Traffic management has long been an issue to which the Wireless ISP (WISP) community has paid close attention. The best-designed, high-speed network in the world is still dependent on the last leg of the trip, which in the wireless case includes the access links and the air we all share. These are precious resources by any measure, or from any plane of reference, with finite spectrum capacities that must be applied and shared to the mutual satisfaction of all served. Subscribers have choices these days and they require service levels that reflect that. The toll for an unpredictable service is customers and once they stray they rarely, if ever, return.

These are tall orders for certain. To date, wireless network designers and managers have balanced the competing forces in the network with great skill. But even the experienced are being challenged to their utmost limits today. With an ever-increasing number of applications and devices being added to the network at breakneck pace, each with different performance profiles, it is difficult—if not impossible—to keep up with the impact of each permutation.

At Procera, gathering the data required to properly manage and measure the complex environment that is today’s WISP network is our passion. Through the bedrock technology of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), we surface the smallest details of each traffic flow in the network. By doing so, we enable and simplify the application of policies, designed to ensure optimal operation of the network across the many dimensions that may influence it.

But optimization is only part of the story. Increasingly, our WISP customers come to us with complex use cases that require service creation and enable the predictable application of network resources to those service offerings. These services need to take into account the dimensions of quotas, groups for family plans, users, applications, locations and devices to name few. Research now shows that the ability to personalize service plans as desired creates loyalty and therefore limits subscriber churn. Investments in service creation present compelling payback horizons by traditional comparisons, sometimes as quickly as a few weeks or months.

As one WISP who recently deployed Procera related, “It was really hard to see what our next steps were going to be in terms of network design, but now we have the data from Procera’s equipment. It shows us what we need to pay attention to and potentially adjust. The really powerful thing is that it encompasses the entire network and not just single elements as some of the disparate, vendor-specific element managers do. This adds tremendous value for both our customers and our business. We can now create services that have their foundation in fact and not speculation which will ensure we get it right.”

To learn more about Procera and our solutions for WISPs, stop by booth # 153  at WISPAPALOOZA 2012 in Las Vegas.