The FCC "Deeply Troubled" by Verizon's LTE Optimization

Few days after Verizon published its plan to optimize traffic at congested cells [see "Verizon Expands "Optimization" to LTE Subs to Fight Cell Congestion" - here], the FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, sent them a number of questions, expressing he is  "deeply troubled" by the move, and questioning if this should the right policy for "reasonable netwrok management*" or it is actually done to  "enhance

GSA: 318 Operators Launched LTE Networks; 69 LTE-A; 66 Launched VoLTE

GSA reports that "318 operators have commercially launched LTE networks and service in 111 countries .. Israel [by Orange Israel - see "LTE Services Enabled in Israel - See my Speedtest Results" - here], Madagascar and the Northern Mariana Islands are amongst the latest nations to access commercial LTE mobile broadband service for the first time. 51 LTE networks have launched so far in 2014. The

Procera's Response to Allot's SG-Tera: PL20000 with 600 Gbps/480M Flows

Procera PL20000

3 months after Allot Communications introduced the SG-Tera with 500 Gbps throughout in a single ATCA chassis (see "Allot Launched the New Service Gateway; Orders from 4 Operators (over $9M)" - here), Procera Networks responds with even higher performance, in most KPIs, to be "available for trials in the third quarter of 2014 and generally available in the fourth quarter of

Danish and US Researchers Use Math to Expedite the Internet (5-10X)

A new study by  Frank Fitzek [pictured], Professor in the Department of Electronic Systems from Aalborg University finds that "Mathematical equations can make Internet communication via computer, mobile phone or satellite many times faster and more secure than today. Results with software developed by researchers from Aalborg University in collaboration with the US universities the

Survey: Operators Satisfaction from OSS/BSS Vendors

Jason Marcheck [pictured], Research Director, Current Analysis, published a summary of a "OSS/BSS purchase drivers and vendor satisfaction from large operators around the globe representing approximately half of the global telecom CapEx spend".

The main conclusion is - "The companies that topped the list in questions related to vendor satisfaction seem to be better known as large SI players

[Study]: Lack of Image Optimization Slows down top Retail Web Sites

A new report by Radware finds that "of the top 100 retail websites, the median page has grown 67% in just one year and many are failing to leverage advanced techniques to help accelerate their pages .. use of images is one of the single performance drains, as most site owners are not taking advantage of image optimization techniques that can dramatically improve both real and perceived load

Verizon Expands "Optimization" to LTE Subs to Fight Cell Congestion

3 years after Verizon established its optimization policy to reduce cell congestion, [see "Verizon Explains its "Network Optimization" Policy" - here] it is now expanded to LTE.

Kellex reports to DroidLife that "On October 1, Verizon will expand its existing Network Optimization policy to include unlimited data customers who use 4G LTE devices and “have fulfilled their minimum contract term.”

[Analysis Mason]: Telco Big Data Analytics Market to Reach $2.3B in 2014

A new report by Justin van der Lande [pictured], Principal Analyst, Analysis Mason covers the big data analytics market for telcos - "Big data analytics (BDA) is not just a passing trend; it is becoming an increasingly important part of every aspect of a communications service provider’s (CSP) operations. The drive for efficiency gains, coupled with the need to personalize customers’ experiences

The FCC Reminds ISPs: Transparency Rule is in Full Force

The recent debate around the delivery of Netflix traffic in the US [see "Verizon vs. Netflix on Congestion - It is NOT Us!" - here and "Netflix - Speed to Comcast Customers Continue to Surge" - here], creating confusing among consumers, probably led the FCC to remind ISPs that the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) rules (or some of them) are still in effect.

The FCC issues a public notice, with

Allot Wins EMEA MNO for Zero-Rate Video Streaming and Social Media Services

Allot Communications announced today that it "received an order from a Tier-1 mobile operator in EMEA for the Allot Policy Control and Charging solution. The operator is leveraging Allot’s policy control and charging solution to provide 4 million subscribers with application-centric plans that fit their digital lifestyle.

