The Efficiency Directive: Mobile Broadband Proliferation and Bandwidth Management

Mobile operators face a three-way balancing act of delivering quality services, managing an increased subscriber base, and improving network and process efficiencies on a tight budget.

Like the occasional bright shooting star in the darkness that is quickly coming to characterize the tone of the world's media outlets as the recession deepens, some people have ventured to predict that the telecom industry might not fare as badly as others in 2009. Indeed, there are plenty of signs that this could prove true, particularly for mobile services, and particularly in developing markets like India.

Each prediction varies, but some are saying that India is likely to experience relatively similar subscriber growth trends from previous years. This would point to about 10 million new mobile users every month, as incumbent providers expand into rural territories, new providers begin operations, and handset costs decline. Additionally, the issuing of more 3G network licenses and development of technologies to enable faster network access speeds on these mobile networks will also push the Indian mobile market forward.

Operators will of course relish any subscriber base growth they can muster in 2009. But with mobile now the obvious worldwide preference over fixed-line (even in developed markets like the U.S.) and increasing bandwidth-intensive mobile services like broadband, live mobile TV and on-demand HD programming growing in popularity, consistent and fast mobile access will be a commodity. With this combination, service providers will have their hands full managing and delivering a consistent quality of service (QoS) to an expanded number of consumers through a finite range of radio frequencies.

The laws of physics can't be broken…

Most providers' networks, even those that deliver high speeds like 3G, HSPA, LTE or even WiMAX, still use the same basic network infrastructure as everyone else-be it fiber-optic, copper or otherwise. This means that larger amounts of data are being forced through the same amount of space, making it harder to make sure every customer gets the access and experience they pay for and expect.

This is likely to become even more important as peer-to-peer file sharing protocols like UPnP are used more over mobile broadband connections. UPnP has emerged as a problem for many fixed-line operators, especially in the cable industry, and as broadband Internet access expands into the mobile domain, the issues surrounding UPnP's bandwidth-intensive nature will only exacerbate current network traffic problems.

For Hong Kong-based mobile services provider SmarTone, who was the first to deliver live Internet to a mobile device over its 14.4 MBps HSPA mobile broadband network, an added challenge was the flat-fee contract structure available to customers. With a flat-rate plan, customers are free to download or access any amount of content or bandwidth they like. This is great for the individual customer, but providers and less-active customers can really start to feel the effects of decreased access if there is no mechanism to ensure one customer isn't abusing his or her allotted bandwidth at the cost of everyone else's experience.

When faced with such a predicament, a commonly perceived solution for operators is network backhaul, whereby network capacity is increased with the addition of more physical infrastructure to provide more total network bandwidth (buy more pipes or buy bigger pipes, essentially).

Backhaul presents two significant challenges, though, made even more difficult by operators' increased focus on reducing budgets and increasing system efficiencies. Backhaul takes a tremendous amount of time to make noticeable improvements, and the cost can be so great that providers aren't likely to see adequate returns through flat-rate plans to justify the costs. And it still doesn't solve the problem of physics-there's no way to increase the amount of total radio frequencies available to send data over the airwaves. That part of the pipe is permanent.

…But they can be bent

Mobile providers are therefore faced with devising a way to adequately and cost-effectively provide equal and consistent QoS levels for customers. If buying more pipes can't solve the issue quickly enough, and those pipes don't come at a small price, then operators will find ways of making their existing infrastructures work more efficiently.

To prevent any one individual's bandwidth monopolization from adversely affecting the quality of service for other users, SmarTone turned to active bandwidth management. The APAC mobile operator combined Comptel's Convergent Mediation and Provisioning and Activation offerings to produce a traffic management solution for its mobile broadband subscribers. By monitoring each customer's bandwidth use and cross-referencing the amount with his or her allotted network access, SmarTone was able to determine in real time if a subscriber is abusing bandwidth consumption and then automatically reduce access speeds for that user temporarily (usually minutes).

Dynamic, Efficient, Simple

Managing a finite amount of bandwidth for a growing subscriber base on a tight budget is indeed a balancing act. The harmony that SmarTone has been able to strike between delivering a high quality of service while keeping costs in check demonstrates how significantly network quality can increase by focusing on systems and solutions that can raise efficiency.

Since deploying the traffic management solution, SmarTone has maintained consistent access speeds at rates around 40 times higher than 3G speeds for over one million subscribers, regardless of location or network traffic. The solution has helped SmarTone market a new set of unique business models that sell customers a quality of service rather than a simple, unmanaged 'pipe' through which they can access content and services. The solution enables subscribers to specify a customized amount of bandwidth access to the network that meets their specific needs. Instead of choosing between a few preset service plans (3Mbps, 5Mbps, or 8Mbps, for example), if a customer is only going to use the connection for email and downloading the occasional business document, the provider can offer lower total bandwidth for a smaller tariff, and implement policies to make sure the customer does not overuse his or her connection and put a squeeze on other customers' access.

SmarTone's deployment, a relatively inexpensive solution for a considerable challenge when compared to the cost of backhaul, produced a quick return on investment, and created additional revenues through new business models. During an economically demanding year, these types of network enhancements present a cost-effective way for operators to realize significant operational improvements by increasing efficiency of existing systems.