Thursday, October 31, 2013

Openet: NFV based PCC Deployment by NA Tier1 (AT&T?)


Openet announced that a ".. Tier 1 North American wireless operator successfully deployed Openet Policy Manager in a virtualized environment to support 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks. The deployment supports more than one million transactions per second and aligns with the operator’s goal to adopt architecture consistent with network functions virtualization (NFV). Openet has incorporated substantial features within its latest policy engine to maximize the benefits of a virtualized network solution, with virtual Policy installations in over 10 datacenters serving more than 100 million customers".

So what is the difference between a "traditional" policy server software and NFV-based implantation? Openet marketing explains:

"It’s true that bare metal Openet Policy Manager deployments support COTs hardware. What’s new is the abstraction of hardware and software, such that Openet Policy manager instances can be deployed from anywhere in the operator’s network, data center or end-user premises, without the need to interrupt services, perform manual integration with existing systems, or install new or additional hardware. All these are benefits of NFV, though PCRF virtualization is of course but one step toward full NFV". 

As for the anonymous customer - among Openet's North American customers are Bell Canada (see "Bell Canada Uses Openet, NSN and ALU for Shared Data Plans" - here) and Telus (see "Telus  Selected Openet" - here).

AT&T wireless with its 109M subscribers (end of Q3, 2013)  is often mentioned by company's executives (see "Openet - Why AT&T Changed its IPad Service plans?" - here), although never announced publicly.

My readers may speculate if the ambiguous statement above ("over 10 datacenters serving more than 100 million customers') refers to AT&T or not.

See also "AT&T Tests Openet & Cisco for LTE: Session based Pricing, Speed Tiers" - here.

See "Tier 1 North American Carrier Selects Openet for World’s First Virtualized Policy Solution" - here.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Allot: Record $12M Order will be Recognized in Q4 and 2014; DDoS a big Part of VAS


Allot Communications published its Q3 results (revenues of $24.1M - here) and announced a record order of $12M from an APAC-based Fixed tier1 operator (here).

Some quotes from the company's earning call, made by the CEO, Rami Hadar [pictured]:
  • This is an interesting quarter where we're kind of seeing some of the comeback on the fixed side. I can't say it's a trend. So too early to look at strategies or themes out here. But as we noted in the past, traffic on fixed network is growing as well, maybe not as fast as a mobile, but I do believe it's in the 20% or 30% year-over-year, driven by, of course, video application
     
  • Value-Added Services represented 28% of our bookings and 30.6% year-to-date. Up-selling Value-Added Services solutions was also the main contributor to the increase of our gross margin numbers to 77% .. if we have roughly maybe 100 mobile service providers may be 20%, 20% of them have adopted our DDoS solution as an add-on .. In the past 2 years, we've seen a nice uptick in selling DDoS. I believe that this quarter, DDoS was a big part of the VAS offering.
     
  • So the $12 million order that we got during the first [third?] quarter, we didn't recognize any revenues out of it during the third quarter, and it's definitely on our fourth quarter in next year in 2014 revenues.
     
  • [on the US mobile market] Just 4 years, we've been going out to this market, net neutrality has slowed us down. We changed strategy instead of going after a policy control and charging use cases, we started positioning our Value-Added Services. We got 2 of the top 5 mobile operators as customers.

See "Allot Communications Management Discusses Q3 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha - here.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Telefonica and Oracle Expand PCRF to Fixed Broadband


Oracle announced that "Telefónica I+D, the research and development company of the Telefónica Group, and Oracle have completed a process of definition, developing and testing to allow Oracle’s Tekelec Policy Server (PCRF) to extend mobile policy management to fixed broadband networks. This will allow the use of Policy Server and Oracle’s Tekelec Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR), or subscriber database, in a fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) environment. 

The testing demonstrated Policy Server’s ability to support both mobile and fixed operators in a single deployment. The company’s policy products support fixed and mobile service providers in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region"
.

Related posts -  "PCC Deployments [252]: Telefonica [UK] Selected Tekelec for LTE" - here and "Telefónica Group Selects Acision/Tekelec" - here.

See "Telefónica I+D Demonstrates Fixed-Mobile Convergence Use Cases" - here.

Monday, October 28, 2013

[Guest post]: How Mobile Operators Can Address the War on Porn?

By Michael Rodgers*, Senior Strategist of Products, Openwave Mobility

UK Prime Minster David Cameron recently raised the stakes in his “war against porn” by asking Internet providers to apply stricter filters on adult content.

Child safety has been cited by many political insiders as one of the reasons behind the UK’s push towards stricter content laws. Cameron’s vision which also includes controls on Google search, is that the country’s households should “opt-in” to access to adult content.

The new measures would initially be automatically applied to new customers then expanded to existing subscribers through providers actively contacting their customer base regarding filtering options. The UK’s biggest Internet providers have all agreed to Cameron’s filter scheme meaning that 95% of UK homes will be filtered by the end of the year.

