Narus polices prepaid wireless nets
 
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Billing and mediation software developer Narus this week announced its next-generation offering, which enforces service-provisioning policies based on collected usage data.
The software, which Narus has not yet named, is designed to allow service providers to profitably deliver next-generation services while controlling the associated risk through policy enforcement. For example, if a prepaid mobile service subscriber has a zero credit balance, the Narus software can downgrade or eliminate service in real-time based on policies pre-defined and programmed by the network operator.
Indeed, the first application for the new Narus software platform is called the Narus Solution for Prepaid Wireless Mobile Internet Services. This application enables mobile Internet operators to offer prepaid data services over GPRS and 3G wireless networks that are measured in data units rather than voice minutes.
The software collects and analyzes usage data, and then selectively denies or permits services in any combination, including e-mail, browsing, voice-over-IP and streaming media, based on specific policies pertaining to usage or billing. Operators can also use the Narus platform to offer subscribers a "soft landing" rather than shutting off service when their prepaid service limit is reached.
An API in the Narus application integrates it with third-party billing and customer care applications. Real-time policy management and enforcement, however, occurs within the Narus platform, thereby reducing load on the billing application, Narus says.
Service providers can set policies for differentiated billing and enforcement by event, protocol -- such as VoIP or Web browsing -- or content, Narus says. An operator can allow subscribers to view some sites (support sites, marketing partner sites, etc.) at no charge, and others to be paid for.
Similarly, an operator can block viewing of certain content such that, for example, corporate users could only see data from their company's intranet. This capability is enabled by Narus' patent-pending IP Signaling technology, which enforces policies by sending appropriate disconnect or other commands to both client and server.
Though the initial application for the new Narus platform is in prepaid mobile, it can work with other service-provisioning applications as well. In a postpaid mobile environment, for example, an operator can develop and implement credit management policies, and when a threshold is reached the operator can redirect the subscriber to a customer support site for further information.
The new software platform includes two key components: the Policy Manager and the Interactive Semantic Traffic Analyzer (ISTA).
The Policy Manager passes balance and other information back and forth from the billing and customer care application, decrementing the subscriber's balance and generating action by third part notification and messaging applications. The ISTA collects data and receives policy-based action requests from the Policy Manager. ISTA enforces those policies using the IP Signaling technology.
Enforcement requests include terminating TCP sessions or redirecting Web or Wireless Access Protocol sessions to a given Web site.
Analysts believe software like Narus' could become the norm in service/billing mediation.
"Mediation is going to become a much more flexible and powerful tool," says Mike Allen, an analyst at Aberdeen Group in Boston. "Up to this point it's been a standard product with few bells and whistles -- it had to be tweaked by the IT staff or the vendor."
"We're now in the stage where mediation vendors are starting to take all of this network usage information and develop their own applications to sit on top of it, and do new and cool things," says Jason Briggs, an analyst at The Yankee Group in Boston.
Challenges for Narus include the slow sales cycle into ILECs; and the infancy and unpredictability of the prepaid IP wireless market.
"It's still green-field territory. There's probably a lot of lessons to learn," Briggs says.
The new Narus software platform and the Solution for Prepaid Wireless Mobile Internet Services application will be available in the fourth quarter. Pricing is customer/network-specific.
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