Peggy Anne Salz of bnetTV interviewed Joel Brand, Bytemobile vice president of Product Management, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 16, 2010. In this video clip from the show floor, Brand discusses ways for network operators to increase uptake of existing data plans and intelligently roll out new data plans, while alleviating network congestion and associated pressure on profit margins.

See the entire interview below.

-Stacey Infantino

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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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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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