The release of Apple’s iPad marks the introduction of a new class of device into wireless networks. While on the surface, the iPad looks like an iPhone in larger form, the bigger screen also enables richer applications.

Richer applications equate to more content, graphics, larger and higher-resolution images, etc. - which generate more data traffic on operators’ networks. Recent tests by Bytemobile show that applications on the iPad generate more than 150% of the data generated by the same apps on the iPhone.

Highlights of the Apple iPad test, by popular application, are as follows:

Source: Bytemobile

The actual data consumed by these applications is likely to be far larger since a better user experience will encourage longer usage periods - thereby generating even more data. 

Less than three weeks after its launch, Apple’s iPad already accounts for 26% of the mobile devices accessing the popular website Wired.com.

Source: Wired.com

This couldn’t come at a more sensitive time for operators already struggling to keep up with demand from smartphones and laptops. In the short term, operators are responding with large capital investments in network infrastructure. However, this is hardly sustainable with the pricing of data services dropping relative to the volume of data generated by the devices. For example, an unlimited data plan for the iPhone and the iPad are priced the same at $30 a month, while data consumption for the iPad is going to be more than double that for the iPhone. Further, there are currently no fair-use limits on the iPad plan, which could encourage runaway data consumption for users so inclined. In addition, the operators’ price wars limit the sustainability of large network expenditures in keeping up with overall traffic growth.

The fundamental reality is that network capacity is a constrained resource - even with technological advances and infrastructure expansion investments. However, capacity is not a problem everywhere in the network and at all times of the day. Capacity becomes a problem when congestion occurs in crowded cells and during peak usage hours. Managing congestion solves a large part of the problem for operators.

Bytemobile’s optimization solutions are a critical tools used by operators to manage network congestion. Optimization helps alleviate congestion by reducing data volume in the network and thereby improve the user experience. Optimization also detects the occurrence of congestion by monitoring connections and traffic in the data path. Finally, optimization reduces congestion using various techniques that streamline data flow and reduce bandwidth waste.

By acting as a proxy, these solutions are able to dynamically determine both the amount of bandwidth available and the amount required by the application in use. This information is intelligently combined with knowledge of the priority of various traffic flows to provide the best possible experience for the maximum number of users. As a result, operators can support the adoption of bandwidth-hungry devices like the iPad without unsustainable network expenditures. 

-Girish Wadhwani

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It seems that every Tom, Dick and Harry is in the Video Optimization space nowadays. Seriously, every vendor with video expertise claims to deliver a smoother video experience with little interruption. As a consumer, I applaud this attempt at creativity. As an industry insider, I’m amazed by the confusion in the market. Let’s review the relevant technologies and separate the hype from the substance.

First, what kind of videos are we talking about? Well…what kind of videos are you watching? YouTube! YouTube and other internet video sites typically deliver content over HTTP using Flash or MP4 encoding. While we watch the video ‘stream’, it is technically being downloaded in small chunks rather than truly being streamed. This means that a video optimization product must ‘inhale’ HTTP Progressive Download (that’s the techie term for the small chunks) and then ‘exhale’ HTTP Progressive Download toward the client. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to affect YouTube and YouTube-like content.

Many self-proclaimed video optimization companies focus on completely different content – that is, content streamed using RTSP to devices supporting 3GPP-compliant video players. This is useful to content providers (or network operators acting as content providers by offering subscriptions to premium video channels from their portal), but not to operators who are trying to deliver the content that you and I watch on popular internet sites through their network.

Second, what kind of optimization are we talking about? Many vendors are talking about transcoding, which technically means conversion of content from one format to another. Sometimes transcoding doesn’t change the codec (format). Instead, it performs the function of reducing the number of frames or the resolution. By definition, these content conversions can only reduce the quality of the video – frame numbers or resolution cannot be increased in the process of transcoding. In fact, video quality will be reduced in any conversion process, even if the reduction is unintentional.

Hold on…so what’s good about transcoding? It seems that it can only diminish the user experience. Well…that depends. The wireless network is shared by many people using many applications. If the network is congested, your video may stall. Alternatively, your video may play, but my video will stall. If there is no congestion, then video transcoding can only reduce quality. But when there is congestion, video transcoding could help both of us watch videos with fewer interruptions (albeit at somewhat reduced quality).

This can get complex. Some users on the base station may watch videos, others may browse the web, yet others may interact with apps, and without even knowing it, some may be downloading updates to operating systems, media players, apps, and anti-virus software. As a result, one video user may negatively impact several users engaged in other activities. Should that one video user experience reduced video quality, or should the other users experience slower web downloads and less responsive applications?

