Ever since reality shows made it to the top, in the world of entertainment, the telecom industry is in an upward swing. Whether it is ‘Big Brother’ in the U.K., ‘American Idol’ in the U.S., or the ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ show in India, these game shows are quite popular with the masses - thanks to the opportunity it gives to the audience to help their favorite stars win. However the challenges the telecom industry had to face initially with this new trend in the entertainment industry were manifold.

Managing the huge traffic of SMS in the network on these occasions without choking the network and channelizing the data efficiently and effectively are big challenges. However these challenges are modest in comparison to managing data traffic of mobile subscribers accessing high bandwidth applications such as YouTube, or services that require low latency such as push-to-talk over the mobile.

When mobile operators like China Unicom, KDDI, and Verizon faced this challenge they turned to Starent Networks to provide key elements of their multimedia core network. Starent Networks is a U.S. based company that runs a large part of its development from India. The company offers technology that provides the functions and services required for the delivery of advanced multimedia services through the mobile operators’ packet core network. “Our products act as a gateway which connects the radio access network to the Packet Data Network to enable wireless subscribers to access the Internet to download music, video content, and get access to other multimedia services,” explains Sundar Ramaswamy, Director of Engineering, Bangalore Development Center.

As mobile operators deploy a greater variety of multimedia services, they are looking to implement more control over each session so that they can enhance the subscriber experience while maximizing network efficiency. An intelligent network provides mobile operators with the ability to inspect data packets from individual transactions in great detail. This deep packet inspection allows the mobile operator to shape each subscriber session using quality of service, bandwidth allocation, and traffic flow control.

The company designs and develops its next generation intelligent mobile infrastructure for a variety of radio access networks including 2G, 2.5G, 3G, Mobile WiMAX, and WiFi. The solutions of Starent are capable of supporting multiple modes of access, such as CDMA and Mobile WiMAX, in a single platform. This capability allows the mobile operators to deliver a uniform service experience to subscribers from a single platform, simplifying the network and limiting operator costs. Further, the company has designed its solutions for use in today’s mobile networks, while also keeping them readily upgradeable to respond to the evolving mobile operator environments or requirements, such as IMS or MMD.