The solution will allow the Tier-1 mobile operator to conduct in-depth

UK: How do ISPs Implement Network Based Parental Control Service?

Ofcom has "published a report for Government outlining measures the UK's largest internet service providers have put in place to help parents protect children from harmful content online. This follows an agreement between the Government and BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, the four largest fixed line internet service providers (ISPs), announced in July 2013 [see "UK to Enforce Opt Out Network

UK: ISPs will Alert Subscribers on Copyright Infringement

The UK has a new plan for reducing copyright infringement, as probably the older plans did not work - UK Culture Minister Vaizey:'SPs have their role to play to help consumers find legitimate content'"- here and "[UK]: Major ISPs Asked to Build 'Downloaders Database'" - here:



 "Representatives from the UK's creative industries and major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have come together

[Study]: 85% of Operators are Leveraging OTT Apps to Attract Customers

A new study by Allot Communications (surveyed the data plans and charging trends of 175 mobile operators worldwide) finds that "85% of operators are leveraging apps to attract customers and increase ARPU .. Facebook is mobile operators’ top choice for zero-rated apps and Unlimited data plans are in decline".


Some examples of Zero rate programs:

Facebook Offers Free Messaging Through 18 MNOs 

[Analysys Mason]: Oracle and Amdocs Lead the $3.6B Customer Care Market

A new report by Mark H. Mortensen [pictured], Practice Head, BSS, and Atul Arora, Research Analyst, Analysys Mason finds that "The customer care market generated USD3.58 billion in revenue in 2013, an increase of 9.1% from 2012. The market was driven by communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly offering packaged service bundles, consumer demand for self-service and control over their

Ericsson SSR 8000 Contracts Follow-up

Ericsson reported its Q2 2014 results (here). The detailed report (here) states that "Mobile broadband demand, VoLTE and growing interest in LTE broadcast [related post: "Vodafone LTE Status: Traffic, Video, Carrier Aggregation, VoLTE, Video Broadcast" - here] drives performance initiatives including carrier aggregation and  network densification. Small cells and the use of new frequency bands

Leading Internet Companies Against Fast Lanes; Disapprove DPI

The Internet Association (see members) announced that it "submitted its comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging Commissioners to take strong and decisive action to guarantee an open Internet for the future. 

The Internet Association’s comments mark the first time that more than two dozen of the world’s most-recognizable and successful Internet companies have spoken with a

Afternoon Experience: Rockets Over my Head

I thought I'd shared with my readers the recent events in Israel.

I took the picture below half an hour ago, during my Friday afternoon walk in Tel-Aviv. These are rockets, fired from Gaza by the Hamas terrorist organization, against civilian targets in Israel. This happens 2-3 times a day in Tel-Aviv, and much more in areas closer to Gaza (and there, they get an early warning of 15 seconds to

Concurrent Enters the Fast Growing (30%+ CAGR) Transparent Cache Market

Concurrent unveiled a ".. new software-based video solution that enables fixed-line and mobile broadband operators to boost the performance of over-the-top (OTT) video services, while also creating new revenue opportunities and reducing operational costs .. Concurrent’s next-generation transparent caching solution optimizes the online video traffic being delivered over service providers' high

Sandvine to the FCC: Internet Fast Lanes are not Needed

Rick Wadsworth [pictured], Director Corporate Communications, Sandvine summarizes on the vendor's blog Sandvine's submission (here) to the FCC's latest Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the Open Internet (See  "FCC: New Net Neutrality? Just be 'Commercially Reasonable'" - here and "People Care about Net Neutrality" - here).



"Sandvine has over 250 customers around the world. Despite the

LTE Services Enabled in Israel - See my Speedtest Results

Earlier this week, Israel's Ministry of Communications allowed all existing MNOs to enable 4G/LTE services (here, Hebrew). 



The MNOs cannot charge subscribers for using LTE, nor they can't discriminate MVNOs or roamers using their networks.  



