Yesterday, Informa Telecoms and Media reported the volume of OTT messaging traffic is set to be twice that of P2P SMS messaging by the end of the year.

Informa also reported that nearly 19 billion chat app messages, from companies like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, were sent every day last year, as compared with 17.6 billion SMS texts.

While much of the consequent focus in the media was on whether the “cash cow” of text messaging is dying, the other side of the story is what impact “chatty apps” could have on operator networks.

As operators consider the unpredictable or “misbehaving” possibilities for these and other apps, they will want to more intelligently orchestrate and protect the subscriber experience. To protect the data plane and control plane, operators need network, subscriber, device and application awareness. They can no longer rely on congestion-mitigation strategies that force them to design networks for peak usage, leading to underutilization much of the time.

The better approach, they will find, will be to extend policy to the mobile device. Then, smartphones, tablets and other devices can become both enforcement points and application functions, thus opening up a world of new use cases that address:

• Network congestion management
• Application firewalling and security
• Application traffic scheduling
• Service continuity
• Battery life preservation
• Chargeable services and mobile payments
• Targeted mobile advertising
• Customer self care

These use cases are detailed in a new white paper, Policy On the Mobile, which describes how operators can move along the continuum from simple cost reduction to more sophisticated use cases for revenue generation, customer experience improvement, and network protection.

This continuum is particularly important given the mobile-social nature of today’s subscribers and the intricate relationships surrounding each subscriber – as individuals and as members of social networks.

Both negative and positive experiences resonate more quickly and more loudly than ever before. As a result, mobile operators have to address issues that disassociate their brands from what is becoming an increasingly intimate and positive mobile experience.

For example, smartphone users have an increasingly positive perception of mobile device manufacturers like Apple and Google, according to surveys done by J.D. Power and Associates and others. However, consumer satisfaction with mobile operators has declined enough that operators sit among the lowest-rated service providers in Consumer Reports ratings and other consumer-oriented ratings.

Subscribers have an increasingly positive perception of their smartphones’ operating systems, applications, processing speeds and video/camera quality, and yet an increasingly negative perception of their network performance, data download speeds and customer service.

Well founded or not, the perception of operator brands, and more importantly, future revenues, will be hard to ignore. Subscribers will increasingly demand the “ideal” of solid voice connections, ever-faster data speeds and world-class customer service. The closer operators come to that ideal, the more likely customers will be loyal and purchase future services.

Policy as an ‘Innovation Engine’
As operators transform from where they are today toward roles as “digital-lifestyle providers,” they have to make decisions about what underlying network and management technologies they need, and what they can retool. They have to become more dynamic, opening their networks to leverage social media, entertainment, rewards programs, mobile advertising, and mobile commerce partners.

Rather than embark on enormous rip-and-replace projects, operators can achieve new goals using what they already have, and without a huge cost. By simply elevating policy’s role from monthly quota and fair-use management to boundaries beyond the core network, operators can set the stage for “Policy Everywhere,” through which operators begin to improve network, device and application performance, as well as create new services.

With Policy Everywhere, policy is applied globally across networks, devices and applications.

The number of policy enforcement points will mushroom, and policy will become more centrally defined within an intelligent control layer – one that is independent of the underlying network infrastructure.

Tekelec customers, for example, have an integrated Mobile Policy Gateway (MPG) approach where policy is taken directly to the device through a management interface that is turnkey and inexpensive.

It fills in the gaps currently left by the 3GPP’s Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF), the new standard that enables Wi-Fi offload. It is a solid first step, but currently stops short of immediately addressing issues clouding the customer experience.

The MPG enables operators to infuse the best of what the ANDSF offers with the time-to-market advantages of a commercial off the shelf (COTS) solution.

With MPG, operators build a unified policy creation environment through which real-time dynamic policy enforcement can be extended to devices, and through which they expand the capabilities of Wi-Fi offload use cases and invite altogether new use cases.

By using existing policy provisioning and management interfaces and tools, operators can create network and device policies from the same platform. They can reduce the chance of policy conflict and increase the scalability and flexibility of their existing policy servers (PCRFs) and the Diameter Signaling Routers (DSRs) which route signaling messages to these servers.

MPG addresses those goals by extending the reach of policy and establishing direct links to policy servers and end-user devices over a Diameter interface. That enables the devices to interoperate and act as an integrated policy solution.

