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July 13, 2010

Overall, the large amount of constantly increasing data traffic is a major source of worries for wireless carriers. With the advent of the iPhone and many other similar smartphones, combined with MIDs (mobile Internet devices) of all kinds, this is now placing a significant amount of strain on wireless networks that are already almost overloaded.

Because all that data traffic is clogging up networks and affecting service reliability and performance, wireless operators are now trying to figure out how they could increase their revenue from all that added traffic.

Part of the problem is that current 3/3.5G mobile network topologies have inherent bottlenecks within their architecture. The cell and its backhaul are particularly problematic. Numerous mobile broadband providers cite cell congestion as one of their biggest headaches that needs a solution ASAP.

The urgency is real as new MIDs and apps, such as Apple's iPad, boost up mobile data demand even more. For instance, in just twenty-eight days, Apple sold 1 million iPads and users downloaded more than 12 million apps from the App Store.

Cells can become congested not only in the radio network but also on the backhaul link, because of new data being fed constantly. In today's 3/3.5G mobile networks, cell backhaul is still based primarily on E1/T1 technology. Backhaul infrastructure that could once support over 100 simultaneous voices calls with ease can now be overloaded by just a couple of iPhones and netbook users.

If mobile operators are going to maximize their infrastructure investments and better control, they need to deal with this issue with a great sense of urgency.

Overall, cell awareness enables wireless operators to understand the who, what and where of mobile data consumption, in order that they can make informed decisions on how to handle traffic problems based on accurate usage statistics, which will enable them to boost revenue.

With cell awareness, wireless carriers will be able to better monitor and manage the bandwidth utilization of cell backhaul resources with much better accuracy. Cell awareness means that the wireless operator will be able to accurately determine whether the recurring congestion on a particular cell backhaul is being caused by a voracious BitTorrent subscriber whose laptop is downloading large files all day or something else.

With cell-aware monitoring and traffic management capabilities, mobile operators know precisely where the network is congested, and which subscribers and apps are generating the traffic.

Armed with that knowledge, they can take more proactive steps to reduce traffic congestion, ensure fair use and deliver better QoS (quality of service) to all mobile data users.

Once wireless carriers get cell congestion under control, they can better focus on increased revenue opportunities. The same traffic statistics that provide a cell-aware view of network utilization can also be used to better understand and fulfill market demands.

But while mobile operators in different regions around the globe may have different answers to that topic, having a complete understanding of what is going on their network empowers them with a choice about which approach to take.

Some mobile service operators are implementing a fair-use approach to backhaul bandwidth — meaning that everyone in the cell at any given moment gets an equal share of the available bandwidth. Other wireless operators are taking a more sophisticated tiering approach based on subscriber profiles or the needs of the application.

And while the tiering approach is effective at providing fair access and preventing congestion on the network, it also can lead to a win-win scenario for both subscribers and operators.

For instance, consider a premium-tier video service that enforces the maximum quality of service through the operator's network and that simultaneously guarantees the best possible video viewing experience at all times.

In the end, probably many mobile subscribers would be more than willing to pay a monthly premium for a service such as this. A win-win scenario...

Overall, a number of solutions have been proposed by the industry to alleviate backhaul congestion—things like Wi-Fi offload, femtocells and backhaul bonding, etc. These options are workarounds rather than solutions because essentially, they move the problem somewhere else in the network or to someone else's network.

While some of these temporary measures may provide some kind of partial relief, they're being implemented blindly today. The wireless carrier still doesn't really know what's causing the traffic congestion. Moreover, these temporary solutions come with a price tag that eventually will have to be passed on to the wireless subscriber.

Just as their fixed-line counterparts have discovered, the key to managing the utilization of mobile data bandwidth is first and foremost to get a clear picture of what is happening on the network itself.

Wireless carriers need to begin with a complete understanding of the type, volume and overall behavior of data traffic going over their backhaul. And since congestion moves around in the mobile network, it is essential for operators to have complete and real-time visibility down to the individual cell level, hence, cell awareness.

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Source: WHB.