Also, how do video optimization vendors know that we are all served by the same base station (shared network)? And how do they know that you are, I am or someone else is experiencing the effects of congestion? As you have probably concluded, optimization algorithms and policies have little to do with transcoding. The trick is to figure out if and when to optimize, and what optimization technique to apply to each transaction. Transcoding itself is just a small piece of the puzzle – a piece which happens to be a completely commoditized technology.

So…what is different about Bytemobile? We provide a holistic video optimization solution – not a discrete technology for an isolated problem. We religiously improve the user experience by averting, detecting and preventing congestion. Other vendors provide a piece of technology with the expectation that the operator will miraculously figure out how to apply it. We have proven the performance of our technology – not only on limited-capability wireless phones, but much more importantly on high-end smartphones such as Android and iPhone devices, as well as full-scale laptops, netbooks and, soon, iPads.

Unlike legacy vendors that designed their systems to handle low-bandwidth devices, our system was originally designed for high-end devices – those that you and I use to watch YouTube videos. This requires a unique architecture that enables us to make complex optimization decisions at the speed of the Internet. It requires tight integration within the core of the wireless network, and it requires visibility into users’ activities and experience. Our video optimization technology – like our web optimization technology before it – has been first to market and first to deploy in commercial network environments.

We humbly call it “optimization – video included”.

-Joel Brand

Image courtesy of Altair Libre via Creative Commons Attribution License.
 

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In a recent news release, Telefónica Group announced that it is the first network operator in Spain to launch flat rate plans with Internet browsing speed rates of up to 21 Mbps. The company also announced significant web browsing enhancements as a result of deploying Bytemobile’s Web Optimization application, stating that subscribers that were previously browsing at speeds of 40Kbps in GPRS are now reaching 170Kbps as a result of Bytemobile’s optimization technology.

Like the majority of the world’s largest 3G network operators, Telefónica Spain uses Bytemobile’s Web Optimization application to increase capacity for growth in internet traffic and users, while enhancing the user experience with significant download speed-up on both handsets and laptops.

A long-standing customer of Bytemobile, Telefónica Spain, provides Telecomunication services to 44 million subscribers with more than 25 million mobile customers. As a group it provides telecommunications services to more than 268 million customers worldwide serving more than 205 million mobile customers at the end of September 2009. Today it is the leading mobile network operator in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru, and has substantial operations in UK, Germany, Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovakia, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It is also the largest private shareholder of China Unicom, with 8% ownership of the company.

Bytemobile’s Web Optimization works with all devices — from low-end feature phones to high-end smartphones and wireless laptops and netbooks — and all networks — from legacy 2G to Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX. Acting transparently to both the content server and the client, Web Optimization requires no special processing or configuration by the content provider or the user.

-Stacey Infantino

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As complaints from frustrated customers indicate, wireless carriers are struggling to keep up with their users’ seemingly insatiable appetite for data. Networks are stressed due to the huge and ever growing popularity of smartphones such as the iPhone and computing devices such as netbooks, USB ‘dongles’ for mobile broadband access, and video-intensive applications.

There are many ways that carriers are attempting to tackle this problem, including acquiring more bandwidth in the form of spectrum and building out 4G network infrastructure. In the short term, some operators are also using technology to “optimize” web and video content for access via mobile devices.

To find out whether optimization has a measurable impact on the customer experience, Informa Telecoms and Media, a leading industry market research company, conducted an extensive study comparing the performance of mobile broadband across leading U.K. wireless providers including O2, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, BT, Vodafone, and H3G. From June to August 2009, a series of tests were performed in and around London, measuring the download performance of several popular internet destinations including Amazon, Facebook, Lycos, and Starbucks.

Informa’s measurements illustrate that T-Mobile and O2 (which both use Bytemobile’s solution), BT (which uses Vodafone’s network) and Vodafone were consistently the smallest in webpage download size and in 80% of measurements were the fastest to complete the download.

As a result of its findings, Informa concluded that enhancing an existing network - whether via 2G, 2.5G or 3G - with an optimization solution produces results that are not achievable via any other upgrades with a similar level of financial investment.

Interestingly, the results of this study echo the findings of YouGov’s recent survey, in which U.K. mobile users ranked their satisfaction with providers’ data download speeds.

Download the Informa report for free at http://www.telecoms.com/category/format/informa-white-papers.

-Graham Carey

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