Genband is making an aggressive play in mobile via the introduction of its Simply Mobile framework that combines cloud, over-the-top (OTT) and HetNet functionality with a developer platform.
The legacy, hardware-focused, fixed-line vendor garnered significant notice in the wireless arena last fall when it acquired fring's OTT mobile IP communications service. Genband is also drumming up interest in its Kandy product, which will officially launch in mid-September. The platform-as-a-service (PaaS) allows service providers to expose their network resources using APIs, SDKs and quick starts.
Genband is moving to become software-centric and expand its reach to "all types of carrier business," including mobile operators, MVNOs, cable MSOs and enterprises, said Brad Bush, CMO. The company wants to help its customers "become more agile in a mobile-first world," he added.
One of the Simply Mobile components is Session Grid, an existing product that has been expanded to offer an end-to-end mobile communications framework to enable mobile session management and intelligence for bringing together different networks, devices and applications. Session Grid leverages Genband assets "that enable seamless interworking of the signaling and control plane and the media plane," Sanjay Bhatia, Genband senior director of strategic marketing, told FierceWirelessTech.
Other elements in the Simply Mobile offering include the company's PaaS, which leverages Genband APIs and services for real-time embedding from the cloud; cloud-based mobile OTT solutions; intelligent mobile video messaging; and network-densifications solutions that leverage Wi-Fi and small cells for mobile data offloading.
Regarding HetNets, Genband also announced a wireless access gateway, which the company said is a single, multi-application platform that builds on the existing Genband small cell security gateway. The gateway adds enhanced packet data gateway (ePDG ) functionality for public Wi-Fi access and S2a mobility over GTP gateway (SaMOG ) functionality for carrier Wi-Fi access.
Natasha Tamaskar, vice president, Genband global solutions strategy, said the gateway can connect to small cells and Wi-Fi hotspots. The solution facilitates offloading and roaming between cellular and Wi-Fi networks as well as roaming across multiple Wi-Fi networks.
"For example, if a cable operator wants to provide Wi-Fi as a service because they can now aggregate a lot of smaller Wi-Fi hotspots--not just their own hotspots but other people's hotspots--they can use that as a solution to be able to provide authentication services and offload the traffic directly to the Internet," Tamaskar said.
For more:
- see this Genband release and this release
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