Packet inspection and subscriber experience vendor unveils a customer services scorecard that's all about quality of experience rather than connection speeds.
June 8, 2015
CHICAGO -- Procera is the latest network intelligence company to show that raw data collected from a network can, if accurate and processed in a way that makes sense, provide illuminating insights that could impact strategic decisions and business outcomes.
The company is best known historically for its packet inspection technology, but for several years it has been focused on developing applications that make use of the data gleaned from DPI platforms, with a particular emphasis on subscriber experience.
Now it has developed ScoreCard, a product that sorts and analyzes data and presents the results in terms of subscriber experience scores. "There is an appetite for scorecards -- Netflix has shown that with its ISP Speed Index. But that only looks at raw broadband speeds -- it doesn't tell you anything about whether users are happy with the service or getting a good experience," says Procera Networks 's senior director of subscriber experience marketing Thomas Vasen, who is in Chicago to show off ScoreCard at this week's Big Telecom Event (June 9-10, Chicago).
The telecom sector is too focused on speeds and volumes (buckets of data) whereas "subscribers think in terms of applications and whether they are working well. All apps have different requirements" and are impacted by different parameters," notes Vasen.
ScoreCard has been developed to measure quality over any type of broadband access network (mobile, fixed, cable) using a matrix developed by Procera that splits applications into seven categories -- web surfing, streaming video, social media, real-time gaming, uploads, downloads and voice applications -- that have the same or similar metrics and then grades the experience from A to F.
In a nutshell, the tool, which was demonstrated to Light Reading, can show what level of experience users are getting from certain types of applications, with the interface able to show the experience scores on a per user basis in real-time.
What is notable is that a subscriber may be experiencing very good video streaming, for example, while experiencing poor social media interactions across the same connection.
"The point is, getting 20 Mbit/s from one service provider is not equivalent to getting the same broadband speed from another," notes the Procera man.
Want to know more about customer experience metrics and business insights? This will be just one of the many topics covered at Light Reading's second Big Telecom Event on June 9-10 in Chicago. Get yourself registered today or get left behind!
The company envisages operators using ScoreCard to measure user experience and make appropriate decisions about critical processes such as upgrades, investments, maintenance and marketing. Procera is currently building a "playbook" that will help operators to understand what might be causing certain types of applications to be negatively impacted in terms of user experience and so be able to make an appropriate decision.
The vendor, which is currently in the process of being acquired by Francisco Partners Management for $240 million, is hoping that ScoreCard, and other subscriber experience developments that are enabling the company to extract useful information from networks, will help maintain its current business momentum. (See Procera Agrees to $240M Sale to PE Firm, Mobile Subscriber Experience and Procera Claims NFV Performance First.)
The company reported a 41% year-on-year increase in revenues to $20.5 million for the first quarter of 2015 and signed 13 new service provider customers, of which seven were Tier 1 operators. Revenues for the whole of this year are set to increase by about 15% compared with 2014. The vendor says it has 600 customers in total and generates about 40% of its revenues from mobile operators and about 30% from cable.
— Ray Le Maistre, 
, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading
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