Vendors Aim to Help Carriers Monetize/Customize Broadband Experience

Online video is booming. Social networking is viral. Online gaming looks like a winner. And yet, despite all these new applications running on broadband networks, many of the carriers offering the underlying transport haven’t realized much — if any — in the way of additional revenue. That said, a wide variety of vendors will be on hand at NXTcomm in June hawking new solutions aimed at correcting this situation.

“Broadband service providers find themselves in an economically challenging position,” said Kevin Walsh, vice president of marketing at new supplier Zeugma Systems. “The only way out of it, in our view, is for them to materially improve the subscriber experience so the subscriber is willing to pay for it. That means service providers need to identify and monitor and manage [sessions], from a QoS standpoint.”

The Vancouver-based global firm at NXTcomm will debut what it says is a high-powered service delivery router that will help operators identify, monitor and manage applications on their networks so they can move up the value chain to deliver more targeted services. The Zeugma Services Node (ZSN), which sits at the edge of the network, combines the application/service awareness of a deep packet inspection (DPI) solution with the subscriber awareness of a B-RAS, Walsh said, and brings with it the added horsepower to do the job.

In trials now with a handful of service providers, including BT, the ZSN will allow service providers to build specific, and in some cases on-demand, broadband access — and even customized services using ad insertion — around particular applications rather than just offering flat-rate pipes as they do today, he said. For example, a service provider could offer a short-term higher bandwidth connection so an individual could receive an HD movie to their home TV more quickly, he said, or a business might want VoIP traffic to be prioritized to ensure a certain voice quality level.

Two key aspects to this new product are its compute power and its ability to help service providers expedite the introduction of new services, and to remove or alter those offerings easily and quickly if needed, said Walsh. The Z7 model provides up to 720gbps of unidirectional interface capacity while the more compact Z2 delivers 240gbps. Zeugma also offers with its service delivery routers an operating system and a “sandbox” that employs APIs to enable service providers to introduce, manage and monitor the vendor’s, their own or third-party applications — and to protect the applications from one another, said Walsh.

Also at NXTcomm, Procera Networks Inc. will unveil the PacketLogic PL10000 family of DPI solutions. The company said the new products address the scale and functionality required by Tier 1 service providers and also give carriers the business intelligence, service creation, network visibility and control required to roll out new revenue-generating services and optimize network performance.

Procera CEO James Brear noted that service providers are limited in their ability to differentiate themselves in the marketplace and to offer customers various packages based on their requirements. For example, he said, his active Internet family, which uses its broadband connection for surfing, gaming and more, pays the same to the local cable modem service provider as does his mother, who uses the Internet only occasionally for online banking. However, he added, perhaps his mother should be paying Comcast Corp. around $7 per month while his monthly bill should be more in the $107 range.

Of course, without knowing who is using broadband for what applications and with what frequency, service providers can’t do this kind of thing. But the new Procera DPI solutions include something called DRDL, or data stream recognition definition language, that enables service providers to see what services are running on their networks. It also presents carriers with related, real-time information about those services relative to security, congestion and bandwidth availability so service providers can manipulate their networks and business rules to best address such applications and create services (such as a gamer-focused service, for example) around them when it makes sense.

Another DPI provider, Allot Communications Ltd.,  NXTcomm will introduce enhancements to its NetXplorer management software, which provides the visibility and tools that deliver traffic and subscriber information and control in broadband networks. Topping the list of new features of the software, which is integrated with Allot Service Gateway and Allot NetEnforcer service optimization devices, is the enhanced Quota Management feature, which enables the provisioning and enforcement of customized service plans based on time and volume usage quotas.

Carrier Ethernet vendors also are talking a lot about differentiated broadband and application- and subscriber-aware networking these days.

For example, Hatteras Networks has enhanced its EtherFLEX operating system with capabilities that help service providers turn up service more quickly, which helps carriers more quickly realize a return on their investment. This latest revision of the OS also outfits carriers with more tools to differentiate their connections through SLAs, as just one possibility.

A variety of Ethernet demarcation vendors, including Accedian Networks, ANDA Networks Inc., ADVA Optical Networking, RAD Data Communications and Telco Systems, are applying these standards to their product lines.

These advances in network management around Carrier Ethernet also enable carriers to monitor, validate and set alerts as to whether or not customer contracts are being met, and to do so extremely quickly, continued Kaycee.

But service providers need to go beyond the demarcation point and control the way applications consume bandwidth once they’re in the network, added Jim Arseneault, CEO of two-and-a-half-year-old Gridpoint Systems Inc.

Gridpoint Systems, a Carrier Ethernet vendor, at NXTcomm will unveil a metro network edge solution aimed at helping service providers more efficiently allocate bandwidth utilization and monetize their broadband services. According to Gridpoint, the 3400 Intelligent Carrier Ethernet Edge Node is a high-density, line-card based solution with end-to-end service quality measurement; a tunnel-shaping capability that results in 30 percent or greater network efficiency; service steering that ensures the appropriate traffic is assigned to the correct paths on the network; and SONET/SDH and OTN interfaces for seamless integration with existing transport networks. The Gridpoint solution, which supports both PBB and PBB-TE, also is unique in its ability to scale to 10G capacity, added Arseneault.

Summarizing the situation, Dave Parks, director of product marketing at Ciena Corp., said service providers are moving their focus to top-line growth, with an eye toward faster time-to-market and revenue growth.

On the upside, he added, there’s a ton of innovation in terms of applications, mentioning Google Apps and Amazon.com Web Services as just two examples. That is significantly changing the way both consumers and enterprises consume bandwidth. (Of course, over-the-top applications aren’t necessarily resulting in higher revenue for the broadband access providers.) Parks continued that the plethora of new applications is creating a lot of uncertainty about what is next to hit broadband networks in a big way. So, whatever the application, he said, Ciena wants to offer the predictability and control to help its customers be ready for top-line revenue growth — no matter what the application or business model around it.

“It’s all about enabling new services and doing so in a way that is very fast, very automated, and very cost effective,” Ciena’s Park continued. “The key component of the message is service enablement. We’re transforming the network into a programmable service delivery engine. It’s all about network transformation here."

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines