Mobile operators are continually faced with new challenges to ensure their customers receive a high-quality experience on their mobile devices. One of these growing challenges is that of HTTPS encrypted traffic and the toll it takes on the mobile network infrastructure. Vasona Networks today announced additional functionality within the SmartAir and SmartVision solutions suite to address these challenges.
According to the Automatic Terminal Information Service, almost 25% of all traffic on mobile networks today is encrypted, and operators require additional tools to be able to properly manage that traffic. The ability to assess the characteristics of encrypted content from various application types is key. This traffic might consist of streaming media, social media, e-mail and file transfers that all could have differences as to the correct level of performance and prioritization with their networks. As the amount of encrypted traffic increases, it becomes more difficult to support these requirements without being able to distinguish between different types of traffic for bandwidth management purposes.
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Today’s announcement adds two new tools to the portfolio. The first is SmartConnect, a new feature that enables the sharing of real-time data collected about mobile traffic with third-party systems. Third-party analytics and/or policy systems will be able to gain information about the quality of experience and cell performance through API-based communication. This will aid in network management and planning, along with help defining potential marketing programs and resolution of customer support issues.
The second part of the announcement is the SmartVision daily dashboard ,which allows mobile operators to share reporting and analysis of performance levels and trends across specific applications and cells within the pertinent organizations. 
The SmartVision daily dashboard will be made available to all existing deployments and SmartConect will be provided as an additional feature customers can select to activate.
There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about encrypted traffic as more and more users become aware of options to ensure their data stays private. The reality is that it makes it much more complicated for mobile operators to provide differentiation of the transport provided by their networks and opens up opportunities for over-the-top players to take advantage of this situation. Tools that help the operators better understand the type of traffic moving along their network, while protecting privacy, helps them stay on top of the challenge of OTT traffic traversing their network and potentially create new service offers and partnerships as a result.
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Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career in telecom, IT and security. Having experience as an operator, software and hardware vendor and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
