Fixed Mobile Convergence

In a recently published research, Arieso (News - Alert) concluded that users of Google Android smartphones, including handsets from HTC and Samsung (News - Alert) - are threatening to clog up the cellular phone networks.

In response to this report, Dan Joe Barry from Naptech came up with his analysis, how mobile carriers can overcome this challenge, without compromising with their revenue goals.

It has been just three or four years when the first mobile broadband dongles started appearing before the mobile carriers. With mobile devices increasingly becoming the preferred tool for web surfing, the mobile carriers have on the one hand a moneyspinner at their disposal, on the other hand, this widespread adoption of mobile data is causing headache for mobile carriers. This is simply because, there are natural limitations to the bandwidth cellular networks can provide.

Napatech’s (News - Alert) Dan Joe Barry, a network acceleration specialist- said in a statement that, the report from Arieso exemplified how the widespread adoption of smartphones, as well as the even larger amounts of data generated by laptops - is placing a strain on mobile infrastructures.

According to Barry, caused by their expanding 3G and 3.5G cellular networks, this scenario is creating complex problem for mobile carriers.  

“The report notes that smartphones are set to overtake computers as the most used device for surfing the Web, and I think this is something that few in the cellular industry could ever have predicted when the first 3G networks were rolled out back at the turn of the century,” Barry said.

According to Napatech vice president, the strain situation need not be a threat for carriers, but a golden opportunity. This is because, mobility has always been highly valued by mobile customers and the ability to access data while on the go is no exception, he explained. The solution according to Barry lies in establishing a new pricing model satisfies both the consumer and the carrier.

Barry suggests in his analysis that by building smarter networks and billing solutions, he says that mobile carriers have the opportunity to charge customers on a usage basis, but also provide superior customer service by allowing the ability to purchase bandwidth on-demand.

“In this way, mobile carriers avoid the death-spiral of increasing bandwidth and traffic costs, but flat revenues - as landline Internet access providers are experiencing today,” he said.

In a nutshell, data capping, a method that mobile carriers are adopting today for rationing  demand, cannot be a solution for handling the traffic clog. It is simply because rationing does not provide a satisfying user experience. So the solution lies in developing better network intelligence based on real-time data so that carriers can respond proactively to user needs and ensure better usage experiences, while at the same time providing a platform for more intelligent management of network resources, Barry explained.

Few months back, Napatech launched new time synchronization features that can enable extremely accurate packet time stamping. According to the company, this newly launched feature, is a key factor for measuring quality of service factors, such as latency, in packet networks