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Mobile Personalization - Networks to Pay the Price for iPad's Popularity? Not if Mobile Personalization Policies are Intact

 

April 07, 2010

By Marisa Torrieri, TMCnet Editor

 

Barely out for a few days, Apple's (News - Alert) iPad has found its way into the hands of 300,000 users, eager to use their tablets for book-reading, Internet surfing and simply looking cool.

But the more people use the bandwidth-hungry gadget -- which some analysts say can consume capacity equal to or greater than the iPhone (News - Alert) -- the worse their experience could be. That is, unless service providers have a plan in place to separate the data fiends from the rest of us.

One company offering a solution in this area is Bridgewater Systems (News - Alert), a mobile personalization services provider that offers policy-control software to manage the rapid growth in subscribers, applications and devices.

The Ottawa-based company's signature service is designed to help operators easily offload certain subscribers, applications - like video - and devices to WiFi (News - Alert) when 3G networks get congested. And the iPad, like the iPhone, fits into this category.

As service providers continue to weigh their options, it's important to consider that the iPad, which will be available in Canada and the United Kingdom at the end of the month, uses much more bandwidth for increasingly popular applications. For example, one hour of video on the iPhone uses about 250 MB, while one hour of video on the iPad uses 500 MB.

The reason for this is that, given the larger size, the per-frame size of the video will be higher. For still-frame videos (newscast), the size is about two times, and for motion videos (e.g. sports) it's about three to five times higher. But if it's HD video, it goes even higher.

"New devices such as the iPad are designed for advanced, high bandwidth applications like streaming videos and are expected to generate more data traffic," said David Sharpley (News - Alert), senior vice president, Bridgewater Systems. "Subscriber, service and policy controls are becoming increasingly important as operators balance these growing traffic demands across their 3G, WiFi and new 4G networks."

According to Bridgewater, service providers are increasingly using subscriber, service and policy control software to manage the rapid growth in subscribers, devices and applications.

Operators are also using policy control to ensure fair bandwidth usage among subscribers. If the network is congested, they can slow down heavy users or provide incentives to use bandwidth hungry applications at times when the traffic is lighter.

To boost, operators can also differentiate between subscribers segments when they are attached to a congested cell site. For example, a premium business subscriber could be given priority on the 3G network, while a basic subscriber could be given the option of switching to WiFi or a temporary bandwidth boost. 

In February, Bridgewater Systems announced that four Tier 1 operators in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific are offloading 3G data traffic to WiFi hotspots and femtocells using the company's new mobile data offload products.

The mobile personalization services provider - which made its announcement on the official first day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, held Feb. 15-18 - said its mobile data offload "solutions" address the capacity challenges faced by mobile operators, as subscribers up their adoption rates of WiFi-fueled smartphones and laptop data cards.

"Bridgewater's new data offload solutions are hitting the mark with mobile operators who want to alleviate network traffic congestion and optimize services across their different access networks - whether it is 3G, 4G, WiFi or femtocells," Sharpley said at the Mobile World Congress in February. "By combining subscriber, service and policy controls with a multi-access approach, we are uniquely positioned to help operators reduce costs and deliver a seamless customer experience, regardless of network type."


Marisa Torrieri is a TMCnet Web editor, covering IP hardware and mobility, including IP phones, smartphones, fixed-mobile convergence and satellite technology. She also compiles and regularly contributes to TMCnet's gadgets and satellite e-Newsletters. To read more of Marisa's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Marisa Torrieri

 

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