Technology Showcase Quota Manager Executive Summary... 1 Overview... 2 Quota Manager Service Innovation Features... 2 Quotas... 2 Quota Wheels... 2 Billing Cycle... 2 Zero-Rated Usage... 3 Time of Day Charging... 3 Event Thresholds... 3 Quota Top-Ups... 3 Bolt-Ons... 4 High Availability and Horizontal Scaling... 5 Unique Service Innovation Technologies... 5 Executive Summary Sandvine s Quota Manager, a major feature of the Usage Management product. It enables service providers to better meet the unique needs of their subscribers with targeted, tier-based, metered usage plans and accurate data cap management that retains and attracts customers with true service innovation. Quota Manager provides an all-in-one, self-contained, end-to-end solution for mobile, fixed, and fixed-mobile convergence network operators who wish to deploy comprehensive usage metering and measurement, subscriber communication, and policy control solutions. This technology showcase presents the features, unique technologies, and use cases that offer service providers the ability to generate additional revenue while remaining agile and competitive in a fast-evolving market. Standalone Platform... 5 SandScript Freeform Policy... 6 Turnkey Provisioning... 7 Seamless NAT Integration... 8 Control Plane Intelligence... 9 Superior Reporting... 10 Usage Data Records... 11 Carrier-Grade Service Innovation Use Cases... 11 Example Full-Featured Service Plan... 11 Shared Usage Family Plans... 12 Targeted Prepaid Layer-7 Plans and Tiers... 14 Third-Party Layer-7 Application Promotions. 16 Event-based Upsell/Promotion Notification.. 16 Conclusion... 17
Overview Sandvine s Quota Manager, a feature-set of the Usage Management product, enables service providers to better meet the unique needs of their subscribers with targeted, tier-based, metered usage plans and accurate data cap management to retain and attract customers. It provides an all-in-one, selfcontained, end-to-end solution for mobile, fixed, and fixed-mobile convergence network operators who wish to deploy comprehensive usage metering and measurement, subscriber communication, and policy control solutions. Specific quota thresholds can be used to notify subscribers that exceed their quota, or to have policy actions applied to manage a subscriber's traffic. Additionally, a subscriber's quota can also be toppedup to avoid overages, or to avoid the policy actions associated with being over quota. Top-ups can occur multiple times per billing cycle and can be configured to expire either at the end of the billing cycle, at some fixed time after it is provisioned, or never. Quota Manager Service Innovation Features Quota Manager includes a wide range of standard features to allow CSPs to tailor the specific kinds of services their subscribers want. Quotas A quota is a designated amount of traffic volume in bytes or traffic transport duration in minutes that subscribers are allocated through their service plans. For instance, a plan may allow 200GB of data usage per month. When subscribers reach the designated threshold, they could be billed for overage, denied access to further usage, or have an alternative enforcement method such as shaping applied. The system supports mapping a subscriber to one or more plans. The plan corresponds to the various usage thresholds per quota wheel for a given subscriber. For example, a subscriber in the Gold plan may have a byte cap of 50GB while a subscriber in the bronze plan may have a byte cap of 10GB for the same quota wheel. Plans are provisioned on a per-subscriber basis. Quota Wheels Quota Manager uses the concept of a quota wheel, which maps a subscriber s service plan to an associated usage cap that can be based on time or bytes. Each quota wheel can be thought of as a set of configurable attributes such as billing cycle (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly), type of usage (e.g., roaming, local, chat, zero-rated, actions, reporting functions, rollover options, etc.). Each quota wheel has a set of thresholds that can be used to notify a subscriber, create Event Detail Records (EDRs), or manage the subscriber's traffic. Quota Manager also includes a special type of quota wheel, referred to as rolling quota. Rolling Quota is counted differently from regular quota. It tracks the usage within a sliding time window (e.g., usage with the last 3 months). The quota wheel slides over time and only usage that falls into this time period is counted against quota. When the window slides, the oldest quota bin measurement is discarded and a new bin is allocated to continue the count. Billing Cycle Subscribers can be provisioned with a specific time of month, to the hour, for when their quota is renewed. This billing cycle can be provisioned or automatically assigned (to a fixed time or randomly Page 2
