Cache Deployments[226]: Life:) [Belarus] Deployed PeerApp

PeerApp announced that it has been ".. selected by Belarusian Telecommunications Network (BeST life:)) to provide its UltraBand transparent caching platform ..Within the past year, life:)'s 3G subscribers have nearly doubled as a percentage of their installed base, and data consumption per 3G subscriber is growing rapidly. For many life:) subscribers mobile service is their primary Internet connection .. PeerApp’s UltraBand transparent caching platform helps BeST speed content delivery and reduce network load by automatically detecting and storing popular content, and delivering it locally".

Belarusian Telecommunications Network, a subsidiary of Turkcell, offers mobile services under the distinctive “life:)” brand throughout Belarus. At the end of Q3, 2012, it had 1M mobile subscribers, more than 40% decrease compared to the previous year.

See "PeerApp Brings Mobile Experience to “life:)”" - here.

Ovum & Heavy Reading Analysts Summarize the Broadband Traffic Management Congress

 

Steven Hartley (pictured)  Practice Leader, Telco Strategy Ovum and Graham Finnie, Chief Analyst, Heavy Reading, published their impressions from the recent Broadband Traffic Management Congress (here) held recently in London.  

Steven found it was "refreshing to see examples of how operators are approaching the commercial aspects of managing traffic" rather than a vendor solution show, as in previous years. The main trends were:

• plans tiered by quality of service (QoS) were no longer being touted. The burden of proof required to justify spending on these approaches has always concerned us particularly in the consumer market .. Operators are instead opting for a “gold, silver, and bronze” approach aligned with applications, meaning that the benefits of QoS are aimed at the content provider, which pays for an optimal end-user experience
   
• Deutsche Telekom, Pakistani WiMAX operator PTCL, Du, Orange Group, and Turkcell extolled the virtues of customer segmentation for creating tailored packages
   
• There was a consensus among vendors (with a clear vested interest in promoting their tools’ sophistication) that the future will see operators offering highly tailored packages to end users and content providers. However, this view was somewhat tempered by the operators at the event, which spoke of simplicity and clarity as the key means to win customers (Belgacom, Orange)

Graham Finnie (pictured) also saw "It wasn’t just theoretical speculation—speaker after speaker set out real, deployed examples" and the focus on applications - "Top of the list for now is the use of DPI and related mechanisms to identify social networking apps—especially Facebook—and give them special treatment such as zero-rating or a lower price point (Turkcell, Du).

Other trends:

• top-ups, apps-oriented turbo boosts, and short-term upgrades are all increasingly popular
   
• a strong desire to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of subscribers and applications (Bell Canada) - 2012 looks like being a good year for analytics (see here).

See "Traffic management gets less technical" [Ovum, here] - here and "Broadband Traffic Management: It’s All About The Package" [Heavy Reading, published by Allot, here]

[Yankee Group]: MNOs Must Introduce Customized Price Plans (w/Examples)

    

A new survey by Declan Lonergan (pictured), VP, Yankee Group concludes that "Mobile network operators (MNOs) must introduce customized price plans to sustain mobile broadband (MBB) revenue growth and ensure long-term business model sustainability. Tiered pricing should be only the first step toward a more personalized approach. MNOs’ end goal must be to ensure consumers are offered MBB services that meet their specific needs in terms of preferred devices, consumption behavior and price-sensitivity"

"..  Survey respondents exhibit strong interest in paying for features that enable them to control their MBB expenditure by avoiding any unexpected charges .. A significant proportion of customers (22 percent in our survey) are also willing to pay extra for a guarantee of consistent network quality .. Most MNOs are already experimenting with new MBB pricing schemes. For example:

  

• Vodafone Italy's Internet Sempre price plan is an example of a progressive European tiered MBB price plan. It offers three tier options, and throttles speeds once customer exceed their monthly data allowance. This is designed to encourage customers to upgrade to a higher-tier service. 
• TeliaSonera's 4G/LTE pricing in Sweden offers three service tiers--each with a different price point, network speed and data allowance--which TeliaSonera positions as a fair usage limitation
• Turkcell's MBB pricing does not feature different network speed tiers. Instead it focuses on volume-based tiering with consistent network speed".

 

See "Mobile Broadband Needs Customized Pricing" - here (press release) and here (extended article).

