Mobile Operators Stress About Bandwidth Growth
Reuters today published an article which captures the stress mobile operators are undergoing with Laptop dongles and the iPhone driving bandwidth requirements to completely new levels. A series of good examples is provided from different parts of the world. To understand the scope here, French operator, SFR, tells us that laptops connected to the mobile network drive 450 times (!) more traffic than a classic mobile phone. Another example is given from the Australian operator, Telstra. The day Michael Jackson died, there was a 170 percent increase in mobile traffic.
The article puts the spotlight on one of the biggest industry challenges that lies ahead. With a flat rate business model, how do Mobile Operators cope with providing competitive mobile broadband services and still earn a fair amount of money? Learning from the fixed broadband evolution, there are a few fundamental network design principles to keep in mind.
- Leverage Carrier Ethernet technologies to provide high bandwidth at low cost
- Keep it “as simple as possible…but no simpler” (lending a qoute from Einstein here)
- Look to increase the lifetime of the equipment to support a greater business case
Xelerated technology can be used to empower mobile backhaul networks to enable huge data growth. Some of the new platforms designed for mobile backhaul look closely at how to aggressively bring down cost while providing traffic management for committed and exessive data rates as well as preserving synchronization services for the base stations.
Mobile operators need these platforms, and are becoming more and more stressed about the situation. As Esa Rautalinko, who heads TeliaSonera’s mobile network in Finland (TLSN.ST), states: “We are closer and closer to a situation where we reach the limits of our capacity”.
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