Operators (and their subscribers) are experiencing the impact of a data surge on their networks. Network outages caused by sudden increases in subscriber application usage due to unexpected events serve as a reminder that the rapid growth in subscribers, devices and applications is causing a ‘signaling storm.’ In some instances, signaling traffic is exceeding data traffic. This signalling storm is causing congestion and impacting the user experience.

With the migration to 3G, LTE- and IMS-based networks, the need to manage the growth in Diameter signaling has become critical to optimize the network and ease congestion in real time. Mobile data is the greatest opportunity that operators have ever seen – revenues are growing from 242 Billion in 2010 to $419 Billion by 2016 (Ovum Research, 2011). At the same time, over-the-top application and device providers continue are capturing and monetizing subscribers’ personal data and building commercial relationships with them. More than 60 percent of mobile subscribers’ time on smartphones is spent on over-the-top applications leaving operators vulnerable to potential future outages as data traffic continues to rise (KCB Mobile Internet Trends, 2011).

It’s time for operators to adopt strategies that allow them to manage traffic growth and mitigate the impact of Apps and connected devices on network signalling. Operators are addressing concerns about data capacity by migrating to LTE, offloading traffic to Wi-Fi, and deploying small cells. However, the impact of network signaling has gone largely unreported. One recent network outage prompted the operator to ask Google to reduce the amount of signalling from Android devices. Regulation of applications that require frequent updates may serve to ease signaling traffic to some extent, but it could stifle the popularity of the Apps that have become so appealing to mobile subscribers.

To effectively capture the mobile data opportunity, operators need to become service and content enablers and intelligently control their network by implementing a New Diameter Network based on the Diameter signalling protocol.  The most important components of the New Diameter Network are Diameter routing, policy and subscriber data management.  This New Diameter Network enables operators to:

• Scale to support massive levels of signaling and data traffic;
• Deliver  personalized services;
• Capturer cloud and machine-to-machine opportunities; and
• Reduce OPEX by centralizing traffic routing and load balancing.

The New Diameter Network is a foundation of a successful mobile data business. To find out more about the New Diameter Network, check out our free white paper. Also, visit us at Mobile World Congress Hall 1 Booth 1F44 to see a demo.

Doug Suriano is CTO at Tekelec.

With the two new DSR systems, the service provider will be able to:

• Efficiently manage subscriber profile information and network databases. The DSR centralizes subscriber routing data and dynamically maps identification information, such as an MSISDN or IMSI, with the correct IMS Home Subscriber Server (HSS). Tekelec’s approach gives the service provider flexibility to move subscribers between databases and update databases when a new IMS HSS is added to the network, supporting future Voice over LTE (VoLTE) deployment.

• Deliver innovative services. The DSR will provide the policy Diameter Routing Agent (DRA) function which supports the network-wide binding of subscriber sessions to policy engines, required for one policy server to track a subscriber’s multiple services, such as application usage and web browsing. This will allow the service provider to deliver new services requiring advanced usage tracking such as shared data plans.

• Ease the signaling storm. Intelligent routing of policy messages reduces network signaling, helping to minimize the risk to the network from unexpected congestion events.

• Scale policy deployments. The Diameter Signaling Router will efficiently scale nationwide policy deployments by managing signaling messages across a variety of interfaces.

Read the full announcement here.

Introducing the New Diameter Network

Billions of connected devices and applications, along with new service plans, are creating a signaling storm among network elements such as policy servers, charging systems, and subscriber databases. Come see demonstrations of how the market-leading Diameter Signaling Router, the core of the New Diameter Network, helps service providers successfully monetize data services and manage the rapid growth in signaling and data traffic.

Read the full announcement here.

The 3GPP and member organizations – including Tekelec and Tecnotree – are developing the Sy interface to improve Diameter-based communications between the PCRF and online charging systems (OCS). The new standard interface is being introduced this year.

Read the full announcement here.