However, with nearly two thirds of the UK’s 12-15 year olds’ owning smartphones filtering only home networks will not fully shield them.

The reality is that very few parents know what their children and teenagers browse on their mobile phones, with the majority of youngsters knowing far more about the device’s capabilities than the parents footing the bill. Many parents are vigilant with their children’s laptop use, limiting it to “public areas” like lounges where screens can be easily glanced at, but unfortunately mobiles are often neglected. It’s nearly impossible to know what teenagers are viewing on their small touch-screen devices without assistance.

If the UK puts the responsibility of content-filtering onto mobile operators too they will be forced to figure out a comprehensive, cost-effective, solution that doesn’t aggravate their customers. Content-filtering solutions will need to incorporate:
  • URL Categorization 
  • Content Blocking
  • Captive portal with end-user sign-up: by default adult content is blocked, and access has to be requested)
     
  • User repository: to keep track of who signed up and user age
A simple way for operators to filter adult content would be automatically through their price plans. By enabling automatic parental-controls / content-filtering on shared and family plans for example, operators could discreetly protect younger users without parents having the additional task or responsibility of setting it up. Using the UK approach of needing to opt-out of the filters would ensure comprehensive protection for those who need it. Although such shared plans are relatively new in the UK market with EE having just released its “Shared 4GEE” plan last month, this would immediately work well in the US market where shared plans are more established. However, in the UK market where it is common place for parent to set up individual plans for their children and teens, offering a “Young Adult” plan with automatic filtering would be an easy and simple way for UK operators to protect younger users.

The UK is not alone in its movement in filtering adult content over the Internet. North American mobile operators are currently looking at ways to contain explicit content when browsing on devices. Although the operators are concerned about protecting vulnerable users, there is also an element of business ROI behind the move. It is estimated that the traffic from adult content currently accounts for 10-15 percent of the total traffic on mobile networks in the US. By reducing this type content more network capacity will be available and provides operators with another effective tool to manage network congestion.

As child-safety on the Internet is becoming more of a priority for governments as well as parents, mobile operators need to proactively begin addressing this issue now. Offering price plans that automatically filter inappropriate content, will not only provide an additional level of care that operators provide their subscribers, it will help differentiate their price plans in a competitive market with a “family-friendly” options. Acting on the issue now will enable operators to revolutionise price plans and help them stay ahead of the curve, demonstrating a willingness to take ownership of child-protection. This is especially vital when so many parents are unaware that such protection exists in mobile Internet world.


___________

*Michael Rodgers is a senior product marketing strategist at Openwave Mobility with over 20 years of experience in mobile telecoms, primarily focused on product management and marketing of mobile data infrastructure and value-added services products. At Openwave Mobility, Michael is currently responsible for marketing the company’s policy and charging product portfolio with a key focus on helping mobile operators innovate on data pricing models.

Prior to Openwave, Michael spent six years with Ericsson where he held a variety of positions including technical consultant, systems engineering and product management/marketing roles.

Michael holds a BSc, Science Physics & Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin, an MSc, Physics Opto-electronics and MA, Music technology from Queen’s University Belfast.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

PCC Deployments [269]: CTM [Macau] Selected Comverse


Comverse announces that "CTM Macau has selected Comverse .. and Tata Consultancy Services .. as partners for a business transformation that will redefine the user experience, facilitate monetization and reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) ..  The Comverse ONE® Converged Billing and Active Customer Management solution, including Policy Management and enhanced with long-term Operational, Advisory and Managed Services will facilitate consolidation of multiple lines of business and BSS systems to deliver convergent charging, optimized operations and advance CTM’s ambitious growth plans".

At the end of 2012 CTM had 745K mobile subscribers (18% increase compared to 2011), and 165K mobile broadband subscribers (34% increase compared to 2011). Macau has a mobile penetration rate of 275%.

See "CTM Macau Partners with Comverse, TCS to Transform Operations, Unleash a More Engaging User Experience" - here.

Bell Canada will Use Network Usage Information for "select purposes"


Bell Canada is going to use its customers (starting with mobile subscribers) data usage information for a number of purposes, including the controversial behavioral advertising. The way it is done (with opt-out option only, see below) brings back past incidents in the UK (Phorm) and US (Nebuad) - all  ended up with lawsuits (see "Paper: The Use of DPI for Behavioral Advertising (Case Study: Nebuad and Phorm)" - here).

In addition, Bell say it may share information that identifies customers personally with its affiliates (a very wide defenition, usually). 

Bell's web page "How does Bell respect my privacy?" (here) explains that "Your privacy is an important priority at Bell, and so is providing an experience that best meets your needs .. Today we want to tell you about some important updates relating to new uses of information".

"Starting on November 16, 2013, Bell will begin using certain information about your account and network usage for select purposes, such as continuing to improve network performance and product offers through new business and marketing reports, making some of the ads and marketing partner offers you see more relevant to you, and providing increased levels of fraud detection and prevention. We will not share any information that identifies you personally outside of Bell Canada and its affiliates.

