Mobile Personalization

Bridgewater Systems today announced the publication of new research into the mobile data surge that could save mobile operators up to 60 percent per year.

 

Available for download now, the report “Towards a Profitable Mobile Data Business Model” highlights the impact of growing 3G penetration, lower-cost smartphones and USB dongles, new tablets like the iPad and more.

 

“Operators are implementing multiple strategies to manage mobile data costs such as policy control, data traffic offload, and migration to 3G and 4G,” David Sharpley (News - Alert), senior vice president of Ottawa-based Bridgewater Systems, told TMCnet. “By coupling these strategies with personalized service plans based on operators’ knowledge of subscriber usage, they can benefit from a more profitable mobile data business

model.”

 

Researchers reached a number of conclusions that will help mobile operators plan ahead. Among them:

 

* Policy control could contribute substantial annual cost savings of over 10 percent, equating to more than $15 billion in annual cost reduction by 2013 in the U.S. market.

 

* Operators deploying a data traffic offload strategy to WiFi (News - Alert), femtocells or 4G could expect savings of 20 to 25 percent per annum by 2013, representing $30 to $40 billion in the U.S. market.

 

* The evolution to HSPA and LTE (News - Alert) could save just under 20 percent in network costs by 2013, saving U.S. operators $25 billion by 2013.

 

Flexible, dynamic and personalized pricing models that reflect subscribers’ preferences and context, bandwidth and application usage and network conditions will better align data revenues with network costs for the first time, according to Bridgewater Systems.

 

Some of the new mobile personalization models include “tiered and usage-based models” that take a smarter approach to service personalization and fair usage; application-specific charging to generate appropriate revenues from high-bandwidth services and time-based models that charge based on time spent on the network.

 

Experts weighing in on the subject echoed some of the study’s findings.

 

“The popularity of smartphones, mobile laptop dongles and flat-rate data plans has brought explosive growth in mobile data traffic,” said Chetan Sharma, president of Chetan Sharma Consulting. “A holistic approach to managing this traffic including policy control, mobile data offload, and evolution to 3.5G and 4G is critical or costs could exceed revenues and become unsustainable by 2012 or sooner.”

 

Steven Hartley, a senior analyst with Ovum (News - Alert), said mobile broadband profitability requires a holistic approach.

 

“Operators must adopt a range of technical solutions to manage costs, from traffic management tools, through to data offload and LTE or WiMAX (News - Alert),” Hartley said. “However, these will need to be allied with commercial approaches that protect revenues, such as tariff innovation and the enforcement of fair usage policies.”