Fixed Mobile Convergence

The exponential growth of mobile traffic (now measured in exabytes, or millions of terabytes) is something that weighs heavy on the minds of network operators around the world. They need help managing the growth, and alleviating congestion.

During a TMCnet video interview with TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Tehrani, Indranil Chatterjee, vice president of Product Management at Openwave, said about 75 percent of mobile traffic growth can be attributed to video. So, that’s where Openwave (News - Alert) is putting a lot of its efforts.

Openwave has two lines of business: IP messaging based on an e-mail platform, and IP mediation using a system that sits in the operator network, in the path of mobile IP traffic.

On the IP mediation side, Openwave addresses traffic growth in three main ways. First, there is congestion control for web and video traffic. Second, there are methodologies for developing new price plans for more effective upselling and cross-selling. Finally, there are solutions for better monetizing the broader mobile ecosystem.

“Because of traffic growth, there is a lot of CAPEX investment operators are having to do, either in terms of backhaul or new cells,” Chatterjee said during the interview. “We help by reducing the number of bytes flowing over the network. We provide optimization of video traffic in terms of congestion, content and context based on subscriber and device.”

Chatterjee stressed that, although optimization is important, creative service plans are also necessary. In the U.S., tiered usage plans are becoming mainstream. Globally, there are plans based on time, application, and other factors.

All of the components discussed here are needed for operators to keep up and stay competitive.

“Our solution allows operators to come at this problem from all sides,” Chatterjee said.