Initially, this applies only to Bell Mobility customers but we look forward to expanding it to tv and internet customers in the future. Remember, no customer is required to participate. If you don't want your data used for relevant advertising, we won't use it.

Network usage information, such as:
  • Web pages visited from your mobile device or your Internet access at home. This may include search terms that have been used.
  • Location
  • App and device feature usage
  • TV viewing
  • Calling patterns
If you do not want us to use your information for any of the purposes described above, you can opt out.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

F5: We are Starting to See Policy Enforcement Wins; Tremendous Progress with Traffix Diameter


Quotes from F5's CEO, John McAdam [pictured], and Manuel F. Rivelo, EVP of Strategic Solutions, made during its Q4, 2013 earning call (revenues were $370M, +9% Y/Y - see "F5 Networks Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2013 Results" - here):
  • We are starting to see wins in the service provider market with our new policy enforcement [see "F5 Announces DPI; 320Gbps/Chassis" - here] and carrier-grade network address translation modules
     
  • we have also made tremendous progress with our Traffix Diameter solutions for LTE rollouts. Our competitive win rate for Diameter opportunities has strengthened throughout the year, and we believe we have a real technology advantage with our Diameter solution portfolio. We are involved in some large-scale implementations with Tier 1 service provider LTE rollouts and the pipeline of future business continues to grow.
Source: F5
  • We think we've got great a strategy with the consolidation strategy that fits exactly where they want to go in terms of reducing the number of boxes [see "F5: SPs Love the Idea of A single Chassis for DPI, Policy Enforcement, NAT, Steering .." - here], having them in one consolidated solution, whether it's Policy Management, Traffix D, security
     
  • We feel very confident with our application and Traffic steering solutions, and really confident also with our Diameter stack to take advantage of the 4G movement that's out there
     
  • .. the 4G movement is really still in its infancy in the sense that only 1/3 of the global operators in the world have moved to Diameter. But the movement over the next couple of years is to 100%. So we expect that these 400 or so mobile operators out there that are going to be implementing Diameter solutions and only growing, over that window of time, their needs.
See "F5 Networks Management Discusses Q4 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha - here.

Ericsson Enhances SSR 8000 with Multi-application Card


Ericsson announced the "release of a new multiple-application card that will support various services concurrently without compromising performance. This board in the SSR 8000 family [see "Ericsson Adds DPI and Wi-Fi to SSR 8000"- here and "Ericsson: 22 Contracts for the SSR 8000" - hereis powered by SNP 4000 [see "Ericsson's New Network Processor - for Internal Use Only" - here], a revolutionary processor introduced by Ericsson in March 2013.


New application and service models such as network slicing - driven by the adoption of SDN, virtualization and cloud technologies in the network - require the kind of scale and processing power provided by the SNP 4000, to provide granular and personalized services with tens of millions of traffic flows".



See "Ericsson Smart Services Router gets multi-application card" - here.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Monday's Guest Post: What Operators Can Introduce to Effectively Protect Children?


A new guest post will be published on Monday. In his article, "How mobile operators can address the war on porn?" my 30th guest, Michael Rodgers, will discuss the recent initiatives made by the UK government to introduce "porn filters" to protect children from indecent images and their affects of mobile operators.

"It is only a matter of time before the public and media spotlight falls on mobile operators and questions are asked on what carriers can do to protect vulnerable users.  A wait and see strategy is not an option" says Michael.
  
Stay tuned!

Procera Partners with Skyfire: Detects and Steers Video Traffic for Optimization


Procera Networks and Skyfire, a fully-owned subsidiary of Opera Software (see "Opera Buys Skyfire for (up to) $155M" - here), announced a ".. joint solution and partnership to tackle the rapid growth of video traffic on global mobile networks, based on an open, scalable ICAP architecture .. The joint solution is designed to bring Procera’s leadership in intelligent policy enforcement together with Skyfire’s cloud-based mobile video optimization solution, Rocket OptimizerTM. Procera's Advanced Traffic Steering uses highly granular and accurate criteria to determine when and what video should be optimized. 

Together, the solution provides rapid scalability and quick time to market that is unprecedented in the industry, and provides over 2 times the boost in network capacity versus competing solutions by optimizing virtually all types of video traffic – including network-clogging HD video. This results in superior service provider economics and broadband subscriber experience. Procera and Skyfire, joining with other industry leaders, have also modeled their solution on an open ICAP architecture.

The interoperable solution is already being field-trialed by a major European operator".

See "Procera Networks and Skyfire Announce Deployment-Ready Partnership" - here.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

InfoVista Acquires Aexio

  
InfoVista announced that it has "..acquired Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based mobile network optimization specialist Aexio .. Since its inception in 2005, Aexio has seen significant uptake of its best-of-breed network optimization software solutions, especially among mobile operators looking at using live network measurements to improve their network performance. 

