SDN and NFV are undoubtedly the focus of the Oracle Communications Group’s energies this year, however they are still work in progress.
Arguably the bigger story is that Oracle Communications Group recorded a blockbuster first quarter (1 June-30 September 2014), due in no small part to the Tekelec and Acme Packet acquisitions it made in 2013.
Tekelec in particular plays a central role enabling the digital lifestyle for consumers and enterprises, and on Monday, Oracle announced the release of Oracle Communications Policy and Charging Analytics.
This is an analytics application that enables telcos to understand the impact of policies and charging on customer retention, marketing campaigns, and network usage.
Analytics is a pretty hot topic in its own right, but without a powerful policy engine enforcing the rules for traffic management or individual customer preferences, agility and flexibility of business processes and the delivery of personalized services would remain a pipe dream.
Policy and charging isn’t particular sexy, however as this represents full convergence of the network (policy) and IT (charging) domains, progress here is an early indicator of a telco’s ability to master a software driven world and monetize its network and customer data.
Clare McCarthy is the practice leader for Telco IT at Ovum. For more information visit www.ovum.com/