Hank Kafka, AT&T senior vice president of Architecture and Planning, delivered the opening keynote presentation on Day 1 of the LTE North America 2010 conference in Dallas, Texas. Kafka opened the session with the following statement:

If there is one thing you should take away from this conference, it’s that consumers and businesses have an insatiable demand for data.

The AT&T executive’s presentation focused on the fact that one of the biggest challenges facing wireless network operators today is that the majority of consumers don’t understand capacity problems.

AT&T, which spends billions annually to improve its network infrastructure and address the capacity challenge, believes that increasing network speed is only part of the solution.

The company has seen a 5,000% increase in mobile data consumption over the past three years. Kafka attributed this to two key drivers: social networks and video.

With regard to social media, Kafka stated that the average mobile Facebook user spends seven hours a month on the site and that social networks are second only to email in terms of consumer usage.

In discussing mobile video, Kafka cited statistics from Bytemobile’s 3Q 2010 Mobile Minute Metrics report, highlighting the following point:

‘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 accounts for 48% of the total network video traffic.’

Kafka closed the session by setting the stage for the future state of mobile data demand – “It’s only going to accelerate.”

-Stacey Infantino

Image courtesy of Rene Reile via the Creative Commons attribution license.

Bookmark to:

In a packed room at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas, Mike Roberts, principal analyst and head of Americas at Informa Telecoms & Media, welcomed attendees of the LTE North America 2010 conference. This year’s event brings together more than 450 members of the wireless ecosystem, 52% of which are senior executives. These individuals represent more than 120 leading carriers, including: AT&T, Cellcom, Cellular South, Clearwire, MetroPCS Communications, Mobi PCS, NTT DoCoMo, Orascom Telecom, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA, TeliaSonera, TELUS Mobility, TELUS Terrestar Networks, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless, and Zain Telecommunications Company.

 Roberts’ presentation, which was entitled ‘LTE: Fact & Fiction’, provided a foundation for many of the industry’s LTE questions which are expected to be addressed at this two-day conference. Highlights from the opening session included:

• LTE is here – look at MetroPCS’ recent deployments in Dallas and Las Vegas.

• LTE will NOT take over the mobile market. Operators have other technologies in mind that will work sufficiently for years to come.

• The speed that LTE is expected to bring will not directly equate to more revenue. LTE won’t mean anything to carriers and consumers alike unless services that users want to use are launched on the new network.

• LTE is expected to take off faster in the U.S. due to high mobile broadband penetration.

• The U.S. will be the top LTE market globally through the year 2015.

To learn more about the LTE North America 2010 conference, please visit http://americas.lteconference.com/.

-Stacey Infantino

Bookmark to:

With iPhones already earning the reputation as ‘bandwidth hogs’, and networks with heavy smartphone use already under intense pressure, devices like netbooks and USB dongles are adding even more stress to carriers’ infrastructure.

With today’s introduction of the Apple iPad - a device for which users’ quality-of-service expectations are extremely high – operators’ capacity challenges are mounting and may push their networks over the edge.

What we know about the Apple iPad:

Every iPad has Wi-Fi, but Apple also has models with 3G.

There are two wireless data plans. The first provides up to 250 MB per month for $14.99. The second provides unlimited data for $29.99. AT&T is the exclusive service provider and includes free use of AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots. In the U.S., wireless operators typically charge about $60 a month for a laptop data plan.

There is no contract — service is prepaid, so consumers can cancel any time. That’s a big change from the iPhone. All iPad 3G models are unlocked, so consumers can use them with any carrier that supports micro-SIM technology.

The question is: are carriers’ networks equipped to handle another, even more massive, explosion of mobile data consumption?

If Apple’s new iPad lives up to the usage patterns – and more importantly – the bandwidth problems of the iPhone, then the answer is: probably not.

In a recent Wall Street Journal blog post, Niraj Sheth wrote:

…the iPhone is hardly the kind of data guzzler the tablet is widely expected to be. After all, it’s one thing to squint at movies on a 3.5-inch screen and quite another to watch them in a relatively cinematic 10 inches.

With this in mind, carriers can surely expect a ‘secondary’ explosion in video and other multimedia traffic. They need to prepare their networks now in order to avoid consumer backlash. Another quantum leap in data traffic will not only strain the network - and thus the user experience - but will also strain profit margins due to out-of-control infrastructure costs.

We should expect to see the wireless industry put a priority on intelligently managing network traffic and experimenting with new ways to curtail the margin squeeze - whether through tiered pricing plans, stricter enforcement of fair use policies or new value-added services.

-Stacey Infantino

Bookmark to:

AT&T’s making MMS available on the iPhone is big news – something for which its users have clamored. Of course, AT&T isn’t the only carrier that is concerned about how to make sure its network is prepared for an increase in multimedia traffic. To better understand why carriers are justifiably nervous, let’s take a look at the following data which represents traffic over a 24-hour period in a cross-section of some of our larger customers’ 3G networks.

Note that 90% of the users are browsing the web, which accounts for 40-50% of the total traffic.

Streaming video accounts for 30-40%, but that is generated by less than 1% of the users. It’s not difficult to do the math and envision the magnitude of the impact as more users consume video and other multimedia applications.

P2P file sharing is also a bandwidth hog, with less than 1/10 of 1% of users accounting for 5-10% of the total traffic.

It is clear that intelligent traffic control is necessary, enabling carriers to enforce fair use policies adaptively without damaging customer relationships. By increasing network efficiency and capacity, operators can manage the effects of continued traffic growth within the footprint of their existing installation and scale their networks ahead of rising data usage trends. This will also help to ensure a compelling user experience.

-Stacey Infantino

Bookmark to: