Profitability Tools for ISPs

Bridgewater Systems's WideSpan solutions are designed to help ISPs detect and eject freeloaders from their networks, lowering network costs and customer support costs.

by Wayne Kawamoto

Bridgewater Systems recently introduced a set of product and service capabilities that enhance its WideSpan access control solution. The new offerings are aimed at helping consumer- and business-focused ISPs recapture lost revenue, reduce network over-provisioning, and control their network and customer support costs. Bridgewater also claims that its software can optimize network capacity.

According to the company, the software's real-time session control capabilities let service providers detect and eject fraudulent and invalid users from their network. Bridgewater says that these users can take up to 10% or more of an ISP's network capacity—representing up to a 10% loss of revenue. By eliminating this, ISPs may be able to reduce port costs and convert overhead capacity into paying subscribers. "Bridgewater's profitability tools help ISPs identify invalid network users, which may be taking up 10% or more of their capacity," says Dave Curley, vice president, sales and marketing for Bridgewater Systems. "By ejecting them from the network, ISPs can ultimately improve their bottom line by reducing port costs and converting overhead capacity to paying subscribers."

"The ability to optimize network provisioning by uncovering invalid users and controlling rising customer support costs will be invaluable to the success of service providers that want to survive in a highly competitive environment," says Greg Howard, principal analyst, HTRC Group.

Pricing and availability
WideSpan starts at $250,000 and is available now.

Bridgewater Systems offers a free and confidential one-day auditing service to determine the extent that fraudulent users may be accessing a service providers' network resources.

In addition, Bridgewater's trade-in policy offers ISPs credit towards licensing WingSpan, when they trade-in their existing authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) software.

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