Bridgewater Systems - Open Access and Applications

Social networking. Instant messaging. Video. Internet banking. Today’s consumers and businesses want the Internet experience on their mobile devices. In a web 2.0 world, service providers are opening their networks to third-party devices and applications. This new openness creates both opportunities and challenges. Service providers can captivate subscribers by enhancing applications with real-time context such as the subscriber’s location, current role, roaming status, or the time of day. At the same time, openness creates new competitors, new business model options such as revenue-sharing and advertising, and complexities such as the need to authorize and track access to applications and content on a per-subscriber basis.

Bridgewater Systems' mobile personalization portfolio enables service providers to generate new revenue streams from third party devices and applications by leveraging real time subscriber information, making it easy to provision new services ‘over the air,’ and implementing policies that control application usage and protect the network.

The Challenge

The evolution towards open access and applications represents a fundamental transformation in the service provider business model. Options range from revenue-sharing models to advertising-supported approaches to building a premium content business and bundled service plans.

Service providers face several challenges in successfully transforming and providing subscribers with new services and applications including:

Extending control to subscribers by allowing them to “self-provision” network access, services and applications – and ensure that appropriate systems are in place to handle such activity.
Partnering with third-party content providers to provide access to the newest applications and selectively share subscriber information, while protecting subscriber privacy.
Recognizing new devices and subscribers and getting them on the network.
Managing a significant increase in device profiles and applications.
Authorizing and tracking access to applications and content on a per-subscriber basis.
Ensuring authentication, authorization and accounting systems can accommodate new revenue models.

Bridgewater Solution and Benefits

Our mobile personalization portfolio enables service providers to succeed in an open access and applications environment by making the most of their key strategic asset—dynamic subscriber information. Our solutions offer:

A dynamic view of the subscriber including preferences, location, presence, network, device, applications, service entitlements and usage.
Highly scalable, centralized subscriber data management that provides real-time views and management of all devices and users.
The ability to personalize and modify services based on real time context such as the person’s location, roaming status, or the time of day.
Over-the-air provisioning for subscribers and devices, eliminating the need for traditional provisioning that requires customer service intervention.
Support for “casual user” service models that generate revenues from prospective subscribers.
Authorization and tracking subscriber access to applications and content on a per-subscriber basis.
Support for multiple business models such as revenue-sharing, advertising, and extending control to subscribers.

The Bridgewater® Subscriber Data Broker™ enables a centralized view of subscriber information including service entitlements, subscriber preferences, real time context, usage, and billing profiles.

The Bridgewater® Policy Controller (PCRF) manages how and under which circumstances subscribers have access to applications and content at the appropriate quality of service. It also features session-level policy controls to manage network resources and ensure fair bandwidth usage.

The Bridgewater® Service Controller provides authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA); real-time session management to enable mobility, roaming, security, and usage tracking; pre-paid and post-paid charging functions; and support of multiple business models.

Benefits at a Glance

Service Providers	Subscribers
Enhanced third-party applications with real time context – location, current role, roaming status etc. – and create new revenue streams	Mobile applications that are customized to the individual’s real time context.
Improved subscriber retention with personalized third-party applications	Personalized mobile applications based on individual choices – seamless Internet experience
New revenue models – revenue sharing with third parties, advertising, premium content	Opportunity to receive new applications at a discount in exchange for advertising or personal data
Attract ‘free agent’ subscribers with casual user and day pass services	Ability to try new services on casual or daily basis