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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Image courtesy of Worldislandinfo.com

Every year, numerous awards in different categories are given to Indonesian mobile network operators in recognition of their outstanding achievements in advancing wireless communication technology. Indosat, one of the country’s largest mobile broadband providers, has received countless awards from the Indonesian telecommunications industry. Most recently, Frost & Sullivan named Indosat as the Mobile Data Service Provider of The Year for the second consecutive year in its annual Frost & Sullivan Telecoms Awards.

In a vast country of over 17,000 islands, wireless communications technology has become the most practical and cost-effective means of bringing voice and data services to previously unconnected areas. Mobile network operators in Indonesia have been aggressively expanding network coverage throughout the country. At the same time, competition to provide the best mobile broadband services to consumers has intensified. Today, the number of mobile broadband (HSPA) connections in Indonesia has surpassed the number of fixed broadband connections.

In a news release dated September 2, 2009, Johnny Swandi Sjam, president director of Indosat, acknowledged that continuous improvement in network performance is critical to meet growing market demand with minimal capital investment. Bytemobile has provided optimization services for Indosat’s mobile data traffic since 2007. In awarding a capacity expansion contract to Motorola, Bytemobile’s reseller partner, Sjam commented: “The optimization solution from Motorola and Bytemobile helps us achieve this goal by fully utilizing existing network resources. Motorola’s expertise and experience in network optimization, combined with Bytemobile’s market-leading technology, brings world-class implementation on both GSM and 3G networks, enabling us to offer advanced, reliable and affordable data services to our customers in a timely manner.”

Consumers’ insatiable hunger for mobile data will continue. In fact, the demand for network bandwidth will far exceed the bandwidth increase that the next generations of cellular technology, 4G and beyond, will be able to provide. Bytemobile’s Optimization and Services Node (OSN) is a carrier-grade solution designed to reduce overall data volume in the mobile network by applying a field-proven combination of intelligent compression techniques and patented data reduction technologies. The OSN helps operators increase network capacity and efficiency and lower network operating costs, while deferring substantial capital expenditures. Their subscribers benefit from improved network performance and enjoy full data access and fast downloads. With the Indosat Accelerator - powered by Bytemobile’s client-server optimization technology and installed on consumers’ laptops - Indosat offers up to 7 times speed-up on existing 3.5G infrastructure.

The mobile broadband market is growing rapidly in the Asia-Pacific region. Bytemobile’s Unison™ Mobile Internet Platform has been validated through field experience with more than 100 mobile network operators in over 50 countries - including 12 of the world’s top 15 tier-one operators. The recently announced increase in the capacity and scalability of the Unison platform to 10 Gbps per chassis has resulted in a ten-fold reduction in hardware, power, cooling, and rack space requirements. For operators, this will further decrease network operating costs and contribute to an environmentally sustainable network environment. The Unison platform and its applications will continue to evolve, driving the mobile internet landscape of the next decade and beyond.

- Kok-Bin Lee

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The third webinar of the year – “Mobile Multimedia: Minimizing Congestion, Maximizing Quality” – was held on July 15. You will find a full replay of the webinar here and will be able to access it later on the Mobile Minute page of our website.

The July 15 drew event visitors from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the U.S., and Canada. FierceWireless Editor Mike Dano moderated a panel consisting of Craig Mathias, principal of Farpoint Group; Adrian Hall, our Chief Marketing Officer and Joel Brand, our vice president of Product Management.

Craig Mathias opened the session with comments on the central role of video in consumers’ lives and the corresponding market opportunity for mobile multimedia – especially video on demand. He cited a number of mobile applications that are proliferating in our ‘video-driven culture’, including company updates to employees, real-time distribution of business and consumer news, sharing of personal events among family and friends, and marketing and advertising campaigns. He stated Farpoint’s forecast that by 2014, 40% of all mobile consumers will be accessing video on their devices. Craig added that given the current economics of data pricing, capacity and throughput – plus the continued evolution of mobile handsets and multimedia content – wireless carriers will need to build escalating demand for video into their network evolution plans.

Against this backdrop, Joel Brand presented a number of compelling industry and anonymous customer statistics on mobile internet usage today. Multimedia streaming accounts for 30-40% of network data throughput, which is generated by less than 1% of users. Today mobile video constitutes approximately 35% of the total traffic mix and is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 131% through 2013. Smartphones are approaching laptops in percentage of video traffic generated, and in certain tier-one networks, video consumption has overtaken web browsing on Apple iPhones. Joel then showed how web and media optimization could reduce peak throughput by up to 50%. Operators can effectively manage excessive data consumption and abusive video usage by a small percentage of users through the intelligent enforcement of fair use policies, which protect network resources without damaging customer relationships.

Adrian Hall pointed the divergence between data growth and data revenue growth and its impact on operators’ profitability as cost per bit continues to rise. Adrian focused on the unique attributes of our Media Optimization solution: just-in-time video delivery that maps streaming to actual consumption, data reduction that downsizes traffic while maintaining high quality, and intelligence that adapts optimization to constantly changing network conditions.

Following Craig Mathias’ presentation, Mike Dano polled the audience on the question of whether operators should enforce fair use policies with their subscribers. The results of the poll were as follows:

Additional Mobile Minute events are being planned for later this year. We will keep you apprised of these and other developments in our ongoing efforts to provide thought leadership and consultative education to our customer and prospect base and the mobile internet industry at large.

-Jaishree Subramania

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