distributed) by the system. At the beginning of a new billing period, the quota is reset. In Sandvine s Quota Manager jargon, this is referred to as the Rollover Date. Zero-Rated Usage Zero-Rated Usage allows for certain applications, traffic categories, or URLs to not count towards total usage of a subscriber s plan. Applications could be zero-rated as part of an existing service plan, or subscribers could choose to purchase a bolt-on that zero-rates one or several of their favorite applications. Time of Day Charging Time of Day charging configures Quota Manager to only count bytes or events that happen within a specific time period. Usage occurring outside of this interval is considered-zero-rated. This feature is commonly used to incentivize subscribers to shift network usage to off peak times. Event Thresholds A threshold is the level Quota Manager will count up to before triggering a designated response. Thresholds determine the amount of traffic a subscriber can consume or a number of events allowed based on a usage plan. Thresholds can be recurring. When an event threshold is triggered, enforcement measures such as blocking, rate limiting, or diverting to captive portal can be applied using the PTS. Any number of policy actions can be applied at each threshold, including: Web frame injection Redirect to an advice of charge or use webpage Block or shaping subscriber s traffic Send SMS or email (through integration with SMS and email gateway partners) Figure 1: The Power of Thresholds Quota Top-Ups Quota Manager has provisions in place to allow subscribers to "top-up" their accounts should they near or surpass the usage allowed by their plans. For example, if a subscriber has 1GB per month on a mobile data plan and has reached 90% of the quota, the subscriber could then purchase another 1GB and Quota Manager would expand the quota to account for the increase. Page 3
Figure 2: The Power of Top-ups A subscriber's quota can also be "topped-up" via a specific SOAP API call. Subscribers can buy top ups to avoid overage charges, or policy actions associated with being over quota. Top-ups (and their associated threshold notifications) can occur multiple times per billing cycle and can be configured to expire either at the end of the billing cycle, at some fixed time after it is provisioned, or to never expire. Bolt-Ons Bolt-ons allow CSPS to add Layer-7 application service options to new and existing service plans for fixed and mobile subscribers. Armed with bolt-ons, service providers can adapt service plans to capitalize on opportunities that arise from the continuing fast evolution of subscriber Layer-7 usage habits (revealed by Sandvine s powerful Network Demographics and Network Analytics reporting). CSPs are also better able to differentiate their plans and outmaneuver the competition by taking full advantage of the advanced freeform policy capabilities offered by Sandvine. Figure 3: The Power of Bolt-ons Page 4
High Availability and Horizontal Scaling In the event of connectivity loss or hardware failure on one of the quota manager servers, the quota state is loaded rapidly at the standby server and quota usage reports continue to be collected without further delay. In addition, Quota Manager subscriber information is also persisted regularly to disk on the Service Delivery Engine (SDE). The Quota Manager database backs up to an external server regularly to prevent data loss in the event of catastrophic double failure scenarios or profile corruption due to faulty provisioning within the B/OSS layer. Operators can deploy Quota Manager on multiple redundant SDE servers and enjoy flexible subscriber partitioning schemes. Partitioning might be based on access technology type, charging method (prepaid or postpaid), MSISDN ranges, own versus MVNO, etc. For instance, prepaid subscribers might be deployed on two Quota Manager/SDE server pairs while postpaid users are deployed on the rest of the Quota Manager/SDE servers. Operators not only benefit from the high scale service creation, but they can also reduce the risk of failures on high value subscriber partitions if they are provisioned on separate Quota Manager nodes (e.g., business users versus residential). Figure 4: Segregated Prepaid and Postpaid Subscriber Scaling Unique Service Innovation Technologies Beyond standard features, Sandvine s Quota Manager includes special features that give CSPs unique benefits in the delivery and continued evolution of their usage-based service offerings. Standalone Platform It s important to stress that Quota Manager is one self-contained, standalone platform that delivers the advanced, carrier-grade features operators demand in a cost-effective and resource-efficient manner. Quota Manager can complement or simplify the requirements on the charging and billing processes, since Quota Manager and the Sandvine platform have a fully-functional decision engine. Figure 5 shows the high-level Quota Manager deployment architecture. The Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) intersects the data stream to apply freeform policy to Layer-7 flows, while the SDE provide control plane intelligence with freeform policy to enable unique service plans. Page 5
