Hitachi Consulting brings network analytics platform to U.S. cable market

NEW ORLEANS -- After striking deals for its Hitachi Live Insight product with overseas operators like British Telecom, Hitachi says it is now targeting Tier 1 wireless and cable companies in the U.S. for its network analytics program.

Combining real-time analytics based on Continuous Query Language (CQL) with Big Data applications, Hitachi Consulting is offering the service as a custom-built tool that can be adapted to fit a wide variety of operator configurations. 

"We can deliver visualization results in under 10 milliseconds," Hitachi spokesman Kerry Sims told FierceCable here at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. "You can apply it to video quality of service, or any other traffic that's crossing your network. Especially as cable providers move to an all-IP world, we think this is going to be interesting and powerful for them."

The product has its roots on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where operators a decade ago sought a way to stay ahead of the machinations of high-frequency traders. "In order to do that, they needed a way to capture live trade information in real time and recalculate the market indices faster than the traders could in order to make sure they weren't being gamed by those traders," Sims said.

Hitachi has adapted the platform to fit such industries as transportation and mining. And last year, at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, the company introduced it to wireless carriers. 

"Not only are we looking at quality of service for people watching video on any number of devices, we're also able to help operators understand the behavior of customers, because we can see their web traffic, as well," Sims said. "We're able to help them respond to marketing and sales opportunities down to the individual customer level."

In adapting its analytics tool for the U.S. cable market, Hitachi is entering a competitive area that already includes incumbents like Splunk.

At last year's SCTE event, Hitachi Consulting rolled out a service tied to the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers' "Energy 2020" initiative, in which Hitachi would audit cable operators' plants for energy efficiency, sharing savings on recommended improvements. 

Hitachi is also in talks with the SCTE on ways to bring Hitachi Live Insights into the Energy 2020 initiative. 

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