The resulting holistic framework we call the Tekelec Policy Solution, as the Policy Server and Mobile Policy Gateway combine so that policy treats the device as both an enforcement point and an application function, giving mobile operators the ability to enforce policy wherever needed.

Within the Tekelec Policy Solution, the MPG also complements existing technologies, such as deep packet inspection (DPI), filling in the gaps in policy coverage. A DPI, for example, cannot identify all applications, especially if data is encrypted. With the MPG, operators evolve from a policy architecture covering just the network to one where they gain end-to-end control over the entire application flow.

To find out more about 8 new use cases and how MPG leverages what you already have in place, read Policy On the Mobile. Also, visit our Diameter Learning Center at LinkedIn.

There has been more news lately about some high-profile botnets, and the latest was one of the largest ever seen in Internet history, causing Internet slowdowns to hundreds of millions of users. The scale was orders of magnitude larger than anything seen before, affecting the very core Internet routers that make the Internet function. As mobile networks evolve to all-IP networks, these are the very security concerns operators should be focused on.

In this latest episode, attackers first targeted Spamhaus, and then the security company hired to break the attack, CloudFlare. A domino-effect ensued for any and all companies and groups associated with either Spamhaus or CloudFlare, peaking with a stream of data as big as 300 billion bits per second, which compromised sites – slowing them down or making them unavailable – for as many as nine days.

At the core of the assault was a powerful botnet — a network of thousands of remotely controlled, infected computers that caused a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. That attack is expected to be re-launched in upcoming days, according to Internet chatter, and it is causing security experts like Kaspersky Labs to note that DDOS-type activity is increasing rapidly, and far more malicious than fraudulent service and network security breaches of the past.

How Can DSRs and Policy Servers Help Mobile Operators?

For mobile operators, the rise in malicious attacks highlights a need to go beyond a socialized approach where one appliance is trusted as a security gateway. It pushes everyone toward a multi-layered-security approach, where operators protect the core, the transport layer and the application layer from rogue sites.

The Diameter Signaling Router (DSR) and Policy Server (PCRF) can strengthen security at particularly the control and application layers. Because botnets exploit routing software and servers, DSRs and Policy Servers play a role in preventing amplifications that otherwise get out of control and bring down networks.

For example, in our recent whitepaper, “Multi-layer Security for the Digital Lifestyle Provider,” we describe Access Control(ACL) Lists, Topology Hiding, Encryption, Congestion Control and other security measures augmented by the DSR and/or PCRF.

We look at the ways in which operators can add layers of protection, such as by implementing topology hiding, which protects the network host names from a DDOS. and we look at how encryption can be used for safeguarding subscriber data.

All in all, the operators’ strategies have to be proactive and multi-layered in order to prevent access from unknown partners or rogue sites. There’s no question the growing sophistication of services, and the mobilization and social revolution underway will mean not only innovation, but also more malicious security threats among operators and the third parties with which they will work – intentionally or not.

Mobile operators will continue to invest heavily in their relationships with customers, as they want to champion their brands as Apple, Samsung and Google have done. They also want to ensure their revenues and profits are not further eroded long term by third-party applications and over-the-top providers.

To create positive consumer perceptions about their brands and to deepen their customer relationships, operators know they have to differentiate according to more sharply defined customer wants and behaviors. This means offers and supporting network resources must evolve to dynamically adjust according to how people behave as individuals and in groups. This may include sharing data in real time with advertisers, or optimizing Quality of Service according the needs of an over-the-top application. In short, operators are are becoming “digital-lifestyle providers.”

The most critical element of this transition to digital lifestyle provider status is an adaptable, dynamic and flexible network, one that understands the customer in detail and responds to their actions with personalized, informed reactions. In short, operators require ThinkingNetworks™. This is not a ‘rip-and-replace’ proposition; rather, it is a phased evolutionary approach that adds and changes technological resources as the operator’s business changes according to market demand.

To evolve today’s mobile networks toward this more effective end state, we see four key overlapping phases, including:

• The New Diameter Network (NDN)
• Virtualize through the Cloud
• Monetize in mobile and social-networking environments
• Realize a policy-driven, software-defined ThinkingNetworks™ end state

In the first phase, operators tame the ‘signaling storm’ that could compromise their investments in Diameter-based environments through the New Diameter Network, which brings agility and speed to routing and signaling and provides crucial policy insight about subscribers and their devices, behaviors and apps. Policy becomes the ‘big brain’ of the network, keeping all relevant gateways, databases and operator systems informed. It also facilitates the real-time personalization that is essential to today’s demanding customers.