Figure 5: Quota Manager Architecture Quota Manager is vendor agnostic and scalable to more than 20 million subscribers. It works with both legacy fixed and mobile systems, while simultaneously operating in the latest architectures such as LTE to provide support for gradual convergence strategies. A typical deployment consists of the Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) for standalone real-time usage counting and policy enforcement, Service Delivery Engine (SDE) for collecting and storing subscriber usage information and running quota logic, and a Subscriber Policy Broker (SPB) for generating usage reports and analytics dashboards. Quota Manager s high availability features ensure service continuity and usage collection resilience upon equipment or network failures. This is achieved by switching the usage collection process to a standby stateful Quota Manager server. With industry-standard interfaces, Quota Manager can be integrated with a provider s subscriber repository for entitlement information and customer portal for subscriber notification. Because Quota Manager is not dependent on any outside elements, signaling overhead and interoperability costs are kept to a minimum since metering a quota management are performed simultaneously in real time. This makes the product ideal for network operators that have not yet fully transitioned to later 3GPP releases and LTE architectures but want a full-featured quota management system to deploy revenue-generating services right now. SandScript Freeform Policy A key differentiator of Sandvine technology is the way in which it approaches the creation and execution of policy. Sandvine s hardware hosts software products that execute the if condition, then action network policy paradigm using an open and highly-configurable policy language called SandScript. Freeform policy supports the unrestricted ability to define and associate a complex set of fully-interactive, logic-based policy statements, any of which can affect a particular entity, such as a subscriber, in the desired context. SandScript is used to define feature-rich usage management and traffic management policies that can be infinite in both breadth and complexity. For a complete overview of SandScript and Sandvine s support for freeform policy, see Technology Showcase: SandScript The Advantage of Freeform Policy. Page 6
Maximum Revenue Retention and Signaling Efficiency The combination of on-wire Layer-7 flow evaluation and the agility of SandScript allows service providers to fine-tune the solution s quota reporting intervals to maximize signaling efficiency while preventing quota overshoot and undershoot which lead to revenue loss. For subscribers with a large amount of quota remaining, the system updates their usage at longer intervals. As they approach quota exhaustion, the system reports their usage more frequently to ensure subscribers are precisely given the use of their full quota, but no more than this, to ensure maximum revenue retention. Accounts can be deplete based on either time used or data volume used, with the option of combining the two and adjusting reporting intervals in whatever configuration works best for the service provider. Turnkey Provisioning With the Turnkey Provisioning capability, operators benefit from significant IT integration flexibility improvements and cost savings through simplifications introduced in the CRM provisioning process. This is enabled by two key capabilities: Quota Manager s Service Creation SOAP API calls can raise Sandscript events on the SDE server during the provisioning process. This enables operators to configure advanced charging or auditing logic. This also relieves operators from resorting to compiled custom plug-ins that are difficult to maintain and are not well integrated within the product. Operator specific profile attributes added to Quota Manager s Service Creation SOAP API allow passing extra characteristics about the subscriber s profile in the form of simple SOAP attributes. For instance, whether the subscriber opted for notifications, is under parental control, or whether she is a business subscriber. Through SandScript, operators can define the semantics and the business logic for handling the extra profile attributes. Figure 6: Turnkey Provisioning Using these capabilities, advanced bundles and top up use cases are enabled with minimal deployment effort. In most deployment scenarios, operators simply integrate their IT provisioning systems to the Quota Manager server on the SDE to create an attribute as part of the subscriber s profile. Page 7
Without SandScript Freeform Policy Adding and adapting service options without a flexible freeform policy language is effort-intensive and time-consuming: Figure 7: Without Freeform Policy Service Options are Expensive for IT With SandScript Freeform Policy Adding and adapting options offers no real barriers to deployment, allowing service providers and their IT departments to focus all effort on rapidly deploying the best possible service: Figure 8: SandScript Freeform Policy Dramatically Reduces Time to Deployment for IT Example Service Options To better visualize the benefit of a fast path to enabling flexible and differentiated service plans, consider the following examples of service plan options: Family Plan custom parental notifications: Parents specify specific quota threshold communication recipients. Try before you buy : Customers are given a smartphone with a limited one-time quota to try the service. Flat fee bolt-ons: Service providers can offer advanced options for a flat fee that attach to selected service plans, such as zero-rate Facebook or carry remaining quota forward into next period. Specific QoS provisioning: For example applying differing QoS policies to MVNO vs. local subscribers. Seamless NAT Integration To accommodate the presence of Network Address Translation (NAT) a network policy control solution needs a method of qualifying data sessions to associate them with the correct subscribers. Sandvine s approach is to offer a solution that ensures seamless integration into the service provider s network and NAT architecture so that Layer-7 subscriber-aware policies continue to occur as they did before, without constraining either feature. This means using a new point of reference for situations where the network policy control solution must apply subscriber-aware policy to traffic in environments with overlapping IP addresses. Beneath the product policy layer, Sandvine uses a reference point called a session qualifier that is configured in the field to secure subscriber awareness. The session qualifier is a component of the Sandvine Policy Engine that expands the session model used for baseline subscriber awareness in policy. Page 8
A session qualifier is an expressed value that commonly represents, though is not limited to, a site number or a VLAN tag mapped to a site number. This value is permanently stored, and then referenced along with an IPv4 address in real time by control and data plane elements to identify unique subscriber sessions in the presence of overlapping IP addresses. With the use of session qualifiers, SandScript policies can continue to be written once and deployed throughout the network as though the NAT issue does not exist. Figure 9 shows Sandvine s deployment in an environment with overlapping IP addresses when address translation has not yet occurred. Figure 9: Sandvine Pre-NAT Deployment For a complete overview of Sandvine s solution for seamless NAT integration, please see Technology Showcase Intelligent NAT Integration.pdf. Control Plane Intelligence A freeform policy creation and execution capability on the control plane allows CSPs to solve problems related to the increasing number of elements and multi-vendor interrelationships that drive modern Network Policy Control solutions. Figure 10 is a conceptual illustration of the complex relationships that can managed through a simple freeform policy define with SandScript on Sandvine s Service Delivery Engine (SDE). The SDE provides control plane intelligence and manages the mapping of subscribers into their desired household family plans and offloading processing from the billing system. This solution is generally applicable to enabling any shared wallet plan. Figure 10: A Logical Illustration Freeform Policy for Control Plane Intelligence Page 9
Superior Reporting In addition to usage tracking and enforcement on thresholds, Quota Manager provides key business intelligence with the power of measurement-based reporting through Sandvine s Network Demographics and Network Analytics, with access to such subscriber information as how many and which subscribers are exceeding their quotas and the percentage of bandwidth being consumed within quota vs. over quota. Network Demographics generates ready-made reports with information related to usage-based services that allow CSPs to better understand subscriber behavior. Figure 11: Network Demographics The Network Analytics Usage Management dashboard allows operators to visualize how their individual service plans are performing at a network and business level. Figure 12: Network Analytics Usage Management Dashboard Page 10
The solution command line interface, with direct access to the PTS and SDE elements, provides a number of valuable statistics about the health of the network and various subscriber and plan attributes. And a SOAP interface offers optional extensions for fast integration with the SDE to configure additional service options quickly into policy (such as parental control or notification options), while also allowing the network administrator to query the SDE directly. Usage Data Records Quota Manager supports the ability to generate periodic usage data records (UDRs) to assist with customer care and audit requests. Usage Detail Records are generated daily and in fixed format out of the SPB. For additional format flexibility, Record Generator shall be used. Carrier-Grade Service Innovation Use Cases The following use cases are examples of revenue-generating services realized by CSPs without compromising their vision by taking full advantage of Sandvine s Quota Manager features and technology innovations: Example Full-Featured Service Plan Figure 13 shows how thresholds, top-ups, and bolt-ons can be combined to define a quota wheel service that can be offered to individual subscribers. Figure 13: Service with Combined Thresholds, Top-ups, and Bolt-ons Sandvine Advantage The SDE s SandScript policy language offers agile control plane policies and subscriber-tailored services, and the PTS provides extensive data plane Layer-7 flow evaluation. In addition, the PTS element s granular metering and subscriber billing accuracy provides maximum revenue retention. These capabilities enable flexible and fast in-field service plan adaptation to quickly capitalize on emerging revenue opportunities Page 11