See also:

• [Yankee Group]: Consumers are Willing to Pay More for a "consistent, transparent and dynamic communication service" - here
    
• [Guest Post]: “When Everyone is Super, Then No-One Is” - here

DPI Deployments (80): Turkcel/TurkCell Superonline Use Optenet Web Filtering (Cisco and Sandvine DPI)

  

Two weeks after announcing the deployment by Vodafone Turkey (see " Vodafone Turkey Uses Optenet and Allot for Web Filtering" - here), Optenet now announces that "both Turkcell and Turkcell Superonline, with market leadership in five of the nine countries in which it operates and approximately 60.4 million subscribers, to provide filtering services to its residential customers in Turkey .. Optenet will enable Turkcell and Turkcell Superonline to effectively filter all Web/WAP content classified as illegal by government authorities, ensuring they do not inadvertently transfer content prohibited by law .. It is a complete solution that is able to filter both HTTP and non-HTTP traffic. ".

Source: Turkcell Q1 Presentation

While the Vodafone solution was integrated with DPI gear from Allot, this time it it "fully integrated with their infrastructure interoperating with CISCO SCE and Huawei for Turkcell and Sandvine DPI for Turkcell Superonline"

See "Turkcell and Turkcell Superonline select Optenet and Alcatel-Lucent to provide fully law compliant filtering services to its residential customers before August 22, 2011 in accordance with new Turkish government regulations" - here.

Cisco: Mobile Internet Monetization Case Studies - Verizon Wireless, Vodafone Hungary and Turkcell

    

A new presentation from Cisco "Monetization and Policy & Charging Control for the Mobile Internet" (here) provides a good overview of the new mobile internet market challenges and opportunities.

The presentation discusses monetization opportunities (chart below) and shows case studies for Verizon Wireless (right chart), Vodafone Hungary and Turkcell.


See also:

• Openet/Cisco Joint Policy/DPI Projects - Orange Group, Turkcell, Mobilkom Austria - here
• DPI Deployments - Part3: Vodafone Hungary Case - here 

 

Openet/Cisco Joint Policy/DPI Projects - Orange Group, Turkcell, Mobilkom Austria

 

The policy management market seems to flourish these days, and Cisco still does not have its own solution (see "Cisco Needs a Policy Server" - here).

Naturally, the pure players are trying to get closer to the giant and it seems that a number of them are getting some joint business - which makes its way to PR activity. After Bridgewater and Broadhop (see "Bridgewater and Broadhop are Getting Closer to Cisco" - here) we get now a new announcement from Openet.

See "Openet Announces Key Brazilian Policy Customer in Conjunction with the Cisco Developer Network (CDN) Program" - here.

The press release announces an anonymous "Brazilian Convergent Operator", but provides us with some insight into the relations between the two companies: "This customer win showcases continued momentum from Openet’s long-standing relationship with Cisco, spanning more than 10 years with successful customer engagements across the globe for Orange Group, Turkcell (here), Mobilkom Austria and a major USA wireless carrier, amongst others .. builds on its history of interoperability with a variety of Cisco products, including Cisco’s SCE [standalone DPI device], CSG, ASR5K [former Starent GGSN] and eGGSN packetcore solutions."

As for the new project - "The operator will be deploying Openet’s FusionWorks™ Policy Manager, a leading Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) offering. When combined with the Cisco Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) solution ... This integrated solution will enable the operator to control its network resources using real-time applications of complex rules based on subscriber, service or usage context in a next-gen environment .. In addition to staying ahead of the competitive curve, the operator also plans to leverage Policy Manager for cost reduction. Specifically, OPEX expenses will fall by leveraging Openet’s policy capabilities to control traffic at an application level .."

See also a 2009 announcements - "Openet and Cisco Conclude OEM Deal for Integrated Policy Solution" - here and "Cisco and Openet Sign First Customer for OEM Policy Solution" - here.

Related posts:

• DPI Deployments (10): AT&T Uses Openet for iPad Monetization - here
• DPI Deployments (9): Orange France Selects Openet and Cisco for Parental Control and Tethering Prevention - here
• ATIS: "Policy Management is emerging as a key enabler to enhance the network with functionalities like DPI and QoS" - here
• PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix - here