Bridgewater Systems Announces Interoperability With Best-of-Breed Deep Packet Inspection Partners.

CHICAGO -- Pre-Integration With Bridgewater's Dynamic Broadband Manager Software Enables Multi-Vendor Enforcement of Policy-Based, Per-Subscriber Bandwidth Management 

Bridgewater Systems, a leading developer of subscriber-centric policy management software for IP-based services, today announced that it has successfully completed interoperability testing of its Dynamic Broadband Manager policy management solution with Deep Packet Inspection Partners. End-to-end interoperability testing included deep packet inspection (DPI), traffic management and policy enforcement products from industry leaders Allot Communications, Ellacoya Networks and Sandvine Incorporated.

DSL, cable, 3G wireless and other service providers are now assured of seamless interoperability among these industry-leading providers of best-of-breed solutions engineered to dynamically control and provision broadband IP services in real-time as subscribers access them.

These solutions integrate the two key components of policy-based resource management, defined by the DSL Forum as policy decision, enforcement and server function. In the CableLabs PacketCable(TM) MultiMedia (PCMM) specification, Bridgewater's Dynamic Broadband Manager product provides the policy decision functionality. The Allot NetEnforcer, Ellacoya IP Service Control System, and Sandvine PTS 8210 Policy Traffic Switch all employ DPI technologies to provide policy enforcement.

Policy-based broadband resource management empowers service providers to:

--Offer service levels with tiered quality of service (QoS) guarantees

--Control usage and quality by limiting bandwidth allocated to peer-to-peer and other bandwidth intensive or rogue applications

--Provide highly scalable bandwidth-on-demand to support short-term, impulse, or trial usage of premium service resources

--Offer metered services, set monthly bandwidth quotas, enforce thresholds or facilitate service tier upgrades on demand

"The integrated Bridgewater/Allot solution has enjoyed very positive acceptance and traction in both the carrier and cable markets," said Greg Hutterer, carrier sales director for Allot Communications. "Forward-thinking providers all recognize that they need both technologies, and offering a tightly integrated joint solution delivers valuable benefits to everyone involved."

"Broadband providers are uniformly moving beyond basic Internet access services to delivering differentiated service plans to their entire subscriber bases," said Ben Legault, vice president of marketing at Ellacoya Networks. "We are pleased to bring our customers a pre-integrated and pre-tested Ellacoya/Bridgewater solution that enables them to quickly scale their service offerings to millions of subscribers."

"Broadband service providers are growing their networks and looking to offer their subscribers high-value IP services," said Tom Donnelly, executive vice president, marketing and sales, Sandvine Incorporated. "Sandvine and Bridgewater's integrated, carrier-class solution allows broadband service providers to seamlessly offer differentiated services and ensure subscriber quality of experience."

Bridgewater's Dynamic Broadband Manager is a comprehensive policy system that gives broadband IP service providers the ability to manage network policies on a per-subscriber, per-session basis. Based on these policies and application-specific QoS requirements, it dynamically executes policy management through direct interfaces with multi-vendor network elements, including DPI, Broadband Remote Access Servers (BRAS), Packet Shapers, Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches, Residential Gateways, Edge Routers, Packet Data Service Nodes (PDSNs) and other access network elements.

The Deep Packet Inspection products examine IP packets at a far greater depth than standard IP routers and switches. This enables them to provide granular intelligence about per-subscriber application usage. This added intelligence is a key component to the joint Bridgewater Dynamic Broadband Manager and DPI solution. For example, if a subscriber has exceeded their monthly bandwidth usage quota, a policy might automatically redirect the subscriber to a service provider portal offering an on-demand or permanent upgrade to a higher bandwidth tier.

"The combination of our Dynamic Broadband Manager solution software and "best of breed" deep packet inspection technology provides a powerful end-to-end policy management solution," said Tyler Nelson, vice-president of business development and marketing for Bridgewater Systems. "Together with our partners, we are working with leading service providers around the world to enable them to add highly scalable bandwidth-on-demand and metered usage features to solution portfolios. We look forward to offering our customers pre-integrated, easily deployable joint solutions that meet this market need."

About Allot Communications

Allot's high-performance traffic management solutions are deployed by some of the world's largest service providers, enterprises and universities to improve application performance, control bandwidth costs and optimize network efficiency. In enterprise networks, Allot's highly scalable solutions help network managers ensure quality of service (QoS) by linking business policies to specific network actions that improve user productivity and contain networking costs. In service provider networks, Allot's QoS and service level agreement (SLA) enforcement capabilities maximize return on investment by managing over-subscription, throttling P2P traffic and delivering tiered rate plans along with a host of innovative service capabilities. For more information visit www.allot.com.

About Ellacoya Networks

Ellacoya Networks is a leading provider of intelligent bandwidth management solutions that give broadband service providers full service control functionality for their networks. Its IP Service Control System identifies subscribers, classifies and controls applications on a per-subscriber basis, improves performance and customer satisfaction, and delivers revenue-generating IP services. It is the only company that provides the granular network visibility and tools necessary to enable more compelling applications and competitive service offerings. Ellacoya Networks is privately held and headquartered in Merrimack, New Hampshire. For more information contact us at +1 603.577.5544 or visit us at www.ellacoya.com.

About Sandvine

Sandvine's award-winning intelligent broadband network equipment helps broadband service providers characterize what really happens on their networks, enabling policies that improve customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs and improve profitability. Sandvine's application and subscriber-aware solutions empower service providers to take control of P2P traffic, stop the proliferation of destructive worm, DoS and spam trojan traffic and ensure subscriber quality of experience (QoE). With over 100 deployments worldwide, Sandvine's subscriber-friendly solutions are protecting the Internet experience for more than 20 million broadband subscribers worldwide. To find out more, visit Sandvine online at www.sandvine.com.

About Bridgewater Systems

Bridgewater Systems develops the industry's most advanced subscriber-centric policy management software for IP-based services. Its solutions help global service providers maximize profits and launch new services faster. Bridgewater does this by providing them with a unified view of their subscribers across all access technologies. With Bridgewater's software, service providers have an intelligent policy-decision point for the management of subscribers, applications, and network resources. The Bridgewater Systems' product suite delivers high performance policy management via its market-leading authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) systems. It also offers a range of modular products for application support, mediation, and dynamic broadband management. Bridgewater Systems' proven carrier-class products deliver on-demand data services, extensive revenue capture capabilities, and out-of-the-box value that can be deployed in weeks - instead of months.

More than 40 leading service providers from around the globe (including: Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS, Bell Mobility, Virgin Mobile USA), trust Bridgewater's technology and business insight to help them deliver world-class services. Founded in 1997, Bridgewater Systems is a privately held company. www.bridgewatersystems.com.

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