Shared Usage Family Plans For a complete overview of Sandvine s support for shared usage, including support for M2M applications, see Technology Showcase Sandvine Shared Usage Plans. Figure 14 below shows the case of a shared family data plan with the primary member being the account owner, and a secondary and third member. The primary member is allowed access to any and all protocols and applications (unrestricted access) up to the shared plan quota CAP (limit). The secondary member has a lower quota (80% of the total) and is only allowed access to social networking, email and video. Finally, the third member is only allowed access to social networking and email, and has a much lower quota limit (30% of the total). Upon reaching their 30% quota limit, the third member is totally blocked from further data access. If the secondary member reaches their 80% quota limit, their data access is shaped to a low bit rate. Finally if the total plan quota is reached, the primary member, as the account owner, is redirected to a subscriber portal to allow for top-up. If top-up is not accepted, then the primary member s data access is also shaped. Figure 14: Shared Plan Quota Manager Shared Quota Policy, CAP and Quota Exhaustion Actions Figure 4 shows a generic network reference diagram for shared plans, with mobile and cable network technology used as the example. The Sandvine Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) measures usage for the group and individuals and periodically sends usage to the Sandvine Service Delivery Engine (SDE) for accumulation by Quota Manager. Quota Manager provides the quota threshold indications, quota exhaustion events to the PTS for shaping/redirection policy actions and Usage Data Records (UDRs). Figure 4 illustrated the case where Jeff is a cable subscriber with 5GB quota, Jack is a mobile subscriber with 1 GB quota and Ann is also a mobile subscriber with 5 GB quota. Jeff, Jack and Ann all belong to a shared quota of 5 GB. In the illustration below, Jeff has used 50 MBs, Jack 2 MBs and Ann 5 MBS for a total of 2 +5 + 50 MBs usage towards the shared 5 GB quota. Page 12
Figure 15: Shared Plan Quota Manager Network Reference Diagram Note that in network deployments with a mix of fixed cable or DSL and mobile networks, the Sandvine solution can give a lower weight to fixed network bytes than mobile network bytes to account for the lower cost of fixed networks as compared to mobile networks. Use Cases and Deployment Options The following four use cases are supported by Quota Manager: 1. Family/group membership with one access technology and data home a. b. c. d. e. f. Ability to support either xdsl, cable OR mobile technologies Support for multiple shared group family members or devices Can have per device policy, thresholds and notifications Can generate daily per device billing UDRs to mediation and billing systems Multiple APN Connectivity Integrates with provisioning systems over SOAP 2. Family/group membership with multiple access technologies and data homes (one datahome per technology) Page 13
a. b. c. d. e. Ability to support a mix of xdsl, cable AND mobile technologies Can provide different quota cost weights against fixed and mobile usage Example, can use six cable bytes, three DSL bytes or one mobile byte for each quota point. Support for multiple shared group/family members or devices Supports simple enforcement rules (multiple datahomes restrict enforcement and notification options) Sandvine Advantage The SDE s SandScript policy language offers agile control plane policies and subscriber-tailored services that easily accommodate a multitude of options for subscriber as described above. Targeted Prepaid Layer-7 Plans and Tiers Sandvine s implementation of quota-based prepaid services makes accurate and profitable OTT charging services a reality, as shown by the example presented by Figure 16. This example dramatically increased ARPU for a particular service provider and put it three years ahead of its closest competition, and Sandvine can enable it in any fixed or mobile network using Quota Manager. Figure 16: Sandvine-Enabled Online Charging Service As operators deploy charging systems, service creation requires a policy evaluation and traffic classification system that is advanced enough to enable innovative and flexible charging models for application layer traffic (e.g., social media, real-time entertainment, cloud storage, etc.). Page 14
