Identifying the congestion culprits & thinking sensibly about offload

Berlin, 15th June 2011

dean.bubley@disruptive-analysis.com

Introduction
    

Disruptive Analysis: analyst house & strategic consulting firm, focused on mobile technology & operator business models Covered pico/femtocells since 2001, WiFi/cellular since 2003 Blog at disruptivewireless.blogspot.com @disruptivedean Affiliated with Telco 2.0 Initiative, Martin Geddes & others Thought leadership:
Discussion of Mobile Data Offload since 2008 Early identification of losing technologies, eg RCS, UMA, NFC Coined the term Happy Pipe for profitable broadband strategies Coined the term Under the Floor Player for infrastructure-led threats

Future of Voice masterclasses June 30th & July 14th

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Jun 2011

Congestion? Whats the problem, exactly?

A) Specific devices?

B) Specific users?

C) Specific traffic types?

D) Specific times?
Jun 2011

E) Specific locations?
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

F) Specific apps?

The answer:

G) All of the above, and more besides

. so lets move beyond the soundbites

Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Going beyond the scissors diagram

Index
Mobile broadband traffic

Need for more sophisticated metrics: uplink vs. downlink Oversimplified response: signalling traffic Lower cost/MB needed busy cell / busy hour device & user application / use-case
Revenue

Time
Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Who causes more road congestion & cost?

40,000 miles per year

Nov 2010 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

4,000 miles per year

Not all video connections are the same

Source: Mu Dynamics Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Video content needs curation not blind policy

Offload? Throttle? Compress? Transcode? Transrate? Delay?

Telemedicine

Jun 2011

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Guilty: Angry Birds advertising on Android

(via NSN Smart Labs)

Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Mobile broadband traffic management options

Tuning TCP/IP & contention mgmt Macro radio network upgrades & optimisation Policy-based traffic-shaping

Compression, optimisation & transcoding

Core

Internet

X. Y. Z

Device-based solutions

Local offload (WiFi / Femto)

Caches / CDNs

Transport / core offload

Congestion APIs & monitoring

Offload often easier than application-specific policy

Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Cost per GB?

 

The gold standard metric for mobile data?

But Gigabytes are not all created equal

The basis for pricing & business models?

3GB for 20 on the revenue side? Easy-ish to understand Justification for new Capex & spectrum purchases?

Single-number analysis risks poor decision-making

But maybe it is broadly accurate enough? Is it the least worst metric?

Regulators seem to use this approach for simplicity New & richer metrics needed but not an easy task

Jun 2011

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

WiFis: dual personalities

Service-provider WiFi Owned WiFi

ANDSF I-WLAN UMA Hotspot 2.0 EAP-SIM Remember that WiFi = catchy name for WLAN . If you dont understand LANs generally, you will fail in Wireless LANs
Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Seamlessness: some things never change.

5 years ago: UMA fails

The best-tailored products have seams for a reason

Jun 2011 Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Be wary of WiFi offload statistics

Extra Elastic WiFi WiFi offload 3G Data 3G Data Private WiFi Private WiFi

Jun 2011

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Towards a congestion API & notifications

Sorry, network is congested. 1. Schedule later, $ rebate 2. Pay $ for premium 3. Continue anyway 4. Offload

Sorry, network is congested. 1. Alert user 2. Pay $ for priority delivery 3. Partner with us! 4. Opt-in optimising

Operator

Jun 2011

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Outstanding problems / oppos for offload

Complex connection management scenarios Managing VoIP & MNO services in offload scenarios

Mix of handset types & purchase channels

Getting the standards right esp. for private WiFi

Jun 2011

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Conclusions
         

Identifying real congestion culprits needs better analytics Tonnage is a broad indicator of network-unfriendliness. but maybe not enough to satisfy regulators & users Signalling is a real, complex, multi-layered issue Offload solves most of these problems. but may create new ones (eg with VoIP / VoLTE QoE) Operators MUST NOT over-reach in attempting to control WiFi Increased focus with on-device clients & CMs is critical Work with video content specialists not against them New business models needed maybe insurance-style?
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011

Jun 2011

www.disruptive-analysis.com disruptivewireless.blogspot.com @disruptivedean dean.bubley@disruptive-analysis.com +44 (0) 7941 100016

Jun 2011

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2011