With that network humming, operators are ready to move into the second phase – a cloud environment that virtualizes network resources. This adds the benefits of on-demand resource allocation and optimal capacity utilization. It also exploits industry trends in software-defined networking (SDN) and standardized hardware improvements that are bringing down CapEx and OpEx unit costs.

In Phase 3, operators turn the tables in the market and go from passive ‘pull’ status to active, relevant ‘push’ vehicles, capable of interacting with entire social networks based on user interests and group behaviors. And, just as the human brain takes in multiple data points simultaneously to influence one’s actions, “one-of” consumer transactions suddenly become a dynamic real-time web of interactions. The network can then push revenue-generating recommendations, offers and ads based not just on one-to-one behaviors, but across this pulsating network of group insights, preferences and decisions.

Finally, in phase 4, ThinkingNetworks™ continually listen, learn and optimize. Instead of periodic off-line reporting and inexact capacity planning exercises, the operator is now given the power to adapt resources according to that delicate balance among business plan goals, network conditions, and customer desires.

The end game is achieved by giving the operator the capabilities they have sought for so many years: the ability to serve the market more quickly, more dynamically and more cost-effectively, and this is what brings differentiation and puts the operator in the driver’s seat as digital lifestyle providers.

To learn more read the new whitepaper: The ThinkingNetworks™ Revolution: A Call to Action for Digital Lifestyle Providers

Everyone is busily preparing for GSMA’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, the theme for which is “The Mobile Horizon”. No doubt many operator discussions will focus on what’s next in LTE networks, and there most certainly will be an endless stream of “cloud” announcements.

These are exciting developments for the industry that hold great promise for better overall delivery (leading to improved customer satisfaction) at a reduced cost, but there is a cautionary tale in the background: you can’t scale your network through LTE upgrades or ‘cloud’ virtualization alone; your signaling environment has to be equally robust.

To understand this better, let’s unpack the market and network dynamics that got us to this point. As consumers rapidly adopt mobile devices and applications as part of their immersion into a digital lifestyle, the demand for bandwidth becomes outsized, leading to traffic chokepoints, even on important traffic. Soon everyone is unhappy.

In an effort to remedy this problem, operators have adopted strategies such as WiFi offload and creative offer packaging and pricing. These are good “holding actions,” but are not sufficient in the long term. Operators know this and are deploying LTE network capabilities in the hopes of being able to better serve these same demanding consumers with a more cost-effective (and eventually all-IP) network.

Finally, there is a great flurry of data center activity to put everything in a cloud environment for on-demand access to resources.

Likewise, software-defined networking (SDN) holds promise as a means to virtualize network resources in ways that will serve these varying levels of demand in the most dynamic, low-cost ways.

All of these are useful tactics, but they don’t really get the whole job done.

Recall that at the highest levels, SDN separates the control plane, i.e., the orchestration of resource allocation in the data center from the “data plane”. Inside the data plane, of course, resides the actual end-user payload. But a less-often discussed component – Diameter signaling –allows the great variety of servers, gateways and other network elements to set up sessions, authorize users and enable charging for the newest and potentially most profitable services.

Cloud virtualization certainly allows the two SDN planes to operate and scale in balanced, complementary ways so that one only spends what is needed to grow the network, but still serves user demand . At the same time, signaling must be even more robust.

According to the Tekelec LTE Diameter Signaling Index™, while data demand is growing at unprecedented rates, the signaling associated with this demand is growing three times faster!

Without an adequate signaling infrastructure based on a centralized, core Diameter signaling architecture, the network continues to be constrained by the communication path between elements such as gateways, charging systems and policy engines.

So while you’re noshing on tapas at the Fira Gran Via next week, consider not just your LTE network element and cloud needs, but the Diameter signaling requirements that actually ensure these investments deliver on their promise.

Downtown DC has braced for the arrival of up to 800,000 people, who will observe the 57th U.S. Presidential inauguration today. The event will be tweeted, shared and recorded on video by the assembled crowds, some of whom will be using 4G services and applications on their smartphones.

Besides the additional data traffic surge, Tekelec expects this event to generate increased Diameter signaling traffic, thanks to an increased density of LTE device users attending the ceremonies. In fact, the 57th Inauguration is sure to be very different from the 56th in terms of technology: four years ago, smartphones only had approximately an 11 percent market penetration – and BlackBerrys outnumbered iPhones two to one.

Additionally, LTE was not yet in service anywhere in the world.

