Tekelec takes policy “everywhere” with three new products

SINGAPORE — LTE Asia Summit Booth #4 (Sunday, September 16, 2012) Mobile broadband solutions company Tekelec today announced a trio of products that extend the reach of policy management to devices, over-the-top (OTT) applications, and business intelligence: Tekelec’s Mobile Policy Gateway, Application Manager, and Policy Analytics Platform.

The products integrate with Tekelec’s market-leading Policy Server to create a “policy everywhere” framework that evolves policy well beyond fair usage and tiered services. The new offerings enable service providers to introduce innovative services like subsidized or “toll-free” data, opt-in mobile advertising, customer loyalty/rewards programs, and application-based plans with partner ecosystems. They also extend the reach of policy to the smart device to provide intelligent Wi-Fi offload, manage chatty applications, improve device security, and give subscribers greater control over their applications.

“Service providers are broadening their service portfolios and packages, business models, partnerships and device types,” said Graham Finnie, chief analyst at Heavy Reading. “Behind the scenes, this means they will require new advanced policy capabilities, including actionable real-time analysis, policy enforcement wherever it is needed, and the provision of policy as a service to over-the-top application providers.”

Mobile Policy Gateway

Tekelec’s Mobile Policy Gateway (MPG) extends policy directly to the device. The MPG combines a standards-compliant Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) with dynamic network and subscriber aware policy management. It turns smart devices into policy enforcement points, reducing the need for costly deep packet inspection (DPI) and policy enforcement (PCEF) functions in the network core. Example use cases include:

• Managing network congestion with intelligent Wi-Fi offload based on preferential network access, subscriber tier or type, device type, application usage, quota, or network conditions.
• Improving quality of service (QoS) and extending device battery life by managing signaling traffic from chatty applications frequently attempting to communicate with the network.
• Securing devices and personal information by blocking malware and fraudulent activity.
• Identifying upsell opportunities based on services in use, network conditions and subscriber preferences – and conveniently offering them in the application the subscriber is using.

Application Manager

Tekelec’s Application Manager allows service providers to securely expose network APIs, policies and subscriber data to OTT, on-deck, and service delivery platforms (SDPs). By converting web-based protocols (LDAP, SOAP, XML, HTTP, etc.) to Diameter, it creates a single point of control for two-sided business models with application providers.

Tekelec’s Application Manager gives service providers the ability to:

• Provide application- and subscriber-specific policy and charging treatment, such as guaranteed QoS, service-level agreement (SLA) compliance, quota and session management, and rating.
• Insert targeted advertisements with native or third-party applications.
• Securely expose network application programming interfaces (APIs), protecting network and subscriber data.

Policy Analytics Platform

Tekelec’s Policy Analytics platform unlocks network intelligence buried in millions of policy event records. The data give network operations, IT and marketing departments granular business and network insight about how subscribers use and access services and applications.

The intelligence allows service providers to see how policies impact subscribers’ behavior and network resource allocation so they can create targeted tariff plans based on subscribers’ usage, pricing and quality of service preferences. Policy Analytics can reveal, for example, that:

• A new handset model generates a 40 percent increase in data traffic through the Facebook application.
• Video traffic doubles for subscribers who migrate from 3G to LTE handsets.
• Subscribers who exceed data quotas for three consecutive months have a 75 percent acceptance rate when the device offers them a promotional rate to move to the next highest service tier.
• Bandwidth speeds decreased by 25 percent in congested areas for certain subscribers or handset types improves the entire cell area quality of service by 40 percent.

In addition, the platform’s policy-simulation tools give the service provider new abilities to test and evaluate the impact of new policies before implementing them in the network. This type of network “safety net” reduces time to market of new services by improving rule creation and letting multiple departments assess the effects of new policy rules.

“Policy is the ‘everywhere’ technology that will transform service provider business models,” said Houck Reed, vice president of product management and marketing at Tekelec. “As billions of smart devices become policy enforcement points and new features extend policy and analytics to over-the-top applications and mobile advertisers, new business models will emerge that match subscribers to the relevant, timely content they want.”

Tekelec has 58 policy customers, including 43 Tier 1 service providers, in 33 countries. In July, industry analyst firm Analysys Mason named Tekelec the leading independent policy market vendor by share for the third consecutive year.