Zeugma Systems announced Monday the availability of SmartBoost, a new application for broadband service providers that enables them to allow subscribers to instantly increase their broadband speed. The company also announced Hill Country Telephone Cooperative as one of SmartBoost’s initial customers.
SmartBoost also extends this capability beyond the PC-based Web browser, bringing it directly to subscriber TVs and Web-enabled smartphones. SmartBoost extends bandwidth self-provisioning to digital video players from Roku and iPhones from Apple Inc., enabling bandwidth boosts by remote control or smartphone.
SmartBoost uses Zeugma Services Node’s (ZSN’s) Open Application Sandbox (OAS), an application support framework employing the ZSN’s compute grid, and traffic management capabilities. SmartBoost requires no integration with external systems; all required functionality is inherent to the ZSN. SmartBoost is also compatible with existing policy control and user authentication systems.
Traditional approaches require modification to myriad devices such as broadband remote access servers (BRAS), policy servers and access nodes, which complicates implementation, driving up both cost and time-to-market, Zeugma said in a press statement.
“Broadband operators have long considered enabling their subscribers to dynamically vary the bandwidth they consume, but found it difficult to implement this feature both technically and operationally,” said Matt Davis, program director of IDC’s Consumer Multiplay Services and Business Multiplay programs. “New technologies like the Zeugma solution take an innovative approach to an old problem and make it much easier to implement this type of service.”
SmartBoost works seamlessly over any broadband access network technology. It can be used in conjunction with Zeugma’s SmartVideo, which automatically allocates incremental bandwidth for certain streaming video services such as Netflix. The ZSN is able to simultaneously support other Zeugma OAS-based applications, including SmartMeter, SmartVOIP, and SmartMonitor, as well as third-party applications.
“SmartBoost will give us another tool to upsell our customers to higher bandwidth tiers and advanced services, such as those we currently offer with Zeugma’s SmartVideo application,” said Larry Pechacek, business development manager with Hill Country Telephone. “Equally important, from a technical ease-of-implementation standpoint, all we have to do is drop the app into our ZSN.”
