Radio access network (RAN) capacity and congestion are key priorities for wireless network operators in the mobile internet era. Today, congestion occurs primarily at the cell site and backhaul in densely populated urban areas. It can appear suddenly, with no advance warning. For operators, capacity planning has become a challenge of constantly locating and resolving congestion.

Networks become congested when demand for bandwidth exceeds capacity and users are forced to compete for resources. Rather than rising with demand, actual traffic is limited by capacity, leaving demand unfulfilled – and therefore revenue unrealized.

Competition for network resources intensifies as traffic volume increases. Congestion causes the user experience to deteriorate – for example, videos stall during periods of elevated usage, and users become frustrated. As a result, they churn to other networks offering better quality of service.

Bytemobile’s Unison™ Mobile Internet Platform provides a versatile traffic gateway that enables operators to do more with less. Specifically, traffic optimization expands effective network capacity by reducing cost per bit, removing wasted bytes and pushing bytes out of peak usage periods. Policy enforcement helps operators manage network yield, prioritize users in terms of service levels and maintain a superior user experience.

Since no subscriber migration to a new network or adoption of new service is required, the benefits of the mobile internet gateway are immediate. Operators are able to recapture revenue that had been lost due to unfulfilled demand.

-Tod Bottari
 

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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
 

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Mobile Minute kicked off the new year and the new decade with its first webinar – “Next-Gen Data Services: Adding Value to Traffic” – on February 4. You can access a full replay of the webinar here and on the Mobile Minute page of our website.

The event’s approximately 460 registrants came from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the U.S., and Canada. Attendees represented a broad cross-section of wireless network operators and other participants in the mobile ecosystem.

FierceWireless Editor Phil Goldstein moderated a panel consisting of three speakers: Fabio Mungo, chief technology officer of Accenture Mobility Operated Services; Scott Lane, director of 4G Product Marketing at Sprint; and Joel Brand, vice president of Product Management at Bytemobile.

Fabio Mungo led off the discussion with an overview of the mobility market, its drivers and the impact of those drivers. He characterized it as a ‘market of mass niches’ rather than a mass market per se, indicating that entertainment and data products would drive the U.S. segment to $200 billion in 2010. Mungo cited the interconnection among multiple devices and applications as a key cause and effect of the ‘always connected lifestyle’. He added that low-cost devices and ubiquitous connectivity will continue to spawn a wealth of new mobile applications and business models.

Scott Lane cited the magnitude of the mobile data revolution as comparable with – or potentially even greater than – the PC and internet revolutions that had preceded it. From the carrier’s perspective, the three critical elements for success are: 1) a network to process and deliver the data traffic; 2) spectrum to provide ample capacity for the network; and 3) devices to deliver value to the consumer. Lane also discussed the details of Sprint’s 4G network build-out based on WiMax technology.

Joel Brand focused his presentation on mobile data rate plans of the future, which should balance the respective needs of consumers, carriers and content providers. He cited the impact of flat-rate pricing on the data traffic explosion and subsequent evaporation of data revenue in proportion to volume, as well as the side effect of network resource monopolization by a small percentage of users. The challenge for carriers is to map rate plans to user needs and preferences and to communicate with their customers in order to build value over time. Brand closed with a brief overview of Bytemobile’s WebGate™ Service, which provides carriers with numerous capabilities to meet this challenge.

The webinar concluded with a robust question-and-answer session in which Mungo, Lane and Brand fielded inquiries ranging from ‘Is it necessary to proxy all traffic through a service delivery platform in order to add value?’ (no) to ‘What specific mobile data applications will generate more revenue in the next four to five years?’ (video). Also, the following poll question was posed to the participants and yielded an interesting mix of responses:

Other Mobile Minute events are being planned for the coming months. We will cover these events on our blog and website as part of our ongoing efforts to provide thought leadership and consultative education to the rapidly evolving mobile internet space.

-Jaishree Subramania

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