Zero-Rating Layer-7 Applications Zero-rating is the practice of not charging for a specific Layer-7 data usage within a quota-based service account. In the example shown by Figure 16, Facebook is zero-rated for specific quota-based service tiers. Launching and evolving zero-rating offerings can be a nimble method of outmaneuvering the competition s service plans, so it s important to have a solution with a freeform policy language that can accommodate easy adaptation. The following are some other examples of zero-rating: Administrative updates Partner application traffic (OTT providers such as dropbox, instagram, spotify) A method of enhancing higher tiers and plans in differentiating them from lower tiers IPTV content for fixed networks Roaming Services and Bill Shock Prevention CSPs are free to offer the same Layer-7 package options to roaming subscribers, and to implement bill shock prevention polices as well. Notifications are prompt, and metering is accurate, reducing customer care calls related to bill shock and securing customer loyalty. For a detailed overview of Sandvine s roaming service and bill shock prevention solution, see the document Case Study: Bill Shock Management.pdf. In the European Union, regulations were introduced to manage bill shock for data roaming. These regulations ensured consistency and certainty in bill shock management. The intent was to decrease customer complaints while allowing all parties involved tomanage their expectations. To comply with the European Union roaming notification directives, Sandvine worked with a number of European Union mobile service providers to implement a bill shock management solution. Figure 17 shows a few SMS examples of how the initial data roaming notification could appear on an iphone. Figure 17: Initial Roaming Notification SMS Sandvine Advantage The SandScript policy language and PTS element s granular Layer-7 flow evaluation ensures fast and flexible service plan adaptation, accurate billing for maximum revenue retention, prompt subscriber notification on thresholds to ensure a positive customer experience, instant policy enforcement, and bolt-on support to enhance customer-tailored options. The SandScript freeform policy language enables the stateful inspection and counting of specific subscriber data usage encapsulated within an IP tunnel while simultaneously inspecting the outertunnel IP to invoke a roaming policy with real-time communication and enforcement (as shown by Figure 18). Page 15
Figure 18: Example Sandvine Tunnel Inspection, 3GPP R7 For a detailed explanation of the benefits of freeform policy for enabling roaming and bill shock prevention policies, see the document Managing IP Tunnels with Freeform Policy.pdf. Third-Party Layer-7 Application Promotions These programs increase revenue by attracting subscribers and introducing third-party sponsorship revenue streams. The model can be applied to a range of offers, including specialized tiers, loyalty points, and online retailers. Figure 19: Example Third-Party Promotion Enabled by Sandvine Sandvine Advantage The SandScript policy language and PTS element s granular Layer-7 flow evaluation ensures fast and flexible service plan adaptation, accurate billing for maximum revenue retention, prompt subscriber notification on thresholds to ensure a positive customer experience, instant policy enforcement, and bolt-on support to enhance customer-tailored options. Event-based Upsell/Promotion Notification Time-sensitive promotions need to reach subscribers on-time and in a medium they use. Sandvine offers instant and accurate subscriber communication options, including watermarks, to offer additional service choices and messaging to subscribers. Page 16
Conclusion With Quota Manager, Sandvine offers a fully-featured, carrier-grade quota-based service creation solution for service providers large or small. With a faster path to superior service offerings and subscriber plan management, Quota Manager gives any network operator the ability to generate additional revenue in a way the competes with anything else in the market today. With Quota Manager, CSPs can do the following: Offer differentiated prepaid and postpaid service plans aligned with subscriber consumption and maximize ARPU Make qualified marketing and operational decisions with increased network visibility and easyto-use reports with Network Demographics Proactively keep their subscribers informed of their usage, reducing bill shock and increasing satisfaction Enjoy maximum revenue retention Allow subscribers to adjust their plans or top-up their quota depending on usage needs, including roaming support Configure plan-specific billing periods Enable multiple quotas per subscriber, with different periods Zero-rate managed content and apply real-time policy action Page 17
Headquarters Sandvine Incorporated ULC Waterloo, Ontario Canada Phone: +1 519 880 2600 Email: sales@sandvine.com European Offices Sandvine Limited, UK Swindon, UK Phone: +44 0 1793 512946 Email: sales@sandvine.co.uk Copyright 2013 Sandvine Incorporated ULC. Sandvine and the Sandvine logo are registered trademarks of Sandvine Incorporated ULC. All rights reserved. 2013-08-13