Now, more than 55 percent of Americans own a phone that is capable of video streaming or Internet connectivity – a total of more than 100 million Smartphones. Add to the mix a new, dedicated free Inauguration app with live streaming (Inauguration 2013), and it’s easy to see how mobile data and subsequent Diameter signaling traffic will surge.

The density of LTE-enabled devices means that 4G coverage will be seriously tested during periods of peak usage, thus forcing subscribers onto 3G and Wi-Fi networks. Also, attendees’ mobility in and out of coverage areas may cause subscribers to switch from LTE to 3G networks, and back again. The result on the core network will be periodic spikes in Diameter signaling traffic.

It will be interesting to see how operators fare once users start comparing what they expect from their devices and mobile network providers, and what actually ends up taking place to either enhance or mitigate the Inauguration experience.

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When natural disasters like tropical storm Sandy hit, IP networks bring about a different challenge than traditional networks. Where network operators traditionally could block or throttle traffic after a storm to ensure congestion would not bring down networks, the status quo now is to have many elements of the network under the control of a 3rd party, which means operators cannot directly control all parts of their networks in a crisis.

Because IP invites many new methods for communicating, it also has to invite many new methods for managing the network. And as we see it, the network must be controlled at two different points: the packet network where the data flows, and the control plane where the signaling controls the sessions.

We also see two distinct forms of signaling, with signaling in the RAN and signaling at the core with Diameter. These forms of signaling serve different purposes. The signaling at the RAN typically establishes data session (or voice session if applicable), and signaling in the core uses Diameter to authorize and authenticate subscribers. Though the latter is not invoked as frequently as RAN signaling, it is just as critical to the operations of the network.

As proven during Sandy and other natural disasters, congestion of the core signaling network is a key concern operators have to address when friends and families flood lines in search of loved ones. When the core fails, nothing works, therefore making the core becomes a critical component in the network. This was also true within the SS7 domain, where operators also blocked traffic at the core level.

But, in using a point-to-point architecture, where the Diameter end-points are actually embedded within a network element, blocking of traffic could become difficult, if not impossible. That is attributable to the fact that congestion control can be applied only at the point at which the function resides. It’s well accepted, therefore, that a centralized approach to end-to-end core network congestion control is most effective.

The Importance of a Diameter Signaling Router in Crisis Situations

Geographic redundancy and traffic control is paramount to a robust signaling network that can survive any crisis. There exist countless examples of how the SS7 network survived calamities such as floods, earthquakes, fires, and even terrorist attacks. It was usually geographic redundancy and optimal routing managed through the core rather than the end points that made this possible.

In a Diameter world, the Diameter protocol itself does not inherently support automatic re-routing and disaster recover functions like SS7 did, but the same can be accomplished through a centralized routing function in the network core. That’s why a Diameter routing agent like our Diameter Signaling Router (DSR) is becoming so important to preventing core signaling outages during a crisis. The DSR ensures messages reach their destination through alternative routes known to the DSR. That means the messages so important to subscriber databases like the Home Subscriber Server (HSS) , policy servers (PCRF), charging systems and gateways will get through in times of disaster.

And most importantly, it means operators can continue to generate revenue from services requiring Diameter signaling, even in times of disaster.

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Mobile roaming revenues will exceed $80 billion by 2017 according to a recent Juniper Research study. It’s just more evidence that revenues from roaming are growing in 3G – a fact that will only build momentum once LTE roaming starts.

As customer expectations around constant connectivity grow, and as new devices like the iPhone 5 raise the bar on what is expected “at home” or “in the office” or “when traveling,” operators will have to address new roaming challenges.

LTE devices and the applications and services they trigger will increase the need for more monitoring and orchestration of communications. Inherently, the volume of Diameter traffic will rise as well to support data access on partners’ LTE networks.

Unlike signaling storms, roaming is unlikely to generate an unforeseen, huge swell in Diameter signaling traffic in the early stages of LTE roaming. Typically, LTE is deployed in limited markets with limited subscribers, keeping the signaling attributed to roaming at a containable level.

However, roaming-driven Diameter traffic will steadily increase as operators first open up roaming to other areas. As LTE roaming builds, operators will have to manage 2G/3G-to-LTE and LTE-to-LTE roaming.

Diameter is the LTE protocol responsible for setting up data sessions, authorizing subscriber activity, authenticating subscribers and accurately charging for data usage. It’s critical and most operators want to be prepared, as so many in North America, EMEA, APAC and other regions are already inquiring, testing or implementing new signaling infrastructure in light of the competitive changes they see coming their way.