Partner Israel (using the Orange brand) announced that "As of  July 15, 2014, the Company will enable its customers that own handsets which support

PCC Deployments [317]: Blu [Ghana] To Use Alepo for LTE

IT News Africa reports that "Alepo has unveiled that it will provide policy and charging control for a new 4G LTE network at Blu Telecommunications in Ghana. Blu plans to launch LTE services including: data, voice, IPTV and Wi-Fi hotspots for residential and commercial customers. The services are planned to be launched in the second half of 2014.


As part of the network launch, Blu will

Sandvine: $5M Orders from EMEA

Sandvine announced that it has ".. received more than $5 million of follow-on orders from two tier 1 service providers in its European Middle East and Africa sales region. Sandvine received the orders in its third quarter of 2014.The $5 million in expansion orders represents growth to the operators’ deployments of Traffic Management and Network Analytics.

One of the operators belongs to a

Verizon vs. Netflix on Congestion - It is NOT Us!

So, who is responsible for a smooth video experience ? The ISP? the content provider? the transit network between the two?

According to Verizon, it is not them (at least in the case of Netflix streaming).

David Young report to the carrier's Public policy Blog:




Netflix ISP Ranking for Verizon FiOS, Feb-Jun 2014

"A few weeks ago, Verizon received an email from a customer in Los Angeles

[Infonetics]: Centralized Signaling and Routing Control Market Expands to Relieve Congestion

A new report by Diane Myers [pictured], principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS, Infonetics Research finds that "The centralized signaling and routing control (CSRC) market is not new, but the platforms are expanding as operators look to scale networks more efficiently with the rise in mobile broadband traffic. CSRC platforms are a class of solutions designed to help operators relieve congestion

Syntonic Builds a Sponsored Content Store for AT&T

Will Sandvine's prediction that "sponsored data will create billions of dollars of revenue for service providers" (here) come through? AT&T's sponsored data (see "[Rumors]: AT&T "Sponsored Data" is Based on Openet's PCC " here) takes another step forward.




Syntonic Wireless, an AT&T sponsored data provider, announced the introduction of the "Syntonic Sponsored Content Store for eligible AT

F5 Partners with Siemens Convergence Creators' PCRF

F5 Networks and Siemens Convergence Creators announced that they have "successfully completed comprehensive interoperability tests of F5’s BIG-IP® Policy Enforcement Manager™ (PEM™), and Siemens Convergence Creators’ policy and charging rules function (PCRF) product, Siemens Policy Manager (SPM) .. Combining F5 and Siemens technology gives operators the ability to monetize networks by enabling

Yahoo Acquires RayV for "best-in-class quality and content video delivery"

    

Rumors spread two months (see "Yahoo to Buy RayV?" - here) ago are now a reality.
   

RayV (see "RayV Exposes Turn Key Video Streaming to MNOs and ISPs" -  here) site announces that "We are excited to announce we are joining Yahoo's Cloud Platforms and Services Team! Our team began the RayV journey with the goal of building a revolutionary video distribution platform that would provide a

Sandvine's Q2 - Existing Customers Generated 90% of Revenues; $Bs in Sponsored Data

Some quotes from Sandvine's earning call for Q2 2014 (revenues of $29.7M - here):

Our 10% plus customers in the quarter contributed less than 30% of revenue, which is lower than any recent period
 
I am pretty pleased with our ability in Q2, to sell more to our existing customers. Generally, that ratio is .. 80% existing, 20% new. I'd say that number was closer to 90/10 in Q2, and without any

Success for Application-Based Service Plans in Zimbabwe

According to Dan Deeth, Sandvine, post to the vendor's blog, Econet Wireless' offering of WhatsApp and Facebook bundles [see "Econet Wireless [Zimbabwe] Uses Sandvine for Application-based Charging" - here] is "continuing to out-maneuver and out-innovate competitors. These unlimited bundles allow subscribers to purchase unlimited usage of their favorite service for a day, week, or monthly for a

Optimization Deployments [316]: Free [France] Uses Teclo's TCP/IP Optimization

Teclo Networks announced that "Free Mobile, has deployed Sambal from Teclo Networks to deliver lightning fast mobile internet to subscribers across the network .. Sambal manages and optimizes data transferred through TCP/IP without caching. Put simply, Sambal brings the consistency of fixed line Internet to mobile networks. Sambal also has optional compression features. It can work in two modes

