Tariff Consultancy Ltd has predicted a 60% pricing plunge for LTE by the end of 2016. This means that from today to 2016, mobile network operators will have five years to ensure that their mobile data profitability doesn’t plunge by 60%, too. Fortunately, time is on their side – Smart Capacity^TM solutions for traffic management and content optimization are available today, helping operators turn escalating volumes of mobile data traffic into profitable revenue growth. Here is one notable example - Vodafone 2011 Half-Year Results.

-Anna Yong

Bookmark to:

Until now, Netflix has primarily been a North American phenomenon. Next year, the service will expand into a host of other regions, including Europe and Latin America. However, you won’t find Netflix in New Zealand, due to “the country's low internet data caps and problems obtaining content.”

Although the current issues are online video traffic over fixed networks and content rights, New Zealand’s mobile networks – or any other mobile operators’ networks – are encountering the same capacity problems, perhaps even more acutely. Capacity constraints for Netflix and other multimedia services can be alleviated with video optimization technology. The solution is Smart Capacity for Video.

-Anna Yong

Bookmark to:

Bytemobile’s Mobile Minute Metrics reports over the last five quarters show that video became the dominant form of mobile data traffic in 2010 – accounting for an average of 40% of the total volume in wireless networks worldwide. With the rise of full-length and studio-quality videos and live streaming of multimedia content on mobile devices – as well as the emergence of personal two-way video communications, or “video chat” – Bytemobile expects mobile data traffic to spike to an all-time high in 2011, causing tremendous capacity strain on already challenged network resources.

Bytemobile anticipates the following developments in the coming year:

• Video-based content will account for over 60% of network traffic – up from 40% in 2010 – and two-way video chat will dominate network capacity
• 10% of subscribers will generate 90% of total network traffic
• Pressure on capacity will continue to increase with LTE and other 4G network roll-outs, due to subscriber consumption of all available bandwidth

The growth of video traffic is rapidly outpacing that of overall data traffic. Unless operators are able to intelligently manage network capacity through data reduction and related technologies, the explosion of multimedia content will continue to erode their monetization of data services.

Last month, The New York Times reported that people watched 60 billion videos on YouTube each month — or 730 billion videos throughout the year. The average Internet user watched 186 videos each month. The same week that the article appeared, YouTube announced that 200 million videos per day are being played on mobile devices – up 300% from January 2010.

Video stalling due to network congestion is becoming a non-stop condition, eliminating the concept of the “busy hour” and severely impacting customer satisfaction and churn.

Source: Bytemobile Mobile Minute Metrics

A small increase in video resolution results in a significant increase in data traffic.

Increased demand on capacity requires greater control of networks and the ability to measure the quality of subscribers’ mobile video experience. Operators need to monitor data rates, resolution and stalling in order to ensure service quality and consistency, reduce churn, and plan tiered services for different subscriber profiles. Operators will continue to implement various data offload and small cell technologies to meet escalating demand. They will also deploy “Smart Capacity” solutions in their networks to better utilize existing capacity and increase customer satisfaction.

Download Volumes Reduced by 40-60%
Smart Capacity at the core of networks enables operators to control and reduce the total amount of multimedia traffic on the network, thereby improving the user experience during periods of congestion and increasing network efficiencies. By dynamically controlling network capacity utilization, operators can deliver the best possible user experience under network conditions and congestion patterns at any point in time.

Live customer deployments have shown that Smart Capacity solutions can reduce network download volumes by 40-60% – decreasing the cost of content delivery while improving the overall economics of mobile video and other data services offered by operators. A Smart Capacity platform is designed to help operators reduce network costs – capex and opex – by improving utilization of existing network capacity. It is also designed to help them increase revenue by serving more content to more subscribers and delivering a better user experience to reduce churn. Yield management and content policy enforcement capabilities enable operators to plan and implement tiered service plans for monetizing traffic by subscriber usage.

Smart Capacity at the Core of 3G and 4G Networks
Even with the migration from 3G to 4G networks – or RAN and backhaul upgrades to 3G networks – demand on capacity for multimedia traffic will continue to increase. Taking advantage of new content, applications and devices, subscribers will consume all available bandwidth and still expect the same quality of service that came with their original service plans – if not better. One U.S. operator is currently processing an average of 7GB per subscriber per month. Another operator in the Scandinavian countries is moving 17GB per subscriber per month. This trend will continue as live streaming video broadcasts and video on-demand go mainstream.

Smart Capacity has the potential to change the operational paradigm for mobile networks as traffic volumes continue to accelerate. Carriers will be able to deliver the highest-quality video and web content now and keep pace with exponential increases in demand – driven by progressively richer and more complex applications, as well as rapidly growing consumer adoption. This will help operators not only maximize the return on their infrastructure investment, but also capitalize on revenue opportunities that require delivery of the most sophisticated content with a leading-edge user experience. In the not so distant future, terabyte will become part of people’s everyday vocabulary – and yottabyte a standard metric for baseline network capacity.

-Ronny Haraldsvik
 

Bookmark to:

Bytemobile was featured in Mobile Europe yesterday. With the largest distribution of any wireless magazine in Europe, Mobile Europe is the leading publication for the European mobile industry. The article includes details and images from a ‘2010 Mobile Year in Review’ snapshot from Bytemobile’s quarterly Mobile Minute Metrics reports and focuses on the premise that video is going to have a significant impact on the overall data load of wireless networks in 2011.

Download Bytemobile’s 2010 quarterly Mobile Minute Metrics reports at http://www.bytemobile.com/news-events/thought_leadership.html.

The death of the busy hour – how mobile data works
Mobile Europe
December 22, 2010

We have received some nice stats and graphs in from Byte Mobile, providing an insight into the network activity it observed during 2010. Some of the highlights Byte observed might be well known by now, but they reveal some good insight all the same - and particularly into how video is impacting the overall data load of the network.

1. The death of the busy hour
Network capacity is under a constant strain throughout the day and evening. With traffic peaks lasting up to 12 hours, so called “busy hours” are a thing of the past.

2. The data hog does exist
10% of all mobile data users generate approximately 85% of overall traffic in the network. Touch smartphone subscribers access and view video five times more than non-touch smartphone subscribers.

3 Video is the driver, and higher resolutions are set to take that further
Video accounts for 48% of total network traffic, with user-generated content such as YouTube dominating the consumption of network capacity. Today, higher-resolution video is requested a third less often than lower-resolution video yet generates a similar amount of the total data traffic in the network – 31% to 39%. This trend indicates that even a small increase in the number of users consuming higher-quality video will generate a significantly greater network traffic load.

4 Data offload is an option - as is optimisation
Mobile network operators are quickly evolving their networks in order to manage the strain on the radio access network (RAN), backhaul and core. They are employing data offload strategies using small cells and Wi-Fi, upgrading their backhaul, and adding smart capacity utilisation products to improve network efficiency and the delivery of multimedia content and video services.

Byte Mobile’s 2010 Mobile Minute Metrics Highlights
User Behavior
●The peak hours for data traffic in wireless networks are consistent throughout the day and evening.

●The most prevalent type of video on wireless networks worldwide continues to be user-generated content available on YouTube and Google Videos. On average, this content currently accounts for 48% of the total network video traffic.

●Today, higher-resolution video is requested a third less often than lower-resolution video yet generates a similar amount of the total data traffic in the network – 31% to 39%. This trend indicates that even a small increase in the number of users consuming higher-quality video will generate a significantly greater network traffic load.

●10% of all mobile data users generate approximately 85% of overall traffic in the network.

New Class of Mobile Devices

●A new generation of touchscreen mobile devices is driving increased video consumption, and the operators servicing these devices are experiencing significant network changes. This trend indicates that as mobile devices get smarter and the user experience improves, video consumption will continue to rapidly accelerate.

Multimedia Applications are Consuming Wireless Networks
●The mobile applications that consumed the highest amount of network bandwidth in 2010 were Media Player (mobile video), Web Browser (a significant portion being mobile video), iTunes, and Facebook. Media Player, Web Browser and iTunes generate approximately 87% of total data volume in the network. This trend confirms the shift to entertainment-based usage and demonstrates the impact of multimedia applications on wireless networks.

-Stacey Infantino

Bookmark to: