Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus, have hired Credit Suisse to run the sale process, which began about a week ago, these people said. An initial public offering is also being considered, but a sale is most likely, added one person close to the process"

Telcordia was sold to its current owners by SAIC 6 years ago (Nov '04) for $1.35B (here). A year ago SAIC acquired one of the DPI players, CloudShield (here).

Telcordia's valuation does not tell us much about the PCRF market, at the company has a rich OSS offering.

[Update8 - New PCRF from Telcordia] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

  

I am updating the table with Telcordia's today's announcement of a PCRF product - Telcordia® Bandwidth Manager.

"Our Bandwidth Manager is a converged Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), software-based solution that integrates with your network to define and enforce bandwidth-related rules on a per subscriber basis. It allows you to hyper-customize how you deliver broadband services to meet any market need or demand"

The press release quotes Sheryl Kingstone, Director, Enterprise Research group, Yankee Group: "The availability of Telcordia Bandwidth Manager is timely for CSPs as they strive to find more creative ways to price their data and application services, while also satisfying demand for wireless broadband connections. Now operators can better monetize their network through specialized pricing plans coupled with managed bandwidth consumption to provide differentiated customer experience."

Unfortunately, I can't find any statement of compliance or interoperability with DPI or any other network elements, as expected from PCRF products.

PCRF Vendor	PCRF Product	Allot	Arbor	Cisco	Procera	Sandvine
724 (Mobixell)	X-treme Framework Platform (XF)	●		●
BandWD	BwDRC - Dynamic Resource Control
Bridgewater Systems	Policy Controller/PCRF	●	●	●		●
Broadhop	Quantum Policy Server		●	●
Camiant (Tekelec)	Multimedia Policy Engine	●	●	●	●	●
Comptel	Comptel Policy Control™			●	●
Ericsson	Service-Aware Charging and Control
Flash Networks	POLICY MANAGER
FTS	Leap™ Policy Control	●		●		●
HP	HP Policy and Charging(IUM)	●
Huawei	Open Control & Charging Gateway	●
Kabira (Tibco software)	Policy Server			●
Nokia Siemens Networks	PCS 5000	●
Openet	FusionWorks™ Policy Manager			●		●
Redknee	Policy Manager (PCRF)			●		●
Starent (Cisco)	Policy and Charging Control
Telcordia	Telcordia Bandwidt Manager
Volubill	CONTROL-IT Policy Manager
ZTE	ZXUN RCP	●