InfoVista will leverage the company’s subscriber geo-analytics, RF optimization and configuration management expertise to broaden its data collection reach and transform network, service and subscriber information into actionable network intelligence. This will enable CSPs to improve the quality of experience (QoE) for their customers, while maximizing profitability from their multi-vendor, multi-technology networks".



See "InfoVista Acquires Aexio to Strengthen Mobile Network Optimization Product Suite" - here.

Citrix: "Bytemobile deals are large and infrequent"


Statements regarding the Bytemobile business made during the Citrix' Q3 earning call (see "Citrix Reports Third Quarter Financial Results" - here).

David James Henshall [pictured], acting CEO of Citrix:  "just in general, the ByteMobile business is maybe on track to what we have thought in terms of dollar contribution [see "Citrix Outlook for Bytemobile Business ($15M/Q4)" - here]. We're probably a little bit behind in building out the go-to-market motion from where we'd like to be. As you know, selling into a carrier is a different beast. It's a longer sales cycle. The deals are large and the deals are infrequent, and they tend to be multiyear in nature. But we've got a good pipeline opportunity of what we call new logos. The timing, of course, is very hard to predict, but they're out there and we're ramping well. 

As far as ByteMobile as a product, we have a new release .. ByteMobile 7, which is shipping this quarter [see "Citrix Enhances Bytemobile w/Internet Radio Opt, User Experience Indexing, More Protocols" - here], enables mobile operators to really differentiate service by managing things like Internet radio traffic and User Experience Indexing and some pretty cool features there that will add value to their networks. So it's early for us. It's an early segment and one that, I think, we'll keep focusing on into next year"
 

Sudhakar Ramakrishna [pictured], SVP and General Manager of Desktop & Cloud added: "Release 7 actually has a lot of features that continue to expand what's called the wireless spectrum efficiency and optimization that we've been delivering in the ByteMobile context to our customers. We've also added capabilities to help them meet and rate their users more effectively, thereby enabling them to deliver differentiated business models. So that's on the ByteMobile stuff. There is a level of NetScaler attach related to ByteMobile deployments [see "Is the Optimization Market Declining?" - here].

However, the main focus on NetScaler is, call it, supporting telco data centers, which typically tends to be different buyers within the same telco. But we're using our ByteMobile presence, ByteMobile sales teams and the broader proposition that they're delivering to gain additional traction on the broader NetScaler portfolio gives us. So there's some limited attach as it relates to ByteMobile directly. And then there is also a focus on expanding into their data centers". 

ByteMobile Features.

See "Citrix Systems Management Discusses Q3 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha - here.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Allot Enhances Analytics w/Visibility, Granularity and Self-Service Approach


Allot Communications announced the "launch of Allot ClearSee ..  a big-data analytics solution that allows service providers to capture and analyze a rich variety of application, subscriber, device and Quality of Experience (QoE) data from their own networks and then transform the source data into valuable business intelligence that is needed to drive service profitability and customer satisfaction.



With Allot ClearSee, operators are not limited to a particular set of reports or a specific way to analyze data. Allot ClearSee features a Self-Service approach to data mining and analysis, starting with a full complement of “out-of-the-box” reports and customizable queries for analyzing data from network, application, subscriber, device and QoE perspectives. This concept is further extended by the system’s Self-Service module, which gives operators a dedicated, interactive workspace where they can mine the data warehouse for specific information, model ad hoc questions, test what-if scenarios, and immediately visualize the results.



The Allot ClearSee platform is designed to run on either dedicated or virtual machines. The carrier-grade, scalable platform is designed to handle large and growing volumes of data as well as interoperate smoothly with other operator systems. It is designed for NFV environments and is utilizing an MPP architecture that allows operators to scale and utilize all of the advantages that an operator cloud has to offer".

See "Allot Communications Launches a Breakthrough Approach to Telco Big Data Analytics" - here.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Flash Networks Optimizes MPEG-DASH with 30%-50% Data Reduction


Flash Networks announced the  ".. availability of MPEG-DASH video optimization that reduces network congestion and improves the quality of experience for subscribers without manipulating video content. Flash Networks’ MPEG-DASH optimization solution is part of the company’s advanced video optimization solution that provides 30%-50% data reduction with no perceptible impact on video quality. 


Source: DASH Industry Forum 

Today a significant amount of YouTube traffic is delivered using the MPEG-DASH format. YouTube has implemented a unique flavor of MPEG-DASH that requires more sophisticated methods of optimization than standard MPEG-DASH. Optimization solutions that do not support MPEG–DASH are unable to positively influence the delivery of video with this format and therefore are less efficient overall. 

Flash Networks, by using proprietary methods, provides an advanced MPEG-DASH optimization solution, enabling mobile operators to provide a more consistent, higher quality of experience to its subscribers".

See "Flash Networks the First to Boost MPEG-DASH Video Streaming" - here.

Monday, October 21, 2013

ALU: "CDN will play a critical role in helping operators optimize their networks for unicast traffic"


A recent post to Alcatel-Lucent blog by Roland Mestric [pictured], Video Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent. discusses the affect of streaming video traffic on public networks.

