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Jan. 20, 2009

A question many have on their minds right now is will mobile and wireless networks be able to sustain the record-breaking traffic this week for President-Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony?

The CTIA (Cellular Telephone Industries Association) says wireless providers have gone to great lengths to invest massively in upgrading mobile network capacities and throughput, but that might still not be enough.

The CTIA is urging the public to understand that large crowds can create traffic congestion and network delays.

The organization's CEO Steve Largent says “think of a wireless network like a highway. Even though we’re building more traffic lanes, all of a sudden, if millions of people jump on the highway at the same time, there could be a real traffic jam.”

The CTIA is asking inaugural event attendees to do their part in decreasing network demand by texting instead of placing voice calls and holding off on sending mobile phone photos or video until after the events are over.

So will wireless networks be able to deliver all those text messages, a mode of communications used by the Obama campaign itself and one that is popular among his young constituents?

Based on estimates by VeriSign’s Messaging and Mobile Media division, a record of more than 1.4 billion mobile messages will be delivered across all networks beginning today.

For its part, VeriSign managed a single-hour record of more than 82 million mobile messages when the clock struck midnight on the East Coast this past New Year’s Eve, so it expects it can handle the increased volume when Obama and Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden take the oath of office and Obama then addresses the nation.

Other vendors are confident as well that wireless carriers will be able to handle the record network traffic, as they have with other big events like the Super Bowl.

“We really think that mobile phone carriers have this down to a science,” said Mark Titus, senior director of product management at TeleCommunication Systems (TCS).

Titus added “I also think it will go without a hitch.” TCS provides the “high-capacity plumbing,” so to speak, that allows networks to withstand huge spikes in traffic.

In Canada, Bridgewater Systems also offers solutions so that wireless carriers can essentially “even out” services so that in times of great congestion, all their customers get at least some level of basic service, creating an equilibrium across the entire base, explained David Sharpley, senior vice president of marketing and product management.

Other wireless network equipment suppliers are also following the same path.

The network can implement policy decisions to curtail a bandwidth hog like MMS, for example, and allow more text messages to get through to users.

Some consumer advocates say wireless carriers should be apologizing rather than boasting.

A representative for Consumers Union was quoted as suggesting that mobile phone carriers offer rebates when service isn’t up to standards. It is largely estimated that Barack Obama’s inauguration could attract over two million people.

Overall, one of the main advantages that SMS has going for it is that it only uses a small amount of network bandwidth when compared with voice traffic.

Some people remember that not everyone who signed up got the message announcing Obama’s vice presidential pick in a timely fashion. Any number of factors could have contributed to that technology failure, including the network gateways that might have sensed what was perceived as a potential attack and therefore implemented DoS (denial-of-service) tactics.

TCS provides an access gateway product line that is designed to protect and regulate messages coming in and out with filtering rules to detect the onset of a potential cyber attack, a bit like a firewall system does to protect Web servers.

The vice-president situation was different in that it was one message going out to many, as opposed to the peer-to-peer communications expected during the inauguration events.

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Source: The CTIA.