By Susan Campbell
Many mobile services available to consumers today are perceived as commodity services. The assumption is that every provider offers the same thing at the same level of quality. The result is that those willing to go the extra mile in terms of customer service are often those deemed worthy of customer business.
This perception is driving a new focus in this space as providers seek methods for:
- Improving monitoring
- Personalizing the experience
- Optimizing the network resources
- Enriching the customer experience to drive loyalty
As captured in this Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) TechZine article, Mobile Application Assurance, the main focus for any service provider should be on advanced deep packet inspection (DPI) for doing the above.
DPI allows mobile service providers to take a closer look at network application flows and into their IP traffic to gain important insights on how network resources are used. This information then can serve as the starting point to ensure the quality of experience (QoE) for end users. The article offers the key details necessary to ensure service providers can create optimal service delivery options for every type of traffic.
Reality is that advanced traffic processing as enabled by DPI is not only a necessary technical element within the proper management of the service provider’s network, it is at the end of the day a critical business imperative. In fact, as the authors highlight, Mobile Application Assurance (Mobile AA), should be integrated broadly with policy and charging capabilities to create a framework that as the name implies helps assure better performance and a consistent and improved user experience.
Alcatel-Lucent offers Mobile AA for the substantial, real-time processing and service assurance associated with mobile IP traffic. It is the deployment of DPI techniques at Layers 4 to 7 that assures the end-user quality of experience (QoE). As the authors state, with the number of devices, users and IP applications exploding, mobile service providers are under increased pressure to implement DPI techniques for the two critical goals of traffic management and optimal user experiences.
The article makes the case that by partnering with Alcatel-Lucent to implement DPI mobile service providers can better examine and analyze the characteristics associated with each user or traffic generated by each application. ALU’s Mobile AA is delivered on the 7750 Service Routers Mobile Gateway configured to act as the Serving Gateway and/or a Packet Data Node (PDN) Gateway for Long Term Evolution (LTE). This process enables the end-user QoE for application identification and for quality of service (QoS) policy actions.
As a result, the service provider can more easily improve performance and personalize the experience for the user, turning the packet core into a powerful business engine to drive market dominance and secure long-term customer loyalty.
It has been said that for most things “knowledge is power.” Given the necessity of mobile service providers to differentiate themselves, based on improved customers experiences, leveraging DPI to enable the provisioning of the right capabilities at the right, place and time in an optimized manner to assure compelling outcomes, proves the statement. Having a deeper knowledge of IP traffic is the best way to assure enriched customer experiences.
