Bridgewater Systems will begin testing its solutions with several leading WiMAX infrastructure and mobile device vendors in order to offer service providers with a fully tested, end-to-end 802.16e solution.

With Bridgewater Systems' subscriber-centric policy management solution deployed by more than 50 telecom service providers, including Bell Mobility, Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless, the company brings its expertise as an established leader in policy management to WiMAX service providers. Through its involvement in the WiMAX Forum, the company is actively developing 802.16e standards, particularly those related to policy-management issues. These solutions address network access, including user and device authentication; mobility access, where users are allowed to roam and use mobile IP; managing quality of service (QoS) flows in the network based on policies; and monetization support, including correlating and aggregating of accounting records, and post-paid support.

"Bridgewater Systems has nearly a decade of experience providing carrier-class solutions to cellular operators, so serving mobile WiMAX providers is a natural next step for us," said Russ Freen, chief technology officer, Bridgewater Systems. "Mobility isn't for amateurs. It's a highly complex ecosystem and service providers need to create efficient and standardized network-control architectures and service delivery mechanisms. That's the value that Bridgewater Systems brings to the emerging mobile WiMAX market."

Bridgewater's portfolio of mobile WiMAX solutions offers powerful and proven carrier-class authentication processes, which are critical in WiMAX because the standards allow for flexibility in the authentication requirements of networks. It supports the extensible authentication protocol (EAP), which WiMAX standards require for user and device authentication. Bridgewater Systems has been actively involved in defining these standards through its membership in the WiMAX Forum.

Additionally, the mobile WiMAX solution is compatible with multiple other technologies, enabling cable, cellular and wireline operators to add WiMAX to their service bundles.

Bridgewater Systems' technology presents service providers a unified view of their subscribers and creates a single policy-decision point in the network. It advocates managing subscriber and policy information as close to a subscriber network access point as possible and creates a more efficient and better standard for network-control architecture and service delivery. Using a subscriber-centric approach to policy management offers several benefits. Subscribers have greater control over their network and service experiences through personalized content and customer portals. Service providers can quickly create new application packages and offer expanded services, and easily enter new market segments. And, service providers can significantly drive down the cost of network administration by allowing subscribers to manage their experience on their own, with self care options.

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.
 

Source: XTV World