Yesterday, ABI Research announced a new and very timely report, titled “Mobile Network Offloading”.

Noteworthy excerpts from ABI’s news release (italics ours):

The serious, well-publicized traffic overloads (including content data and radio signaling) that are starting to choke many mobile networks will only worsen as smartphones and other mobile devices proliferate, and operators must extend capacity. Brute force network expansion, requiring a doubling of capacity, isn’t an option.

Instead, several approaches and technologies will play specific roles in relieving network congestion. These include Wi-Fi, femtocells, mobile CDNs (content delivery networks), media optimization, and more.

“Each of these offload and optimization technologies is aimed at solving a particular problem and they will all coexist.” – Aditya Kaul, Practice Director, ABI Research

One of the most effective tools is media optimization – effectively improved compression – which is already being used widely. Media optimization will grow the fastest and deliver the greatest traffic reduction of all these methods.

For more information on the ABI report, click here.

-Tod Bottari
 

Bookmark to:

On a global scale, the mass migration to 3G network technology is yet to come. The chart below – produced by In-Stat, the mobile internet/digital entertainment market intelligence firm – indicates that in 2010, only 17% of the world’s 4.3 billion mobile subscribers are on 3G networks or higher. This means that 83% are unable to play video and access other high-bandwidth applications that the proliferating iPhone/Android community uses every day.

In the second half of 2008, a number of 3G networks began showing signs of stress due to traffic congestion caused by multimedia-hungry subscribers with powerful mobile devices. After years of investment to drive data adoption and fill their 3G pipes, the operators of these networks were now facing frustrated consumers forced to contend for bandwidth and watch stalling videos.

Two years later, the stress has become seriously aggravated and elicited public comments like the following from the AT&T CTO, in response to widespread criticism of network service quality: “We will move heaven and earth [to meet our customers’ growing data needs]” (VentureBeat – July 12, 2010).

The In-Stat data, corroborated by other industry sources such as Gartner and Morgan Stanley Research, makes it clear that the challenge to operators is still in its infancy. Moreover, it will continue to accelerate for the next decade and beyond, as a) more consumers adopt mobile data, b) more consumers upgrade to iPhone-/Android-class smartphones, and c) more networks advance to 3G and beyond.

-Tod Bottari

Bookmark to:

Carl Ford, co-founder and vice president of  Community Development at 4G Wireless Evolution, interviewed Joel Brand, vice president of Product Management,  at the International CTIA Wireless 2010 conference back in April. In this video clip, Brand discusses the impact that mobile data has had on operators’ networks and highlights Bytemobile’s market-leading optimization solutions.

-Stacey Infantino

Bookmark to: