Pipeline Publishing, Volume 6, Issue 3

	This Month's Issue:
	On the Lookout: Network Monitoring

Battle for Bandwidth:
Network Monitoring put to the Test

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will only become more common: "We have to break the rules.“ (BusinessWeek. AT&T’s Designs for the Wireless Market. July, 2009.)

“For Every Action…”
All of this means that providers are moving toward using networking monitoring and controls to make network operations more bandwidth-reactive and more granular to each customer’s individual circumstances.

This principle has already been put to use in other industries. Airlines have had to become seat-reactive in the same way that CSPs are learning to become bandwidth-reactive. For United Airlines' pricing system to be effective, for instance, it needs to automatically adjust prices or capacity for a certain destination based on demand. If the commuter weekday flight from JFK to Dulles has 90% of its seats booked 3 weeks in advance, the price of tickets on that flight gets raised immediately.

In a similar way, CSPs are using network monitoring techniques and systems like policy and charging controls to adjust billing practices and traffic flow in real-time. But while the business need for being able to manage bandwidth access is clear, the act of how to execute it is not always so obvious.

Changing airline seat prices for a particular flight based on demand can be done in a blanket fashion so that no matter who the next customer is, they will all be offered the same choice of seat at the same price.

The telecom provider must react in a more personalized manner.

If, for instance, a subscriber pays extra for a mobile TV service but often experiences a low quality of service because of high traffic on the network, the provider can use network monitoring and policy control methods to reshape and smooth traffic to balance a congestion problem. Yet, if a blanket action is taken to reduce bandwidth temporarily for all peer-to-peer application users, the provider risks reducing some customers’ bandwidth unfairly. With proper network monitoring and control, providers can shape traffic accordingly to boost the Mobile TV subscriber’s experience while not adversely affecting other users’, and still retain the value of the their premium service.

There are cracks appearing in the flat-rate model’s shiny exterior.

Edging Forward
Most examples of network monitoring and control solutions are based on a combination of best of breed technologies, although some complete end-to-end offerings are emerging that can be had at a price that makes financial sense.

The best solutions include systems that connect OSS back-office functions with on-network business policy systems. It is essential to link everything from user authentication to on-network systems for deep packet inspection and traffic analysis, to business control systems for maintaining alignment of user profiles with revenue and charging goals, and finally to service control systems that enforce real-time bandwidth reactions.

But the final piece of network monitoring and control comes from the real-estate business’ old adage: location, location, location. CSPs, particularly of the mobile sort, can benefit greatly by positioning the charging and control elements of their solutions, and also by storing data crucial for popular services, farther out on the network edge. Called ‘edge-caching,’ this enables the provider to adjust traffic policies and redirect high-bandwidth applications to avoid bringing traffic across the mobile network where it’s more expensive to handle. In this way, the burden of peer-to-peer, video downloads, flat-rate billing, and other high-cost services is better managed.

Network monitoring and control have become intrinsically linked functions, and they are proving to be the solutions of choice for realizing true revenue gains from existing and future services. The key to making it work, though, is focusing on the necessary integration of monitoring, charging, and control systems that can make real-time, personalized determinations to make networks more enjoyable for the customer and more profitable for the provider.

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