Cisco announced plans to acquire BroadHop, a start-up providing policy control and service management technology for carrier networks. Financial terms were not disclosed.
BroadHop, which is based in Denver, Colorado, specializes in application-centric policy technology. Its Quantum Network Suite is an open policy-application platform based on PCRF architecture that can be used for network-centric bandwidth management, such as fair use and bandwidth throttling, and application-centric interactive services, such as policy-to-the-handset and real-time mobile congestion management. This enables Service Providers to control, monetize and personalize network and application services. The company says its solution has been deployed by more than 90 telecom service providers serving more than 500 million subscribers in 40 countries.
BroadHop has been a key service provider Wi-Fi partner for Cisco.
Cisco said BroadHop's policy control solutions for mobile and fixed networks will be integrated into Cisco’s Service Provider Mobility Group to provide service providers the flexibility to control, monetize and personalize the types of service they choose, on any network.
- In April, BroadHop confirmed that a Tier 1 US operator is leveraging Quantum Network Suite for Wi-Fi offload. Quantum Network Suite is enabling this operator with portal-based authentication and redirection of Wi-Fi enabled smart phones and devices.
- BroadHop was founded in 2003.
- In 2010, BroadHop introduced its open policy management and control platform designed for intelligent broadband services and mobile data and application delivery. The company's Quantum Network Suite leverages a virtualized rules engine that enables network-aware mobile data services on an individual basis. Using 3GPP PCRF standards, the policy engine detects and adjusts for mobile core congestion in real time, maximizing session capacity and user quality of experience. Key capabilities include a subscriber balance manager, charging and policy enforcement.
- BroadHop said its Quantum Network suite enables service providers and solution integrators to use industry standard tools and technologies to create new policy blueprints -- and enable dynamic linking of their proprietary applications to the Quantum Network policy platform.
- Using the platform, service providers could share real time network status information with individual subscribers, such as smartphone users, informing them of periods when light network loads with lower downloading costs. By seeing their service and network status at a glance, subscribers will be better able to manage their data usage.
