PARIS, BROADBAND WORLD FORUM – September 28, 2011 – The rapid growth of mobile data traffic, driven by video, has forced operators to continuously invest in infrastructure just to keep up with demand. Part of that investment is for data optimization solutions that help to reduce data volume. But as the growth rate accelerates, so does infrastructure investment. This linked cycle could reach unsustainable levels for many mobile operators within the next few years.
Responding to operators who are seeking a way to decouple optimization hardware investment from soaring data volume growth, Mobixell Networks has introduced a new way of approaching mobile data optimization called Mobixell EVO™ (Evolved Optimization). This new approach focuses only on congestion rather than just arbitrarily reducing data volume. However, the Mobixell EVO approach goes further by predicting congestion just before it occurs and specifies virtualized, cloud-based caching and optimization. The new Mobixell EVO approach to optimization will significantly reduce resource investment and, operators, for the first time, will be able to unlink infrastructure investment from overall data growth.
Data usage continues to increase exponentially, with total mobile data traffic predicted to grow by around 1,500% between now and 2015*. Mobile operators are starting to understand the true business impact of this coming storm, fuelled for the most part by streaming video. Without a solution that incorporates the Evolved Optimization approach, operators will be left with capacity expansion as the only way to keep pace with data growth. This would, in many cases, lead to an uncertain financial future for mobile operators.
“The infrastructure investment that will be needed to cope with the accelerating rise in data traffic, mainly from video consumption, is not a cause for optimism among mobile operators,” says Phil Marshall, Chief Research Officer at Tolaga Research. “As data usage continues to grow, so will the level of uncertainty. If they are able to separate the resource investment rate from the data volume growth rate, then mobile operators can break the cycle and continue to be profitable.”
The optimization focus in mobile networks today is data volume-centric. By aiming to optimize all mobile data, not only is there little measureable benefit to the operator or the end user, but where data volume is directly related to ARPU, reducing volume reduces revenue. More troubling is the prospect of regularly adding optimization infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly increasing data volume.
To address this problem, Evolved Optimization calls on mobile data optimization vendors to focus efforts on a number of core principles to guide research and development, including real-time near-congestion prediction to replace data volume reduction, cloud-based resource management and flexible, open system architecture.
Each of the key elements of Evolved Optimization contributes individually and systemically to the success of sustainable mobile operator business models:
Real-time congestion prediction
Some networks already perform historical based predictive congestion analysis, where they process offline reports and attempt to predict future patterns of congestion. This approach is limited and inaccurate, mainly due to the transient and localized nature of congestion. This is why Mobixell EVO will proactively perform real-time near-congestion prediction on a stream-by-stream basis and then dynamically apply the most appropriate optimization techniques to avoid congestion before it affects the subscriber quality of experience.
Cloud-based optimization
Mobile network operators are already investigating cloud computing and virtualization to support various services. By managing resources in a distributed model, processing power is used only when and where needed. In addition to being a natural path toward compliance with operators’ proposed business models, private cloud-based caching and optimization can help mobile operators maintain sustainable levels of infrastructure investment even as the need for optimization grows.
Flexible, open system architecture
True cost savings come from moving away from proprietary systems that lock in operators and reduce flexibility. While all-in-one solutions offer short term convenience, as data traffic levels climb, the scalability of open, cloud-based system architecture will become critical to sustainable growth.
“We all know that the growth of mobile data is approaching a massive scale. If operators don’t want to have an equally massive investment in infrastructure then they need to consider alternative solutions,” said Yehuda Elmaliach, Mobixell CTO. “Many of our operator customers have already expressed their concerns. So we worked with some of them to conceive a new direction for optimization, Mobixell EVO, to deal with this issue which, clearly isn’t going away.”
Mobixell research and development has embraced the Evolved Optimization approach as a set of guiding principles and the next version of Seamless Access will already include initial components of the Mobixell EVO approach. The company plans additional Mobixell EVO related product announcements during 2012.
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