"When people watch Live TV on their television sets, it is broadcast or multicast TV, which means the same stream is distributed across the network to all the viewers at the same time. But when people watch video on IP connected devices (smartphones, tablets, PC, etc.) or when they watch on demand content (VoD, catch-up TV, network DVR, etc.), it is unicast traffic: each individual user is served with a unique stream".


" .. The Bell Labs study [see "Bell Labs Video Traffic Study" - heresays that in 2022, unicast-type video will represent more than 90% of the demand .. This is raising unique challenges for service providers who have to scale their networks to support unicast traffic .. Many operators say this phenomenon has started already and they are investing to ensure they can better serve their subscribers at the lowest cost".


"It’s pretty clear that Content Delivery Network (CDN) will play a critical role in helping operators optimize their networks for unicast traffic .. To retain the cost and traffic management benefits of the CDN, it means this personalization has to be performed in the CDN at the edge of the network".
  
See "Be prepared for the unicast flood!" - here.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Google: "Almost 40% of YouTube’s traffic now comes from mobile"


Some quotes from Google's Q3 2013 earning call, made by Larry Page, CEO:
  • "..  We’ve also making great progress across devices with Youtube. Almost 40% of Youtube’s traffic now comes from mobile, up from 6% two years ago. And in August we updated our Youtube apps for android and iOS. You can now leave a video playing at the bottom of your screen while you explore other content.
  • .. That’s why I love Chromecast which we launched in July and immediately became a best seller. On your phone, tablet or laptop and start playing some music from Youtube or a show from Google play or Netflix. One click the content is there on the bigger screen in your home, your TV, all for just $35"
     
  • YouTube has grown over 75% over the past two years
See "Google's CEO Discusses Q3 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpha - here

Saturday, October 19, 2013

O2 Germany Follows DT w/DSL Caps (100-300GB)


Deutsche Telekom's decision to implement data caps on its DSL service (see "DT Implements Data Caps (but Excludes its Own Video and Voice Services)" - here and "DT CEO: "We cannot Explain our DSL Throttling Policy"" - here) opened the door for the other providers.

Michael Filtz reports to ZDNet that "O2 Germany has announced [here, German] that starting in July 2014 it will begin implementing its first national broadband data caps As part of the company's proposed 'Fair Flat rate' plan:

  • If DSL users on the company's 'All-in M' and 'All-in L' plans exceed 300GB for three straight months, their speed will be limited to 2Mbps when they use more than 300GB of data again on the fourth month. Additionally, the throttling will continue in subsequent months if users continue to break the 300GB limit. Normal download speeds for these plans are up to 16 Mbps and 50Mbps, respectively.
     
  • And users on the budget 'All-in S' plan can expect the throttling to kick in much sooner: they'll have a 100GB cap each month, where their speeds will be reduced from 8Mbps to 2Mbps, regardless of whether they've exceeded the threshold in the previous month".


See "O2 bringing in broadband data caps in 2014 in Germany, power users face throttling" - here.

Friday, October 18, 2013

EliteCore Integrates Charging, Billing, PCRF, DSC, AAA and Mediation


Elitecore Technologies announces ".. pre-integrated BSS platform comprising online charging, convergent billing, PCRF, DSC, 3GPP AAA and enhanced mediation for LTE networks. It supports gradual migration from existing networks to provide personalized LTE offerings such as shared wallet/family plans, a la carte plans and VoLTE support. The platform also comes with Business Analytics (BI) tool to help the CSPs launch customer-centric loyalty and promotional plans including location-based and device-based plans .. The platform is compliant to TM Forum and 3GPP. Its vendor-agnostic platform help CSPs save cost by reusing the existing network equipment across both DIAMETER and RADIUS .. Elitecore has successfully deployed its integrated BSS platform for LTE network in ME and APAC regions.

Elitecore BSS platform is integrated with packet core, including PCRF to offer tiered fair access policy plans, Policy-based free units, parental controls and enterprise plans along with customer-centric loyalty and promotions such as location-based, device-based add-on promos and targeted promotions based on subscriber ARPU. Its enhanced Web Self-care and POS portals enable customers have services/bundle plans of their choice with easy interface management of Franchisee/ Resellers and Partners".


See "Elitecore Announces LTE-ready, Integrated BSS Platform" - here.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Study: Top U.S. Retailers Websites Continue to Get Slower


A recent study by Radware "reveals that websites for the top 500 U.S. retailers are still too slow and continue to get slower – pages have slowed down 14% since Summer 2013, and are 16% slower than Fall 2012. Additionally, the report uncovers inconsistent adoption of core best practices by site owners, critically affecting website performance and customer experience.

The median page took 8.56 seconds to load for first-time visitors, representing a 14% slowdown over the median of 7.48 seconds recorded three months ago ..



