RAD's DXC Helps star*home Provide Value-Added Services to Roaming Mobile Subscribers

In the fiercely competitive mobile communications market, the ability to provide enhanced value-added services plays an important role in generating new revenues and retaining market share. Not surprisingly, when mobile subscribers travel outside of their home networks, use of value-added services drops considerably. star*home, an affiliate of Comverse Technology, Inc., has built a global IP network and computing platform that enables mobile operators to provide traveling mobile subscribers with easy access to their home network enhanced services, as well as specially offered local services.

The key to offering value-added services to roaming or visiting subscribers is being able to identify who and where they are. star*home equipment tracks the location of subscribers by performing SS7 monitoring of the communication lines (E1/T1), connecting the mobile operator s Mobile Switching Center (MSC) to the international carrier. The SS7 information is transported to an SS7 Signaling Analyzer, which identifies the subscriber and retrieves full customer details. Once the subscriber is identified, star*home enables the operator to send a welcome message via SMS, informing the visiting subscriber of the value-added services available in his/her particular location.

Working with RAD distributor Bynet Data Communications, star*home has implemented a cost-effective, non-intrusive monitoring solution based on RAD's DXC-8R multiservice access node. A passive T-sampler monitors the traffic on each E1 line and copies this traffic via a unidirectional line to the DXC, which extracts the SS7 information (one timeslot per E1 channel) and grooms it over one output E1 line into the SS7 Signaling Analyzer. The DXC-8R supports monitoring and grooming of up to 31 E1 lines, reducing the number of required ports on the SS7 Signaling Analyzer.

“For us, the DXC-8R is an optimal solution, both from a technical and economic standpoint,” says Mr. Shany Elkarat, System Engineer at star*home. “The high capacity provided by the compact 1U high DXC-8R differentiates it from other products on the market and makes for a highly efficient solution. Equally important, it provides us with the scalability we need to support our expected future growth,” adds Elkarat. Six DXC-8R units have already been installed at star*home sites in several countries.

 

RAD's DXC product line supports a wide variety of monitoring applications for fixed line and mobile operators, as well as providing DS0 cross-connect capabilities for data and E1/T1/E3/T3/STM-1 lines.