When moving to IP, everything becomes packetized. When the network becomes packetized, we can send more and more intelligence through the network. Intelligence means more control over our network resources, and the very services they provide. There needs to be more than just IP for this intelligence to manifest itself and Diameter is the source of that intelligence.

Diameter is the replacement for SS7. Remember that SS7 brought intelligence into the digitized world of telephone networks and enabled revenue generating services like Free Phone (800 services in the US) and made CDMA/GSM networks possible. It is SS7, after all, that allows mobile switches to track subscribers as they roam from network to network, share their capabilities with other networks, and deliver text messaging to their devices.

But SS7 is limited to supporting TDM networks. When the network migrates to IP, a new signaling protocol is necessary to support packet services. Diameter provides much of what SS7 provides today and much more. It is Diameter that ties new Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) platforms together forming a cohesive, transparent policy function network wide. This allows service providers to manage the amount of bandwidth individual subscribers are allowed to consume based on their service plan, time of day, network conditions, and even device type and application type.

This is much more than SS7 could ever deliver, but there are more advantages than just this. Diameter is also used to migrate the charging network to packet. This means the entire network can be migrated to IP, and Diameter can be used as the signaling protocol in all domains. Migrating the charging network to IP and Diameter allows service providers to eliminate costly TDM facilities for billing domains, and brings a much more flexible signaling protocol into the network.

It is flexible because the Diameter protocol is designed to allow extensions to the protocol. The IETF has defined the base function for Diameter that is mandatory for all network elements to conform to, to enable interoperability. But 3GPP has expanded the definition of the Diameter protocol to include applications network-wide.

This means vendors can also develop their own extensions to further enhance the Diameter protocol and the interactions between their products without jeopardizing interoperability with other devices. This is why Diameter is growing in popularity, and this is why it is smart to deploy Diameter now and add to the network as you grow.

Don’t wait for LTE or IMS. Implement Diameter in your network now to support your 3G services. This is smart because when you do implement LTE, you will either have to begin interconnecting Diameter elements within the network or you will have to use mediation devices to interconnect these elements, and then later phase out the mediation devices. It makes more sense to utilize the Diameter interfaces in your network today, and grow as your network grows.

This also means you can take advantage of functions such as Policy and packetizing the charging domains. All that is required is an IP backbone, and a Diameter Signaling Router (DSR). The DSR acts as a Diameter Routing Agent in your network, providing security, congestion controls, and load balancing. Check out our white paper, The Time for Diameter is Now, for more details on how you can begin reaping the benefits of Diameter today, and the role of the DSR in your network.

Infonetics Research published its findings in the new report “Diameter Signaling Control: Annual Worldwide and Regional Market Size and Forecasts.” The firm forecasts a 106% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the Diameter signaling market through 2016, with North America generating the most revenue of any region each year of the forecast period.

The full announcement can be found here.

All Heavy Reading’s research around policy management is pointing in one clear direction for 2012: there will be a greater need for policy to handle chargeable events.

We’ve been predicting the policy/charging trend for several years, because our extensive survey work with operators has been telling us that using policy to monetize more service elements is now a key objective of telcos—mobile operators in particular. But there are some major pitfalls to be avoided if policy is to realize its undoubted potential here.

Our major global surveys in 2010 and 2011 identified two contrasting trends. First, there’s a broad expectation that policy will be used to create more complex, personalized, value-driven service packages, and those packages will use policy servers to determine when to charge, and for what. Second, operators see this as a challenging and difficult area: in both 2010 and 2011, the number one obstacle to deploying policy management was—you guessed it— “integration of policy and charging”.

In order to probe these issues more deeply, we followed up our broad surveys of policy with a specific survey among the major Tier 1 network operators on policy and charging, conducted in November 2011, the detailed results of which can be found here.

The new survey turned up some fascinating new data. In the first place it showed—as we suspected—that the challenges in integrating policy servers with online and offline charging or billing systems often lie with the charging systems themselves, rather than with the policy servers.  Charging systems are often inflexible: it’s time-consuming and costly to change things or to add new pricing elements, and operators are extremely wary about making changes that might result in revenue leakage or over-charging. The charging industry is also quite fragmented; and many of its key players earn much of their revenue from professional services work, adapting their systems to customer requirements.

