Per usual, this year’s CES lived up to the hype. The world’s most famous and important consumer electronics expo once again delivered some breathtaking advancements in personal devices and appliances. We saw
incredible new tablets, Microsoft truly setting their foot down as an
innovator in cell phones, a virtual presenter tool
a la Star Wars’ Princess Leia, and even a
smart refrigerator! While all these new products are wonderful and inspiring, they do beg an essential question, particularly pertinent to service providers. As the number of WiFi-connected, data-consuming, content-hungry products continues to grow, what effect will that have on mobile networks? We are entering unprecedented territory in terms of
network overload and decreasing spectrum space. Is there a solution?
At the show, a common topic of discussion was the unleashing of more
radio spectrum, thus injecting the market with some much needed bandwidth, and allowing the market to decide for itself how it should be allocated. While the additional spectrum would be of great benefit, its heavy costs may leave many potential buyers wondering if the extra space is really worth it. When added to the fact that the legality of releasing more spectrum is currently questionable at best, and would probably require fundamental changes to current FCC laws, service providers may be better off looking elsewhere.
The ever-increasing number of connected devices is an issue that has not escaped us here at Volubill. While spectrum expansion might not be the best resolution right now, an alternative is to bring and optimize content through
content distribution networks (CDNs). Their abilities to improve the performance of content delivery and more efficiently use available network space for content, thus easing congestion for other types of data, are some of the primary reasons the use of CDNs by service providers is on the rise.
In turn, this trend is the primary driver behind one of our main products,
Edge Offload. Because CDNs function on the edge of the radio and core access networks of service providers, extending the many congestion management and content delivery strategies that often benefit subscriber experience the most is typically not possible. They simply function where the core policy engine doesn’t reach. So, to make sure traffic flows smoothly and content is charged for appropriately, CDNs still have to send data back to the core network for “approval”. And if you’re worried about traffic congestion, this obviously doesn’t help.
Edge Offload, however, brings policy control to the network edge, ensuring that customer and content traffic not visible to the core network of the integrated service provider is still able to be charged for and managed according to normal policy methods. In many cases, this means offloading the transfer of all this content to technologies like WiFi, which frees up spectrum on the radio network. This means that, even with the plethora of connected devices on the network, the amount of shared data can still be correctly managed for an optimal consumer experience.
Whether they choose to pursue acquiring more spectrum or take advantage of more economical tools is up to them, but one thing is for sure: service providers can’t become complacent when it comes to network traffic management, or the capacity crunch will rear its head once again. I want one of those connected refrigerators as much as everyone else, but if I do get one, just like everyone else, I’ll expect the network to which it’s connected to perform reliably!
