Mobile Operator Challenges

Mobile operators face many challenges as they seek to take advantage of consumer's desires to accelerate their mobile broadband experience. Operators need fine-grained awareness on the behavior of their network and subscribers, sophisticated analysis tools for business planning, and real-time control that enables monetization on their networks. Most mobile networks were not built out to support the bandwidth required in their backhaul network to support new technologies that are increasing the bandwidth available on the Radio Access Network. Consumers are demanding flat rates for data usage, but their usage is dramatically altered by the new generation of data-savvy devices being offered. More streaming usage (both audio and video), file downloading, and even social network interaction are changing the dynamics of mobile data network from traditional email retrieval to a full-fledged broadband Internet experience. Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployments will place a strain on network resources, and enabling high-value users to take full advantage of new services and bandwidth will enable operators to capture the early adopters by meeting or exceeding their expectations.

Mobile Operator Requirements

Mobile operators need visibility into the usage patterns on their network. Bandwidth upgrades that are ongoing (whether they are 3G or LTE-based) mandate that any system deployed today must be able to handle the performance increase required to address LTE devices and networks. Providers that have good visualization of the behavior of their subscriber's applications and application types during peak usage times ensures that congestion management will ensure that subscribers have a good Quality of Experience. Operators also need visibility into the usage patterns of different classes of service or tiered service offerings (high volume subscribers and devices versus mobile handset browsing and email access), and their density within the Radio Access Network to allow more efficient capacity planning and operational expenditures. Tight integration with the Operational Support (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS) is required to provide a single point of access into subscriber services and usage behavior, as well as integration with Online and Offline Charging Systems. Managing roaming users and preventing "Bill Shock" is required to preventing customer dissatisfaction, and in several instances around the world, to comply with region specific legislation.

PacketLogic Solutions for Mobile Service Providers

Procera Networks' PacketLogic solutions are deployed by mobile service providers worldwide to meet these challenges through patent-pending next-generation technology that provides deep visibility into and control over network traffic. PacketLogic solutions provide deep packet inspection capabilities that allow highly accurate identification of network traffic such as BitTorrent, YouTube, Skype and others – even if these applications use port-hopping, encryption, masking or other behaviors to hide their identity. PacketLogic solutions integrate with the Mobile BSS and OSS to provide subscriber and network topology correlation. PacketLogic solutions provide precise visibility into network traffic, allowing accurate management and optimization of bandwidth. Standards-based 3GPP policy management interworking with PCRFs enables allocation of bandwidth by application (such as VoIP) or subscriber, roaming vs. non-roaming users, and time-of-day, down to individual radio towers. With a PacketLogic solution, mobile operators do not need to sacrifice performance, functionality, or scalability as compared to competitive solutions.

Key PacketLogic Capabilities for Mobile Service Providers: 

• LTE-ready today for providers that have other technologies installed today but have LTE plans in the future – no forklift upgrade required – even if bandwidth usage doubles or triples!
• End-to-end integration into the provider's Billing and Operational network with customizable interfaces to multiple departments: Customer Service, Revenue Assurance, Billing Intelligence using standard interfaces. 
• Full subscriber and service plan awareness with the ability to deploy policies dynamically using a 3GPP standards-based policy framework
• Scalability to multi-10GE capacity and millions of subscribers, allowing operators to evolve and grow their networks to meet technology and business goals. 
• Real-Time operational analysis on the network, users, and applications
• Traffic optimization and service creation functionality that generates customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and added-revenue opportunities

Services Enabled by PacketLogic for Mobile Service Providers

• Fair Usage and Congestion Management
• Time, Application, or Location-based charging
• Tiered Services and/or "Turbo Button" Services
• Advice of charge for usage thresholds for roaming and non-roaming users
• Parental Control
• Differentiated Billing for on-net services