Hence just over two-thirds of our Tier 1 respondents reported difficulties adding  new use cases to charging systems, and almost as many said that high costs due to customization and professional services was a challenge. Moreover, when we asked about the key barriers to closer integration of policy and charging, the number one problem, they told us, was “complexity of legacy charging and billing systems.”

One consequence of that is that many operators intend to use the PCRF itself to handle some tasks here, especially simpler tasks like quota management. That clearly makes sense if the rule is, for instance, “Don’t count Facebook traffic against this customer’s monthly data allowance.”  Nearly 70% of survey respondents said they would use the PCRF to handle some charging, rating or quota-related functions.

At the same time, most telcos recognize that the PCRF can’t handle everything, and deeper integration with charging systems is inevitable: over 90% of respondents are planning greater integration, we found.

That doesn’t mean, however, that telcos are looking for pre-integrated solutions. When we asked what options their companies would consider for linking policy with charging and billing in future, over half said they planned deeper integration of their chosen policy platform with existing charging and billing systems, whereas only one in five intended to use a pre-integrated solution of some kind.

At the same time, there was plenty of evidence of uncertainty about the way ahead. Many respondents, for instance, said they didn’t have a clear view yet on how to handle integration. One specific area of uncertainty is the new Sy interface for integration of PCRF and OCS or OFCS:  respondents gave it a cautious thumb-up, but many said it was too early to say what its impact would be.

For policy suppliers, there are some clear lessons here for the future. First they need to demonstrate that they can interoperate policy servers with third-party charging systems—even if they sell their own charging systems. More often than not, the charging and policy systems will be from different vendors—and experience in connecting the two will count for a lot in these circumstances. Second, they need to assuage fears that changing or adding policies that refer to charging systems will be too costly and take too long. Flexibility and the demonstrable ability to meet this challenge will count for a lot with customers.

Third, they need to work together with customers inside standards organizations—especially 3GPP—to fill in any remaining holes in the standards that may be retarding progress. The new Sy interface is a step forward, but its value needs to be demonstrated in practice, on the ground, and more work may yet be needed.

Most of all, perhaps, our research suggests that, if these issues are resolved, the future, for both policy suppliers and their customers—could be bright indeed, with policy management moving right to the heart of network operator strategy, and playing a key role in meeting the biggest challenge of all: how to build better service packages for customers.

About Graham

Finnie has been researching telecommunications for more than 20 years, formerly as a journalist and latterly as an analyst and consultant. Since joining Heavy Reading in September 2004, following a ten-year tenure at the Yankee Group, Finnie has been responsible for a wide range of research, focusing primarily on next-generation broadband services and IMS. He became Chief Analyst of Heavy Reading in February 2007.

Finnie is based in the U.K. and can be reached at Finnie@heavyreading.com.

Join Tekelec for a webinar on Tuesday, February 7, at 11:00 EST to learn more about the options for policy and charging integration, and why independent solutions are service providers’ preference. Heavy Reading’s Graham Finnie and Tekelec’s Joanne Steinberg will examine the survey results and discuss the importance working with a policy vendor that has integrated its policy server with charging systems across multiple tier one operators

Sign up here.

Some key findings include:
- Nearly 70 percent of tier ones said they will use the policy server (a policy and charging rules function, or PCRF) to perform some charging or rating functions.

- Tier one operators have run into significant challenges implementing online charging for data. For example, almost 60 percent cited higher costs due to customization and professional services.

What do you think of these findings?

According to Suriano:

As mobile data matures in developed markets, we expect several significant evolutions in 2012. The biggest for subscribers will be pricing plan innovations, providing new personalized service and cost options. In addition, we forecast rapid cloud service adoption, new content business models and new device segmentation.

The full article can be found here.