Vendors team up on video optimization tools: Sandvine, Acision partner; Dialogic opens Indian facility

As wireless operators struggle to manage high volume traffic from video on their networks, the number of companies announcing solutions in the video optimization space has been increasing as well. Sandvine (SVC) and Acision today said they are partnering to offer carriers a new suite of OSS/BSS capabilities to help them manage traffic. Meanwhile, Dialogic Inc. (DLGC), which merged with Veraz Networks last month, has opened a research and development center in India to focus on video services.
Video optimization tools have become a buzzword recently, with the oft-cited Cisco report that mobile video will account for two-thirds of traffic by 2014. Besides Acision, Sandvine and Dialogic, Amdocs, Bytemobile, F5 Networks Inc., Juniper Networks and Openwave are just some of the companies that have made recent announcements in the sector.
Wireless carriers have been trying to manage traffic by either offloading traffic to Wi-Fi, building out IP-based networks like those that use LTE or WiMAX technologies to better handle the load, or by optimizing their available bandwidth, noted Jim Machi, senior VP of marketing at Dialogic.
Going forward, most of the companies playing in the optimization space believe that precision policy management will be needed so operators can start to offer tiered pricing plans and more innovative ways to charge end users for content delivery. As the industry moves toward 4G networks, carriers are not going to be able to predict what next application will be a success, causing heavy traffic on the network, so they will have to be able to manage network traffic in real time to keep end users satisfied or risk them churning to another service provider.
Regarding the specific announcements, Sandvine and Acision said their network policy tools will give carriers detailed traffic insight and capabilities such as traffic flow control, subscriber control, service creation and differentiation, as well as intelligent content optimization for mobile networks.
“Our partnership with Sandvine broadens the reach of the Acision Broadband Mobility Suite,” said Marco Wanders, Executive VP, Mobile Data Control, Acision. “Sandvine’s strengths in network policy control and application awareness combined with Acision’s ground breaking optimization and policy management solution enables operators to maximize network utilization while simultaneously ensuring maximum user Quality of Experience. Our unique approach means we enable operators of any size to achieve a substantially lower total cost of ownership while scaling to meet the demands driven by the explosive growth of mobile data.”
For its part, Dialogic said its India video design and development center will focus on video content adaptation, video streaming and video analytics, complementing its efforts in New Jersey and Boston. Sanjay Singh, previously managing director of Dilithium Networks in India, will manage the Indian video operations. Dialogic offers video media server and video gateway products and sells to the software companies that provide the solutions to wireless operators. Machi declined to say how many people will be staffed at the Indian facility.