[ABI]: Mobile DPI/PCRF/Optimization Market - $3B (!!) in '14; Optimization Market Changes

A new forecast by Joe Hoffman [pictured], practice director of mobile networks, ABI Research estimates that ".. the mobile portion of the 3GPP PCRF, DPI, and web/video optimization market as a collective whole will nudge US$ 3 Billion in 2014 and comfortably exceed US$ 25 Billion through 2019. Of this, roughly 80% of the market is DPI and policy related, as video optimization revenues remain

Nokia: VoLTE is Doing Better than OTT's VoIP Under Load

Gerald Reddig [pictured], continues its story on Nokia's testing of VoLTE vs. OTT VoIP [see "NSN: VoLTE Beats OTT VoIP 4:0!" - here].

The first report showed clear advantages to VoLTE in battery, bandwidth and signaling consumption.




However ... "These tests, however, were conducted under ideal radio conditions with no network load. The Smart Labs team was curious what the results would be

[ABI]: Telcos Should Add APIs for OTT

A new report by Sabir Rafiq [pictured], analyst, ABI Research finds that "The subscriber traffic for mobile broadband services will grow at 36% CAGR for the near future. This is good news for Telecom operators and OTT application providers which are continuously looking to keep subscribers happy and provide a better user performance in spite of network congestion. All of which has the potential

Bouygues Telecom Adds QoS Optimization

Astellia announced today that it is ".. deepening its relationship with Bouygues Telecom. Bouygues Telecom [see "Bouygues Telecom [France] Monitors LTE with Astellia" - here] has selected Astellia’s Nova suite to complete its network quality of service monitoring system, go further in optimizing quality of service for its customers and perfect its knowledge of customer usage".




See "Bouygues

[Ovum] The Need for Intelligent Optimization Tools

   
A new study by Mahindra Comviva and Ovum Consulting, finds that "With the growth in mobile data, the complexity of managing traffic has also intensified driven by greater use of bandwidth hungry applications and heightened customer expectations for an ever-higher Quality of Experience (QoE). According to Ovum Research’s recent forecasts, global mobile broadband connections will cross 4.5

3 Wins for Elitecore PCC in Cable

 
Elitecore Technologies announced ".. three Cable MSOs (Multi-System Operators) wins for Pay TV and Broadband services; setting up a strong footprint in Asia Pacific Cable market. 

Elitecore will offer a complete pre-integrated as well as modular stack of Convergent Billing and Subscriber Management, Centralized Product Catalog, PCRF, Online Charging, AAA, Captive Portal, Partner Settlement,

[Dean Bubley]: By end 2019, >1.5B will Use Zero rated Mobile Data

Very interesting analysis of mobile data business models, by Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis:

Internet Draft: Re-classification Analysis in Service Function Chaining

A new IETF Internet draft by Xinpeng Wei, Huawei discusses Service Function Chaining. 
Abstract 


Service Function Chaining (SFC) provides the ability to classify and
steer a flow via some network service(s). Some traffic flows require
re-classification to a new service chain. This may be, for example,
the result of further analysis of initial packets, or detection of
multiple types of

Intelligent Merger: EZchip to Acquire Tilera for $130M

EZchip Semiconductor announced that it has "..signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilera Corporation, a privately-held US-based company that develops high-performance multi-core processors, intelligent network interface cards and white-box appliances for data-center networking equipment .. under the terms of the agreement, EZchip will pay Tilera’s stockholders up to $130 million in cash;

Ruckus/Global Reach Enables Hotspot 2.0 Service in San-Francisco Area

 
Ruckus Wireless announced a "major initiative with the City and County of San Francisco, the City of San José, CA and Global Reach Technology to create the first large-scale municipal Hotspot 2.0 service that allows millions of visitors and residents to automatically and securely connect to and seamlessly roam using San José and San Francisco free Wi-Fi services. The new Hotspot 2.0 service is