Openwave® Smart Policy

Better devices, faster networks, flat-rate data plans and richer content are fueling consumers’ appetites for mobile data services. This pattern of consumption is predicted to increase exponentially as more advanced devices come to market. Mobile bandwidth is not infinite, so as demand grows, charging the same flat rate to all mobile data subscribers regardless of their data usage is not a sustainable business model.

Mobile service providers must become more creative in how they define data service plans that appeal to the subscriber while covering their rising network costs. To do so, they must know more about what is happening on their network – they must have “total contextual awareness.”

Smart Policy anchors Openwave’s approach to Traffic Mediation with a solution that enacts new policies in real time, based on time of day traffic patterns, special events, user profiles.

Openwave Smart Policy combines an IP mediation framework residing directly in the data path; a context -aware policy engine that aggregates and analyzes session data relating to each user’s activity; operational analytics to influence policy decisions in real-time; inline charging and notification services to bill the user for service when appropriate.

Service Provider Benefits

Openwave Smart Policy is a comprehensive solution for application-specific policy management, allowing the service provider to apply a set of policy rules in real time based on any or a combination of these factors in a user-friendly manner.

• IP Framework sits in the data path monitoring all traffic while enforcing appropriate policy rules in real time.
• Policy Manager aggregates IP data into session data relating to each subscriber’s activity, over potentially multiple access networks.
• Integrated Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR) chooses the appropriate policy rules to apply based on total context (this feature is optional).
• Operational Analytics guides policy changes in real time.
• Inline Charging and Notification helps operators notify subscribers nearing volume limits, offer them extensions or upgrades, and bill them in real time when appropriate.

Subscriber Benefits

Tailored service plans match specific subscriber needs based on online behavioral profiles. For example:

• “The Movie Buff” is provided with a plan with incentives to download larger volumes of data when the network is likely to be less congested.
• “The Mobile Breadwinner” can go online at any time while traveling abroad without worrying about costly roaming fees.
• “The Talk of the Town” is provided with high-speed access to their favorite social networking sites and offered premium messaging services.