Tektronix Communications Leads Mobile Broadband Service Assurance Paradigm Shift with 'Packets to People' Based Solutions

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- As mobile operators around the globe evolve their networks to meet ever-increasing subscriber demands, Tektronix Communications is working to ensure mobile broadband service assurance and profitability by providing insight into operators' complex networks from "packets to people." Since the introduction of the market-leading Iris suite of solutions in 2009, Tektronix Communications has grown the portfolio to encompass further mobile broadband technologies and network intelligence applications, and more than a dozen mobile service providers around the globe have deployed the solution.

Mobile data consumption across the globe is exploding as a result of the proliferation of new smartphones, but the real paradigm shift is actually linked to the abundance of new devices such as tablet personal computers and mobile USB dongle connected laptops. The mobile broadband landscape is changing and, with it, the usage patterns and expectations of millions of mobile users. As bandwidth availability increases, the number and variety of devices accessing mobile networks is growing and the plethora of services using this bandwidth is rising exponentially. In order to ensure continued profitability while managing subscriber quality of experience (QoE), mobile service providers must balance the cost of capacity expanding network investment with meeting the increased user demands for quality of service (QoS).

"While there are service-centric solutions that determine the QoE experienced by users and network-centric solutions that verify the QoS of delivered services, Tektronix Communications' Iris suite of solutions 'packets to people' approach provides unique breadth and depth to the intelligence that it offers multiple functions within the service provider," said Mark Driedger, Vice President and General Manager, Network Management, Tektronix Communications. "The Iris suite of solutions delivers exceptional subscriber intelligence by providing full visibility of not only services, but of the subscribers using these services, the network carrying these services, down to the packets carrying the content of these services from service origination to delivery point."

A recent Analysys Mason report on fixed mobile broadband cited that inferior QoS is the primary driver of poor customer satisfaction and churn in fixed broadband networks. Mobile broadband is no different. Users no longer only demand to be always on and always connected, but now have devices that are infinitely more suitable to enjoying real-time sensitive, high bandwidth services such as video and gaming. And, as the uptake of these bandwidth-heavy services increases, so too do the expectations of their users.

This change in landscape and mobile subscriber expectations directly challenges the traditional monitoring methodology used by the service provider operations group. Network performance was previously monitored using key performance indicators on aspects such as accessibility, retainability and retransmission rates; while these still remain critical parameters to monitor, they cannot answer the now basic question of how the service was experienced by a user.

About Tektronix Communications' Mobile Broadband Solutions

The Iris suite of products provides multiple organizations within service provider real-time and historical information for all service troubleshooting and performance monitoring needs. The Iris family of products includes:

• GeoProbe G10 – Based on the industry-leading GeoProbe, the new high-speed, high-density 10GE probe features a distributed architecture optimized to handle high bandwidth IP traffic.
• Iris Analyzer toolset – Includes Iris Protocol Analyzer (PA), Iris Session Analyzer (ISA) and Iris Traffic Analyzer (ITA), which provides L2 to L7 troubleshooting by characterizing IP traffic by links, applications and servers.
• IrisView – Easy-to-use, configurable software framework that provides a single, integrated platform for all applications, including feeds to customer experience management (CEM) systems and third party OSS, BSS applications.
• Iris Performance Intelligence – Provides unmatched end-to-end analysis and reporting capabilities coupled with an extremely flexible and powerful KPI/KQI modeling engine that allows operators to better link desired business outcomes to events that occur at the network level.
• The Iris solution suite with Arantech's touchpoint™ – The most advanced customer experience management solution used by mobile operators today, Iris with Arantech's touchpoint closes the gap between network and service performance intelligence to provide actionable information with unique breadth and depth. Service performance and experience is assured over the full service delivery chain, which can include multiple technologies and physical interface types, in one fully integrated, "packets to people" solution.

For details on the Iris portfolio please visit: www.tektronixcommunications.com/iris.

About Tektronix Communications

Tektronix Communications provides service providers and equipment manufacturers around the world an unparalleled suite of network diagnostics and service assurance solutions for fixed, mobile, IP and converged multi-service networks. This comprehensive set of solutions support a range of architectures and applications such as LTE, fixed mobile convergence, IMS, broadband wireless access, WiMAX, VoIP and triple play. Tektronix Communications is headquartered in Plano, Texas. Learn more about the company's test, measurement and service assurance solutions by visiting www.tektronixcommunications.com

About Arantech

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Arantech supplies its touchpoint and Customer World solutions and a range of CEM consultancy services to help its customers derive maximum benefit from their existing network, customer and service management systems.

Arantech's CEM solutions provide mobile operators with a unique customer Insight, a rich experience discovery and enable them to take proactive Management action on real time experience events. All our products deliver a rapid and strong ROI by identifying customer-centric issues ('the experience gap') in real time and enable behavioural segmentation of their customer base which today is not possible through existing Operational and Business Support Systems (B/OSS). More information can be found at www.arantech.com.

Arantech has 33 customers including mobile operators from four out of the six largest mobile operator groups in the world, serving in excess of 300 million mobile subscribers.

Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Tektronix Communications