See "New Radware Research Reveals Top Retailers Sites Too Slow, Struggle to Meet Customer Needs" - here.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

PCC Deployments [268]: GO [Malta] Uses ALU's DSC for Personalization


Alcatel-Lucent announced that it has been ".. selected by GO, the leading telecommunications in Malta, to help shape its service offering as it lays the foundations of its evolved network ., GO is laying the groundwork for its 4G LTE service by putting in place critical policy and charging software to manage customer services usage.

GO [2nd largest operator in Malta, estimated number of mobile subscribers - 160K],  is the first customer to deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s complete Smart Plan solution, which was introduced in February 2013 to help service providers easily shape a retail strategy around fixed, mobile and data offerings .. Smart Plan deployed by GO includes: 


  • Smart Plan Builder empowering GO customers to easily discover, purchase and manage broadband services
     
  • SurePay® simplifying real-time charging across fixed, mobile and data services
     
  • 5780 Dynamic Services Controller (DSC) based on Agile Rules Technology (A.R.T.) and making it easier for GO to implement personalized services faster.
See "Maltese operator GO selects Alcatel-Lucent’s Smart Plan to help customers easily discover, purchase and manage broadband services" - here.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Procera New DPI Platform - 70 Gbps, 3M Subscribers, 20M Flows in 2RU

   
Procera Networks announced the "..launch of the PacketLogic™ 8960, a flexible Intelligent Policy Enforcement (IPE) platform ideal for network deployments supporting high-density subscriber scenarios in a cost-effective .. The PacketLogic 8960 is a highly scalable 2RU appliance supporting up to 70 Gbps of network traffic throughput accessible through 6 modular I/O slots supporting up to 12 x 10GE or 24 x 1GE channels. This represents the industry's highest performance 2 RU IPE platform, setting another new industry benchmark.




Supporting up to three million active subscribers and 20 million active flows, with the ability to enforce policy on all concurrent flows in the system the PL8960 can easily scale capacity from one to 70 Gbps with the addition of software licenses".

See "Procera Networks Delivers Industry Leading Performance Again with the Introduction of the PacketLogic 8960" - here.

PCC/DPI Deployments [267]: TELE Greenland Selects Openet and Allot


Openet and Allot Communications continue to join forces in PCC/DPI projects (see "Wireless DPI, Caching and Policy Management Wins by Allot and Openet" -here).

The two vendors announced that "their joint policy management solution has been selected by TELE Greenland A/S, the leading provider of telecom solutions in Greenland, across its fixed broadband and mobile networks. The solution combines Allot’s DPI market leading technology Service Gateway for delivery of 3GPP compliant TDF functionality (see "Allot Enhances DPI Gateway with Standard TDF; Deployed by LTE Operators" - here), together with Openet’s pre-packaged, fully customizable Express Solutions (see "Openet Pre-Packaged Solutions Available (Fair use, Tiered Services ..)" - here) to deliver a set of Policy and Charging Control (PCC) use cases. It enables TELE Greenland to shape and monetize the customer experience by rolling out flexible charging plans tailored to the activities of individual subscribers".

TELE Greenland had 17,355 mobile subscribers at the end of 2011, of population of 56,000 people scattered over thousands of kilometers.

See "Openet and Allot Partner to Provide Fixed Broadband and Mobile Policy Management Solutions for TELE Greenland" - here.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Facebook Acquires Onavo for $100M


Haaretz reports today that "Facebook, the world’s largest social network, has signed an agreement to acquire the Israeli startup Onavo for more than $100 million [other sources say $150M].

Onavo, the developer of an award-winning mobile utility app and the company behind Onavo Insights, made the announcement Monday morning to its employees and published a notice on its blog (see "We are joining the Facebook team" - here).

See: 
  • Optimization Announcements: Onavo Offers "3rd Party" Compression Service -here
  • Onavo CEO: We may Charge for our Data Optimization Service - here
  • Optimization Market: Li Ka-shing and Motorola Invest in Onavo - here
See "Facebook buys Israeli startup Onavo for more than $100 million" - here.

FreePCRF by Yota


FreePCRF states - "Our team in Yota is involved in development of PCRF, useful and important component of the operator network. Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) is an advanced policy management solution enabling the operator to dynamically control network elements and apply real-time policies based on services, subscriber info and usage context .. Policy Engine and Generic Request API docs will help you to learn it in details and try on our free image. Any questions you have you can write here or post on our forum (http://freepcrf.com/forum). We will be happy to answer any of them".



From the documentation (here) :  "Yota PCRF is a standard compliant policy management solution that enables operator to dynamically control network elements with real-time policies based on service, subscriber or usage context. Yota PCRF allows making policy decisions based on:
  • Subscriber profile and enabled services 
  • Subscriber application and protocol (Skype, P2P) 
  • Content type (Video, MP3) 
  • Subscriber device (Mobile, iPad, TV, PC) 
  • Subscriber location (home, roaming, specific cell) 
  • Date and time 
  • Accumulated usage (per month, week, day, hour) 
  • Cell congestion 
  • Any combination of the above and other parameters"
It is said to be compatible with the following DPI systems - Sandvine Policy Traffic Switch (PTS, Policy Enforcement), Procera PRE with JET integration module JSM and Cisco SCE8000. The compatibility matrix (here) was updated to reflect that (UPD #66).

