Data Traffic

LTE can wait; HSPA+ is good for next 2 years, says Voda CEO

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:48:20 -0500

Having revealed better than expected financial results, helped by completing a £1 billion cost cutting programme one year early, Vodafone CEO, Vittorio Colao, let slip that the company saw HSPA+ as meeting its needs over the next two to three years and would focus its investment in further deploying the technology. Under these conditions, the CEO admitted that LTE was unlikely to be needed until late 2011 or possibly 2012.

Despite confirming that it was continuing to work closely with its LTE partners, Verizon Wireless and China Mobile--both of which are rapidly pushing forward with LTE--Vodafone seems content to rely on HSPA+ on meeting its mid-term data requirements.

As reported by Unstrung, Colao indicated that the company was in the process of enhancing its data speeds from the present 3Mbps to 7Mbps, and then on to 21Mbps and perhaps eventually 56Mbps before LTE is needed.

While the launch of the iPhone on Vodafone's UK network might impact network loadings--as O2 has seen in London with its data network nearing meltdown at times, the company is presently relaxed given the spare 3G capacity it has across wide segments of its network. In Europe, while data traffic volume is 2.5 times that of voice traffic, network utilisation was around 30 per cent in Q2 of the operator's 2009/2010 financial year, and only 5 per cent of Vodafone's European sites have more than 90 per cent network utilisation during busy hours.

This cautious approach to adopting LTE could also be due to the announcement from Vodafone that its plans to increase its cost-cutting by a further £1 billion by 2012.

For more on this story:
Unstrung

3UK says data exceeds 90% of network traffic

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:29:58 -0400

Having been forced to adopt an innovative approach to the mobile market by its lack of size, the CEO of 3UK, Kevin Russell, claims that data now accounted for 94 per cent of all traffic across its network, compared with three or four years ago when it was around 15-20 per cent.

Being the No. 5 operator in the UK, 3 has taken a radically different route to gaining subscribers by actively promoting data services, such as mobile VoIP, that have been shunned or blocked by the other much larger incumbents. According to Russell, the rapid increase in data traffic has been due to the growth in internet services such as Skype and MSN. "For example, the number of Skype minutes being used has increased by 6,600 per cent since 2006, from 90,000 to 600 million minutes."

Despite the upheavals that have already occurred within the industry, Russell believes that there will be ‘more changes in the next five years than we have seen in the previous 15'. "There will be a tsunami like wave of change coming, which the whole industry will have to adapt to."

For more on this story:
Mobile Today

Smartphones causing network data overload, claims O2

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:50:37 -0400

With smartphones generating around 8x the network signalling load of a dongle-equipped laptop, the CEO of O2 Europe, Matthew Key, has admitted that these high-function handsets are causing significant ‘growing pains' for the company's networks. While he maintained that these network issues were today confined to high-density population areas, the situation could become more widespread with data traffic doubling every three months.

According to research from infrastructure equipment provider Airvana, while smartphones only represent a small percentage of the overall base of mobile devices, the signalling traffic from these handsets is already responsible for the majority (two to three times as much as laptops) of the total signalling activity.

Airvana's research indicates that, while a smartphone user downloads a fraction (typically 1/25th) of the data consumed by a laptop user, the signalling load produced by the these users is significantly higher - approaching a third of the average laptop user. Thus, while it takes 25 smartphones to equal the data throughput from one laptop, it only takes three smartphones to equal the signalling network impact of one laptop.

"The industry is just now beginning to understand the real impact of smartphones on network performance and we are finding that their effect is distinctly out of proportion to the amount of data they transmit and receive," said David Nowicki, Airvana's VP of marketing and product management. "It's now estimated that nearly 60 per cent of all mobile data traffic originates indoors, which is one of the key reasons that operators are increasingly introducing femtocell strategies to offload traffic."

For more on this story:
EE Times

Femtos needed to boost data throughput, claim Qualcomm execs

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:28:28 -0400

Operators looking to take advantage of the data speeds offered by LTE will need to look to deploy denser networks, including the use of femto and picocells. This viewpoint, put forward by the former and current CEOs of Qualcomm, Irwin and Paul Jacobs, could mean operators using a lot more base station hardware than in today's networks, given that the industry should not expect more spectrum to become available to ease capacity issues.

"This means thinking about much denser radio networks" said Paul Jacobs, speaking at the US CTIA conference. "With more of a femto or picocell architecture in place, operators could expect an eight- to ten-times improvement in network performance. However, managing interference with so many more radios in place will be one issue, and managing handover between many small base stations will be another."

The likelihood of a significant increase in data traffic promoted Paul Jacobs to highlight the backhaul issue that operators will also need to address. "At the moment in some places there are higher rates over the air than there is in the backhaul, and that's not good."

While accepting that this bottleneck will force mobile operators to differentiate among heavier and lighter users of data, he cautioned about calls for net neutrality regulations. "I don't necessarily believe that you ought to go down and say, 'This service is OK and that service isn't.' Maybe that's too intrusive. But certainly you can go in and shape traffic."

One industry analyst listening to the panel, Jack Gold, commented: "Technology alone won't get us out of the looming problem we've got. Femtocells are one possible solution, but if everyone uses femtocells that can carry data, that will put a lot more traffic on DSL and cable modem networks."

Qualcomm is a leading supplier of femtocell chipsets and has made investments in femtocell manufacturers.

For more on this story:
IDG News

LTE Cannot Come Soon Enough for Some Operators

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:30:13 -0400

For some operators, LTE cannot come soon enough, states the latest report from Analysys Mason, which details how wireless data traffic will grow tenfold in developed markets in the period to 2015. However, there are many roads to a data-optimised RAN, and LTE is only one component. "LTE can provide data at a sixth of the price of basic W-CDMA. In the long term, it may be the only way to profitably manage the increasing demand for data traffic," says Helen Karapandžic', of Analysys Mason. Not only does LTE offer cost savings and performance improvements, like reduced latency, which will enhance growing data services such as video, TV and gaming, it also offers a full evolution path. LTE is only just at the beginning of its product life cycle. Article

Tenfold increase in network traffic predicted

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:10:19 -0500

Mobile operators in mature markets such as Western Europe need to prepare themselves for massive traffic increases down the road, according to a new report from Analysys Mason.

By 2015 wireless network traffic will have increased tenfold as data leaps ahead of plain voice communications. There will be a number of factors driving this rise in data traffic; increased penetration of smartphones and USB devices, the widespread deployment of femtocells leading to greater indoor usage and more affordable pricing. The type of traffic will also change with users sending and receiving larger data packages. Advanced wireless technologies such as LTE, which can support much higher data throughputs, will also be widely deployed over the next few years.

The report's co-author Dr Mark Heath says although developed regions will represent just a quarter of all mobile users by 2015, they will generate 65 per cent of total global wireless network traffic.

For more on this story go to 3g.co.uk

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