With services becoming more IP-centric and the telecom industry moving toward IMS, policy control is playing a critical role in helping telcos ensure their network resources are allocated to the right customers using the right services with assured quality
For years fixed-line operators have been looking at ways to apply policies to their IP networks to control bandwidth resources. But traditional methods for enabling policy control are inflexible, requiring that classes of service for different types of traffic be more or less hardwired into equipment. They can't be easily configured, making it difficult to turn bandwidth up and down in real time. Also, they typically support single services, rather than the multiple-application environment of the future, and they don't interoperate across equipment from different vendors.
As telecom networks become more complex and multimedia applications proliferate, it's becoming increasingly important for carriers to optimize their networks and simultaneously assure that customers have access to necessary bandwidth to support the performance of the services and deliver the high quality they expect.
Complicating matters further is the adoption of next-generation architectures and IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), which promise to change the dynamics of bandwidth allocation and management. Rich media content, IPTV, video-on-demand, gaming and other next-generation services are expected to impact IP network resources significantly, making it more challenging for carriers to optimize their network resources to provide a consistent level of service.
Arindam Banerjee, telecom software strategies senior analyst with the Yankee Group, says policy management will be crucial, especially when telcos migrate to converged IP networks and accelerate their delivery of service quality for SIP and non-SIP-based applications. As operators move toward adopting an IMS architecture and MPLS, policy management - especially bandwidth management - will play an important role in controlling and defining subscriber services and will provide operators with additional revenue-generating opportunities, Banerjee said in a research note.
'Success of next-generation architecture will be measured by seamless bandwidth management and guaranteed quality of service,' he said. 'Bandwidth management dynamics for providing SIP- and non-SIP based applications and mobile content across wireline and wireless networks will create significant challenges for carriers - especially if the timelines to launch are too aggressive.'
The good news is that a new breed of commercial off-the-shelf solutions is available, aimed at addressing the need for quality-assured IP services across converged networks. Thanks to the rapid development of standards within 3GPP, ETSI TISPAN, CableLab, and the MultiService Forum, policy-based control technology has developed over the past two years to meet on-demand, multiservice, multi-network requirements.
ETSI TISPAN, for instance, is currently defining the policy management standard for NGN, and leveraging the IMS application framework of 3GPP and extending the capabilities to wireline and wireless networks as well as the SIP-and non-SIP based application domain (see 'Advancing the IMS standard', p. 30).
Meanwhile, policy management solution specialists like Tazz Networks, Bridgewater Systems and Redknee are planning to roll out solutions that comply with these policy standards.
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While much of the policy standardization effort is related to policy support for IMS, telcos are also beginning to apply policy control for non-IMS applications, such as IPTV, VoIP and usage management.