The license grants "a nonexclusive, nontransferable limited license to use the Software only for the purpose of evaluation, or demonstration, or testing purposes only. If you use the Software for any internal data processing or for any commercial or production purposes, or you want to use the Software for any purpose other than as permitted under this agreement, you must obtain a production release version of the Software by contacting us to obtain the appropriate license. You acknowledge that we may not produce a production release version of the Software and any development efforts undertaken by you are at your own risk"

See "PCRF experience: dynamic script-based policy decision maker or what do we need LUA for" - here.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Radware Launches an SDN-based Ultra Scalable Traffic Steering Solution


Radware expands its SDN products (see "Radware: Use SDN to Provide DDoS Protection" - here) with the availability of ".. ElasticScale, a new SDN-based network service scalability solution that enables carriers and service providers to dynamically scale-out and scale-in network services throughout their networks .. ElasticScale is the only solution in the industry to address all three aspects of network service scalability: virtual appliance provisioning, traffic distribution across virtual appliances, and acceleration of virtual appliance I/O.
Features and benefits of Radware’s ElasticScale solution includes:
  • Ultra scalable traffic steering solution (100’s of Gbps)
  • Ultra scalable load balancing solution
  • Based on industry leading, carrier grade Alteon load balancing product line
  • Support for leading hypervisors (oXen/KVM/Hyper-V/ESXi)
  • Compatible with leading SDN controllers such as  OpenDaylight [see "SDN Gets Standards and Open Source" - here], Cisco XNC and NEC ProgrammableFlow
  • Seamless integration with OpenStack and vCloud Director
  • Runs over any physical SDN network equipment"
See "Radware Announces ElasticScale SDN-Based Network Service Scalability Solution" - here.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

NSF Research: Same Bandwidth, More Data


Phys.org reports that "A team of researchers is working on technology that would allow mobile devices to send and receive more data using the same limited amount of bandwidth. The work is supported by a $1.08 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF - now in "outage") .. One way to get more use of the available bandwidth is through a technique called multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) communication, which uses the same radio frequency to transmit more than one stream of data simultaneously .. However, implementing the MIMO concept in small, mobile devices has been problematic .. Now a team of electrical engineers is working to develop a new radio receiver system that will allow small mobile devices to use MIMO technology. The system will include multiple antennas, a reconfigurable circuit, and new signal processing algorithms".

"We hope to have a proof of concept using two receivers by fall of 2015 and three to four receivers by fall of 2017," says Brian Floyd [pictured], an electrical engineering researcher at NC State who specializes in circuit design and is principal investigator (PI) of the NSF grant. "These approaches could allow the benefits of MIMO to be applied to systems in small devices, enhancing the download speeds for many common applications".

See "Researchers work to squeeze more data from bandwidth in mobile devices" - here.

Gartner: SDN/NFV should Lead CSPs to DPI, Analytics and New OSS Investments


Paula Bernier [pictured], Executive Editor, TMC, reports to NFVZONE that "Gartner says the dynamic nature of networking SDN and NFV enable will require service providers to up their game in terms of security. They can do that, according to Gartner, by investing in deep packet inspection and SDN analytic tools that monitor traffic, diagnose threats and mitigate security challenges. At the same time, the research firm suggests, network operators must be sure to manage and monitor security controller access to see who is logging in when and for what purpose.

As for billing and operational support systems, Gartner recommends that service providers invest in new ones that support SDN orchestration and provisioning, policy-based control with security functions, and real-time control and billing.
  
With SDN's control and NFV's flexibility, CSPs can develop business models that are based on tiered services, elastic services like security-as-a-service using DPI functions on-demand or more applications on demand
See "Gartner: SDN, NFV Create New Security, OSS Requirements" - here.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Napatech and Qosmos Show Deeper DPI @10 Gbps


Napatech and Qosmos announced ".. a new 10 Gbps DPI platform .. The 10 Gbps metadata demo combines Qosmos DPI capabilities with Napatech intelligent network adapters to provide rich, real-time input for big data analysis of network and application usage:

  • Qosmos’ ixEngine software extracts protocol and application metadata, enabling insight into network transactions and patterns of user behavior. Developers use Qosmos ixEngine to enable service classification and metadata extraction in their applications. IxEngine can extract more than 6,000 different types of metadata, such as file and application usage, application performance, traffic volume and content.
     
