Comptel Enters Strategic Partnership with Hitachi

With the rapid uptick in mobile device use, continued data traffic growth and demand for innovative, high quality infotainment services, communications service providers (CSPs) need to build flexible network operations platforms that can help them keep up with changing customer preferences. At the same time, CSPs, supported by these platforms, must be able to scale network capacity up and down based on need and, hence, better manage costs incurred for running the services.

Packet Core is vital to CSPs in the data-centric world…and even more so is Evolved Packet Core (EPC), the 3GPP-specified architecture system that manages data connections in LTE networks (Wikipedia). Part of EPC, Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) is a central system used to manage policy definitions within the network for users, services and devices.

Some time ago, these ‘rules’ were defined simply for managing bandwidth. They granted only certain bandwidth to a user’s session (say during web browsing or video streaming). The industry has since transitioned to develop more business-centric models, but CSPs need to continue to evaluate how to monetise all that data. Analysing that information is crucial for building more personalised experiences that win hearts, minds and wallets.

This is why Comptel and Hitachi have entered into a reselling partnership, as recently stated via a stock exchange press release. The companies will work together to help CSPs across the globe, with an initial focus on the Japanese and US markets, to help businesses adapt to increasingly competitive market dynamics.

CSPs around the world can now access Hitachi’s vEPC with a PCRF system that can help them create personalised offerings and ensure fast time-to-market. Meanwhile, CSPs can better manage their network resources and service quality—supporting a high customer experience and aiming to drive efficiency and operational flexibility improvements.

We are excited about this new collaboration, as it demonstrates the strength of our policy control and charging technology, as well as our domain expertise, and marks a possibility to enter into a new market, namely Japan. Comptel is pleased to be a part of accelerating Hitachi’s traffic management solution and vEPC offering, and we look forward to building a long, successful relationship with the company.