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
 

On May 11, Mobile Minute teamed with Informa Telecoms & Media to stage its second webinar of the 2010 season – “Meeting Consumer Expectations of the Mobile Internet Experience”. You can access a full replay of the webinar here and on the Mobile Minute page of our website.

The event drew approximately 500 registrants from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the U.S., and Canada. Attendees included a cross-section of wireless network operators and other mobile ecosystem participants.

The webinar panel consisted of Dez O’Connor, head of Mobile ISP Domain Development at T-Mobile International (Deutsche Telekom); Mike Hibberd, editorial director of Telecoms.com; and Jeff Sanderson, head of Pre-Sales for EMEA and Latin America at Bytemobile.

As moderator, Mike Hibberd led off the discussion with a litany of compelling statistics regarding the growth of mobile broadband subscribers worldwide – from 450 million this year to 670 million next year – and its impact on network congestion and traffic patterns. He cited the experience of O2 UK in managing its iPhone subscriber base – with traffic volume doubling every three months – and TeliaSonera in its implementation of 4G technology and associated customer feedback regarding network performance and quality of service. Hibberd also emphasized the influence of video usage on traffic growth, quoting Cisco Systems’ forecast that multimedia will account for 90% of all wireless data traffic by 2013.

Next, representing a tier-one operator’s perspective, Dez O’Connor talked about the critical importance of intelligent traffic management in return on investment in major network deployments. He echoed Hibberd’s comments about video being the key driver of traffic growth and stressed the value of identifying and addressing ‘congestion hotspots’ in the network. O’Connor called out several techniques for improving network efficiency – packet dropping and shaping, traffic control by tariff and content enforcement, traffic compression and acceleration (optimization), Quality of Service (QoS) as defined in the 3GPP architectural model, and intelligent traffic off-load. He concluded that the timely, selective application of these techniques will enable operators to deliver the best customer experience at the best price – based on a manageable cost structure.

Jeff Sanderson rounded out the panel with a focus on video optimization as a means of sustaining network capacity through explosive traffic growth while controlling infrastructure build-out. He indicated that operators can achieve a more ‘deterministic’ user experience by directly addressing network congestion and its impact on quality and usability. Sanderson discussed just-in-time video delivery and the respective and combined merits of lossless and lossy optimization to reduce video stalling and enable operators to offer differentiated services. He concluded with a summary of the key attributes of smart optimization for multiple traffic types – perpetual value through subsequent generations of networks, especially 4G; dynamic adaptation to change; and a consistently positive experience for both operators and their customers.

Additional 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

The second of two CTIA panel sessions sponsored by Bytemobile was held at 1:15 p.m. on March 24. The session was moderated by Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Patrick Donegan and featured executives from Allot Communications, a deep packet inspection vendor; Camiant, a policy control vendor and Bytemobile partner; Cricket Communications, a North American carrier and Bytemobile customer; Nokia Siemens Networks, a core network infrastructure vendor; and Bytemobile, represented by Vice President of Product Management Joel Brand.

Much of the discussion focused on the relative importance and positioning of DPI and policy enforcement solutions in the evolved packet core of the 4G network environment. The respective vendors made their cases, while Cricket network engineering director Chris Demange addressed the operator’s requirements for a distributed network architecture, which include functional solutions from a broad range of best-of-breed providers. Joel commented on the need to modify – rather than merely inspect – high-bandwidth content such as video in order to manage rapid growth in traffic.

A highlight of the session occurred during the audience Q&A segment at the end. The panel was asked whether operators in Europe were considering video optimization and how relevant it would be in the roll-out of LTE networks. The other panel members deferred to Joel, who delivered our core argument that network congestion will persist regardless of bandwidth expansion, as consumers adopt and aggressively use new applications and services across smartphones, laptops and other mobile devices. A prime example is video, which the audience acknowledged as the single largest contributor to traffic growth on 3G networks today.

In this context, Joel stated, “LTE is not a panacea.” He went on to point out that Bytemobile was the first in the industry to release a commercial video optimization solution, which is much in demand within our customer base.

-Stacey Infantino

Image courtesy of Neil Boothman via the Creative Commons attribution license.