Napatech 40 GbE Adapter
  • Napatech provides intelligent network adapters that guarantee real-time delivery of data at speeds from 1 to 40 Gbps. Napatech adapters provide layer 1-4 flow recognition, including tunneling protocols commonly used in mobile networks, such as GTP. Intelligent distribution can direct these flows to up to 32 server CPU cores. When combined with a standard server and DPI software, Napatech enables rapid development of high-performance appliances".
See "Napatech and Qosmos to Demonstrate 10 Gbps Metadata Deep Packet Inspection at Futurecom Brazil" - here.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Xirrus Announced new Dual Radio Wi-Fi AP Module with DPI


Xirrus announced the "XR-630 802.11ac access point (AP) featuring ACExpress™ – a Xirrus innovation that intelligently separates high-speed from lower-speed mobile devices to maximize system performance. The XR-630 provides a cloud-managed, low-cost expansion of the Xirrus 802.11ac portfolio that also includes Xirrus' line of modular, upgradeable line of XR Arrays. The XR-630 is the first access point of its kind to feature two radios capable of supporting the new 802.11ac standard, allowing organizations to provide performance well beyond that of 802.11n and enabling mobile users to experience application performance comparable to that of a wired network.

XR-630 is available in December; Pricing - $1100 for XR-630 AP supporting dual 3x3 802.11ac radios.
  

All Xirrus 802.11ac products, including the XR-630, feature Xirrus Application Control, allowing IT administrators to identify and manage more than 1,200 application types using Layer 7 Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) (see "Xirrus Wireless Access Uses Vineyard's DPI for Application Visibility" - here; Vineyard is now part of Procera Networks - see "Technology Partner Case Study | Xirrus" - here) . 

Application Control utilizes a distributed approach to controlling applications, placing the classification and policy enforcement engines directly at the edge of the network where bandwidth and security threats can be controlled before the traffic enters and impacts the core network. The unique Xirrus architecture used on the XR-630 and all Xirrus products employs high performance, integrated controllers to deliver the compute performance required to execute full DPI directly at the network edge".
See "Xirrus Announces Industry-First Dual-802.11ac Radio Access Point" - here.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

{Core Analysis}: Video Optimization Market Reaffirms its Maturity; Citrix ByteMobile Leads


A new report of the video optimization market, by Patrick Lopez [pictured], Founder and CEO at {Core Analysis} finds that "The market trend for the segment reaffirms its maturity. Like last year, the summer has been quiet in term of activity while spring and the fall remain the high RFx quarters. We have recently seen two large groups select their vendor in the space (Telenor and Orange), more or less wrapping up the tier one group selection process for this cycle in mature markets. Growth in this segment now comes from Latin America and South East Asia, where many groups (Singtel, America Movil, ...) have yet to formulate / finalize a strategy in the space".
  • Citrix ByteMobile remains market leader, both in deployments and revenue. The deployment relative market share is decreasing slightly to 29%, while revenue market share is increasing.
    See also "Is the Optimization Market Declining?" with Citrix Bytemobile revenues, here.
     
  • Mobixell Networks remains number 2 in deployments with 23%, once again growing its market share over the period
     
  • Flash Networks remains a strong third with 17%, growing as well faster than the market
See "Video optimization mid-term update" - here.

Accedian F-FLO Optimizes Wireless Backhaul Network Performance in Real-time

 
Accedian Networks introduced its new " .. solutions group, called Performant Networks; which offers a Wireless-Aware™ SDN product line that optimizes performance in real-time on fixed-wireless networks. This is accomplished by dynamically shaping traffic when link capacity suddenly changes due to real-world conditions such as adverse weather and RF interference.

.. The Solutions Groups’ first product, the R-FLO® solution, is compatible with mixed RF, fiber and copper topologies and complements existing networks by bringing unified high-availability and optimized performance network-wide by using all available links, all the time ̶ including standby and slow segments. Patent-pending link capacity monitoring allows R-FLO to dynamically groom traffic and maintain QoS even when links fade .. the R-FLO solution has proven interoperability with leading radio and networking vendors including: SAF Tehnika®, Cambium Networks ™, Trango Systems® and Radwin®".




See "Accedian Introduces a New Solutions Group – Performant Networks" - here.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Juniper Research: MNOs can and will Fight Churn with Analytics (MTN, C Spire)


A new report by Keith Breed, Juniper Research finds that ".. Mobile Operators worldwide are set to gain from a significant reduction in churn through the adoption of Big Data and Analytics techniques, equivalent to an increase in revenues of almost $4bn a year by 2018. The report found that the implementation of analytics platforms was enabling operators to anticipate the likelihood of customers to churn, to take preventative action and thereby reduce revenue loss"
  • MTN South Africa, which in 2012 deployed a Big Data programme combining subscriber information and social network analysis to determine priority users and customer networks and subsequently saw annualised churn decline by more than 20 percentage points
     
  • .. players in more developed markets – such as C Spire Wireless in the US – were increasingly coupling analytics with a customer loyalty programme to improve user retention.
See also "[Juniper Research]: Analytics May Save MNOs $9B by 2018" - here.
See "Mobile Operators to Gain Almost $4bn by 2018 from Applying Analytics to Reduce Churn: Juniper Research" - here.