Network-level visibility is typically the domain of service assurance systems. However, the challenge for today’s CSPs lies in navigating the transition to the world of IP, or internet protocol, and legacy service assurance systems aren’t necessarily equipped to deliver deep, pervasive visibility into modern IP networks. But if the service assurance platform is tuned for IP-based insight and offers real-time visibility into both the data plane and the control plane, many new, innovative opportunities will come to light. 

The tool that’s used to manage the stability of the network and its services is simultaneously pulling data that can supply highly valuable BI and OI (operational intelligence). Answers to questions such as “Which services could be monetized as premium services?” and “Which user group would most likely respond to X incentive?” are hidden in that data. Leveraging a next-gen service assurance platform to address network and quality issues, improve CEM and deliver BI kills three birds with one stone. It also breaks down operational silos.

Scouting the field

One company that’s helping CSPs tackle this problem is NetScout. It offers an advanced service assurance solution that can be leveraged for BI and OI, and its broad customer base attests to its leadership in service assurance and IP visibility. NetScout’s end-to-end service assurance solutions are deployed by 148 service providers worldwide, and its nGenius solution is capable of transforming packet-level data into meaningful business guidance, giving CSPs a way to extract additional value from their service assurance systems. (For more background on NetScout, check out Pipeline’s company profile in its February issue.)

“We deal with Big Data every day because we’re generating huge amounts of metrics from what’s coming across the network,” says Steven Shalita, the company’s vice president of marketing. “We see services, subscribers, network elements — everything.”

Indeed, the nGenius solution provides always-on insight into the control and data planes, capturing session setup, control and all services consumed by the end user. This is important, because without a platform that offers pervasive, real-time visibility into all the moving pieces, the crystal ball gets cloudy.

But with a clear view of all the underlying traffic, the same data that’s being generated for service assurance and preventative CEM purposes can also be leveraged for a sizable sum of analytics. Everything from market performance analysis to quantifying the potential of new services and measuring the effectiveness of said services can be understood with network data.

Answering the call

The data gleaned from an advanced service delivery management platform such as NetScout’s can dramatically improve business and operational decision-making, agility and profitability. These days CSPs are busy launching 4G LTE networks, and by leveraging service assurance data for BI, an operator with a newly deployed LTE network could quickly and easily ascertain the answers to these questions:

• How many of each device type are being deployed?
• What is the response time and performance of each particular device?
• What kinds of services are user groups in each device category (or region) accessing?
• Who’s accessing more mobile data?
• What are the latency experiences or success/failure rates from a specific user group’s perspective?
• Which user groups might be primed for a premium upsell?
• Which popular services present attractive partnership opportunities for premium and subsidized mobile data strategies?

Identifying and monetizing premium services is one effective strategy that helps mobile operators offset the decline in traditional revenues and the competitive threat posed by over-the-top (OTT) services. CSPs are uniquely positioned to offer premium tiers based on quality of service (QoS) that deliver improved performance and better availability. For this strategy to succeed, however, they must first identify and promote the right services to the right user groups.