Network visibility and traffic monitoring technology vendor Gigamon has joined forces with comms tech giant Nokia to create what it says is an industry first, purpose-built 5G solution designed to enhance customer experience and maximise investment impact.
With some 92% of broadcasters expected to adopt 5G within the next two years, and the number of 5G connections expected to grow from roughly 10 million in 2019 to over 1 billion in 2023, the need to optimise performance is vital to delivering a compelling, scalable customer experience across the network.
The joint Gigamon and Nokia 5G solution will deliver real-time analytics for global customers, providing the network traffic visibility required by 5G providers for seamless performance.
Consistent Quality of Experience (QoE) scores in high-profile 5G use cases, such as video streaming and cloud gaming, are critical to ensuring the strong customer satisfaction needed to accelerate widespread adoption. Today, video accounts for more than 80 percent of traffic across mobile networks, and Nokia Bell Labs Consulting research forecasts the cloud gaming market to reach USD$3 billion by 2024. Gamers and movie lovers typically have limited tolerance for network delays and interruptions that degrade QoE, so maintaining continuous video quality is crucial.
Real-time analytics provide an end-to-end view on quality, with AI generating automated recommendations that help mobile service providers maintain the expected QoE. As an example, the Gigamon Visibility and Analytics Fabric is currently in place to enhance Nokia’s Predictive Video Analytics service, which can lead to a reduction in buffering in video streaming services by up to 60%.
Dennis Lorenzin, Head of Network Cognitive Service Unit at Nokia, said: “Gigamon’s subscriber-aware processing of 5G user plane traffic helps enhance our Nokia AVA AI as a Service. The ability to coherently filter, sample, balance and deliver the user sessions, coupled with video data records generation, when combined with Nokia machine-learning algorithms and domain expertise, enables mobile subscribers to enjoy the full benefits of the 5G experience.”
Added Shane Buckley, president and COO at Gigamon: “Next generation communications must deliver an unparalleled user experience and we are excited to partner with Nokia to deliver flawless 5G streaming and gaming quality. Our purpose-built product set delivers the cost-effective, scalable and pervasive network traffic visibility required to access the real-time, actionable insights into mobile over-the-top (OTT) video traffic needed to maintain a world-class user experience.”
