Bridgewater Systems
 | |
| Public | |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Fate | Acquired by Amdocs |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Defunct | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
• Ed Ogonek, Vice President, Data Experience BU • Kim Butler, Vice President BU Operations • Sir Terence Matthews, Chairman |
| Revenue | approx. $93.4 million (FY2010) |
Number of employees | 300+(2011) |
| Website | www.bridgewatersystems.com |
Bridgewater Systems was a Canadian software company providing pre-integrated solutions for mobile and converged operators. The Company’s portfolio (subscriber data management, policy control, service control) provides a real-time, unified view of the subscriber including service entitlements, devices and networks being used, billing profiles, and preferences based on location or time of day. As of August 17, 2011, final documentation has been filed and the acquisition by Amdocs is complete.[1]
Historical
- 1997: Bridgewater was founded by two veterans of Newbridge Networks: Doug Somers and Russ Freen.
- 2004 to 2007: Bridgewater's revenues grew from $13.7 million to $39 million.
- 2007: Bridgewater made an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the stock symbol BWC.
- 2008: Bridgewater expanded its long-time relationship with Verizon Wireless by signing a three-year contract which included an initial order valued at $30 million.
- 2010: The April 2010 Infonetics Research report "Policy Servers Biannual Worldwide and Regional Market Size, Share, and Forecasts" ranks Bridgewater as #1 in the 2009 policy market[2]
- 2011: In June Bridgewater's board unanimously approved a takeover bid from Amdocs valuing the company at $215 million, the deal should be completed by mid-September 2011.[3]
Product lines
Bridgewater’s Subscriber Data Broker is a vendor-neutral product that enables service providers to deliver personalized services and applications to subscribers. It brings together dynamic subscriber data with built-in tools to provide data securely to third-party application providers to capitalize on new business models and revenue sources, such as mobile advertising.
The Bridgewater Service Controller is a network access control product that allows service providers to offer and control access to advanced and differentiated services across all network access technologies. It provides core control services, including authentication, authorization and account (AAA protocol), in 2G, 3G, 4G, wireline networks and deployments such as data offload and multi-access networks.
The Bridgewater Policy Controller provides real-time network, application, and subscriber policies that allow service providers to manage mobile data growth and deliver personalized services. Network policies are performed by the Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) in the Policy Controller. These policies enable service providers to manage mobile data traffic by applying real-time bandwidth controls that adapt to changing network conditions and subscriber context.
Bridgewater’s myPolicy solution is an application built for smartphones to allow the end user direct control over data usage. In recent years, many mobile subscribers have incurred abnormally high fees and rates through their cell phone plans, largely due to roaming – a phenomenon dubbed bill shock. The myPolicy application allows end users to set limits and receive notifications on data usage to improve transparency and eliminate bill shock.
The Bridgewater Home Subscriber Server (HSS) is a master repository that contains subscriber and device information, and manages subscriber identities, service profiles, authentication, authorization, and quality of service for LTE and IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) networks. It is a key control plane function in the LTE Evolved Packet Core.
Industry action
Bill Shock
In recent years, mobile service providers and regulators have received several complaints from consumers faced with mobile bill shock – the unpleasant and angry reaction of subscribers to unexpectedly high mobile data bills incurred, mostly while roaming. Furthermore, when the European Union (EU) introduced legislation on March 1, 2010 (phase 1) and July 1, 2010 (phase 2) requiring operators to introduce cost caps and notifications of data limits to users, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) called for industry feedback to consider technical options for its own bill shock issues. In preparation, Bridgewater authored a whitepaper on the subject and submitted an official response[4] to the FCC on June 25, 2010.
Subscriber Data Management (SDM)
A steady trend in the telecommunications industry is the increasing focus on customer relationship management (CRM) due to challenges with customer churn.[5] One technique for service providers to improve CRM is by personalizing services using subscriber profile, usage and location information. One of Bridgewater’s contributions to improving CRM is the ability to capture real-time, highly detailed subscriber data and use that data to personalize services.[6]
References
- ↑ http://www.bridgewatersystems.com/2011-News-Releases.aspx?newsid=439
- ↑ http://www.infonetics.com/newsletters/Next-Gen-OSS-Policy-032510.html
- ↑ Amdocs to Acquire Bridgewater systems, Globes, 19 June 2011
- ↑ http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020513440
- ↑ http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/01/29/3237095.htm
- ↑ http://connectedplanetonline.com/bss_oss/news/subscriber-data-management-unlocks-hidden-assets-0416/