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Networks & Infrastructure
Too much of a good thing
Mobile data traffic explosion threatens to slow networks
by Samantha Bookman
In the world of mobile data, it's the best of times and the worst of times. Consumer adoption of new technologies and pricier handsets has taken off, providing returns few other industries are seeing in this bogged-down economy. But more smartphones and more data usage means higher wireless traffic rates, which can bog down networks and turn vaunted 3G systems into sluggish shadows of their former selves.
Mobile data networks are fast filling up. Where once the most a provider had to deal with were SMS transmissions and the occasional larger documents sent via Blackberrys and similar devices, now one must contend with increased Internet surfing, e-mail traffic, video streaming, and an ever-multiplying plethora of mobile apps.
It's not out of bounds to imagine a wireless network as a river at the heyday of the logging industry in North America. Standard operating procedure was to roll felled and stripped trees into the river and float them downstream to the next station for further processing. So many trees clogged such rivers that loggers could walk across them easily.
Google's introduction this week of an "always-on" personal navigation app for Android 2.0-enabled smartphones is another tree in the data river. The app is free, plans to compete directly with a similar, $100-per-unit app offered by TomTom, and is being offered by the Internet's most ubiquitous entity. Further, Google announced plans to offer the app for iPhone and other devices in the future. Consumers are bound to adopt Google's application as soon as it's available to them.
“This could turn the navigation industry on its head as it promises users up to date information - something that is not possible on 95%+ of current GPS navigation devices as they are not connected to the Internet,” says Varun Dubey, Marketing Manager APAC at Aricent, a telecoms software and services supplier based in Silicon Valley. “Perhaps even more important – this application is free. This will eventually put pressure on the 3G network, but considering that this is currently only on Android 2.0, the impact will not be immediate.
“However, if/when this gets rolled out to other handsets and OS platforms, that is when it will begin to put load on the network,” Dubey continues. “The issue is larger than this app alone. As more and more data hungry apps get rolled out, carriers will have a genuine problem of network congestion. This will lead to call drops, slow network speeds and overall decline in customer satisfaction – which might result in loss of customers. This means that carriers will have to make significant investments in upgrading networks to cope with the surge in consumer demand for data.”
How much has data traffic increased? A 2008 TeliaSonera report summed it up succinctly: it's "exploded" -- climbing nearly 500 percent in that company's Nordic and Baltic operations last year alone.1 For the same period, T-Mobile Netherlands reported that “total weekly usage of mobile data services increased from 2.5TB (equivalent to 10.8TB per month) to 3.1TB (13.4TB per month) in the first half of 2008. In the second half of 2008, total weekly mobile data traffic increased from 3.1TB (13.4TB per month) to 20.5TB (88.8TB per month) - a 561% increase in six months." 2
That's just part of northern Europe, a region that has some of the highest rates of mobile data users. Asia-Pac has a strong and growing mobile base, as well. And the demand on 3G networks just keeps growing.
Analyst firm Unwired Insight is already predicting trouble, and soon. By next year, "some incumbent 3G operators with large customer bases will face HSPA capacity shortfalls in mid-2010, or even earlier if customers migrate rapidly from 2/2.5G to 3G services," the firm writes in its latest report. New entrants to 3G, as they build their customer base, can breathe easier, but not for long: they have about two years to improve their capacity before data demands steamroll their network.2
Solution, or Band-Aid?
The data revolution wasn't a complete surprise to providers, but the intensity and speed at which consumers are adopting data-heavy applications is well beyond initial forecasts. How can a mobile operator catch up to demand?
Transition to 4G is an expensive proposition, not just because the economy stinks right now, but because so many operators just completed 3G infrastructure installs within the past decade … and are still paying for them. Because of this, transitional technologies are catching on rapidly because they’re a practical response to market needs.
HSPA+ has caught on early among operators. AT&T, Vodafone, Telecom Italia and Mobilkom are deploying the technology this year. Using smart antenna technology, this upgrade improves the downlink/uplink speeds of current standards HSUPA/HSDPA from 14.5mbps/5.6Mbps, respectively, to 42Mbps/11.5Mbps, while using the same 5MHz of spectrum as current 3G networks. But HSPA+ isn’t a perfect solution to data demands. The farther away a user is from an enhanced base station, the lower the data rates. So, some customers won’t see any benefit from an HSPA+ enhancement.
Meantime, more than 30 operators have committed to LTE deployments beginning in 2010, including Verizon and AT&T in the United States. This major enhancement can access wider allocations of spectrum – from 5 to 20 MHz – to achieve downlink/uplink speeds of up to 326Mbps/326Mbps (depending on the spectrum allocation). That’s a potentially massive increase in data speeds. But it doesn’t mean operators can deploy LTE fast enough to avoid the capacity shortfalls that Unwired Insight predicts.
“Everything in the mobile world takes time and deploying LTE will be a gradual process,” says Steve Shaw, VP of corporate marketing at Kineto Wireless, in a recent Q&A with TelecomEngine. “Companies are already in the planning stages for handsets to be delivered at the end of 2011.”
Complementary possibilities
Meantime, there’s no slowing the demand for data across the mobile spectrum. The best providers can do in the short term is manage it.
Unwired Insight’s white paper points out that some services could be delivered using complementary methods. “Mobile broadcasting technologies, such as DVB-H, DMB, IMB and MediaFLO, could deliver multimedia content (notably mobile TV and radio) to 3G devices equipped with appropriate broadcasting receivers. Mobile users with access to fixed broadband services have additional methods for the delivery of services. These are indoor systems (WLAN access points or 3G femtocells) and sideloading.”
Managing in this manner could also prevent an additional concern. “The carriers also face a very real threat of being relegated to being just a ‘data pipe’ - customer loyalty might remain with either the device manufacturer or the content provider, or both,” says Dubey. “Aricent strongly feels that for carriers to build customer loyalty and grow ARPU, they will need to own the experience and offer customised, differentiated services.”
That’s a tall order for operators juggling existing and future network needs with economic concerns.
References
1. http://www.teliasonera.com/annualreport/2008/en/Introduction/LetterfromtheCEO.html
2. “Will 3G Networks Cope?: 3G traffic and capacity forecasts”, Brydon A N and Heath M R, Unwired Insight, 2009,http://www.unwiredinsight.com/reports.aspx
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