According to Tejaswini Tilak, Global Head of Carrier Services at IPX provider Telstra Global, “Operators are examining how to maximize the benefits that LTE networks provide, and international roaming is the first step.”

As carriers build out LTE networks and roaming capabilities, they will need not only Diameter Signaling Routers (DSRs) but also complementary pieces like Policy Servers, Policy Control Enforcement Points (PCEFs), Online and Offline Charging, and robust Subscriber Data Repositories – all of which comprise the New Diameter Network optimized for an all-IP world.

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Telecom Asia today quoted Gulzar Azad, Mobile Partnerships Lead – India and APAC at Google during this week’s LTE Asia event in Singapore (where Tekelec has made partnership and customer-win announcements).

Azad stressed that mobile operators need to think in terms of service delivery, not data plans, meaning they have to go beyond monthly subscription fees and add value to the types of services OTT players, content providers and others are currently driving.

He suggested operators expand their thinking on limiting their networks so they can better capitalize on the likes of Facebook, Google Plus and others by using them as platforms on top of which they can build multiple channels for not only local or regional audiences, but also global ones. By aggregating, augmenting and adding their own content, mobile operators can do more to create and monetize services tied to their own brands.

All mobile operators pushing for success will have to start thinking of themselves as “digital lifestyle providers,” and with that comes a need to work harmoniously with OTT, M2M, cloud, mobile advertising and mobile payment services.

Making It Happen
Mobile operators moving toward this type of business model will be required to work with third parties (whether social networks, OTT or mobile advertisers). That means orchestration, and lots of it, will be needed to expose policies, subscriber data, charging data, and analytics – all critical to LTE services.
Additionally, it will require operators scale for the millions of new devices populating LTE networks, and accommodate the multi-session nature of new devices.

These challenges all point to a need for a new Diameter network (NDN), as Diameter is the protocol that facilitates policy and charging rules for new business models and the protocol that ensures secure interconnection among partners and privacy for subscriber information.

As revealed last week in the Tekelec LTE Diameter Signaling Index®, global signaling traffic will grow more than three times faster than mobile data traffic over the 2011-2016 period, reaching nearly 47 million Diameter messages per second (MPS) by 2016 (a 252% CAGR over the forecast period).

Roaming, concurrent data sessions, video streaming, QoS guarantees and behavioral changes via social networking over mobile devices will all account for these tremendous surges in Diameter signaling traffic and will mean DSRs and other elements of an NDN will grow in importance.

Today we released our Diameter Signaling Index – a first-of-its-kind “guide” designed to help architects, engineers and marketers calculate the impact of devices and services on network signaling traffic.

It’s perfectly timed, as the iPhone 5 will be a prime example of the multi-session nature of new devices and the multi-tasking that will ensue for each subscriber. The consequent surge in Diameter traffic will require unprecedented levels of orchestration and communication among user to devices, cell towers, policy servers, charging systems, and subscriber databases and gateways.
As indicated in the report (which took a conservative road in its assumptions), there will be 47 million Diameter messages per second by 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 252% between 2011 and 2016.

The iPhone reflects the type of sophistication that will trigger more use cases around policy, which will in turn trigger more Diameter signaling. Mobility management functions and roaming will all have substantial impact.
So what does it all mean for operators, who obviously know what’s coming and have been building Diameter signaling strategies into their planning?

It means that what used to be addressed with a mesh approach to Diameter must now be addressed with more of a centralized approach. A centralized Diameter signaling architecture will be needed to effectively route, measure and monitor Diameter traffic so that signaling storms are held at bay, and so that the customer experience is optimized rather than compromised.

And since authentication will be invoked each time someone powers on an LTE device, or every time someone activates a new device (as with the 10 million iPhones forecasted to be sold this month), there could be as many as 60 million authentication messages generated by that event alone.

So, just as the original iPhone changed phone usage habits, so too will the LTE iPhone have an impact on LTE networks. New usage profiles and patterns combined with tiered service plans and the associated policy and charging information will equal A LOT of Diameter traffic. Charging for example could represent as many as 6 Diameter messages per session (depending on the type of session, billing arrangements, and numerous other factors, 6 is conservative).

New business models such as sponsored traffic and advertising also will require Diameter interactions, which means we’ll see more centralization of Diameter architecture to accommodate the evolution to LTE – on the iPhone and other devices.