Broadhop, Allot team on virtual policy

Integration and interoperability testing have been completed between the Allot Service Gateway (acting as an intelligent policy and charging enforcement function, or PCEF) and BroadHop’s Quantum Network Suite, a virtualized policy management application that acts as the policy and charging rules function, or PCRF.The integration will enable better management of bandwidth, voice over IP, video and fair use policies.

“With virtualized PCRF, BroadHop can support any number of Allot PCEFs – from a centralized or distributed location,” said Dan Geiger, senior director of marketing for BroadHop. “That will enable superior cost of ownership and flexibility, as well as allow subscribers who are roaming to be supported uniformly across the network. For the first time, a service provider can provide a PCRF-based service across their entire network and not be bound to a point location.”

In fact, it is the advantage of not being “server bound” that promises to free operators of having to invest heavily in infrastructure when using PCRF policy servers for dynamic bandwidth management and control over VoIP, video and fair use policies.

In essence, BroadHop’s “fully virtualized” policy management application acts as the PCRF so that operators have application-centric rather than network-centric bandwidth management.

The application approach enables operators to more affordably offer tiered, personalized services and better enforce fair use policies, as well as adapt more readily to evolving subscriber and quality of service conditions mid-session (for example, in response to network congestion, changing subscriptions or depleting quotas).

By integrating the Allot Service Gateway with BroadHop’s Quantum Network Suite, the virtualized policy management application works according to the policy enforcement standards for mobile networks issued by 3GPP Release 9, the vendors said.