10,000% Mobile Bandwidth Increase by 2015 is Just One Problem, Nokia Siemens Says

 Mobile data from smart devices will increase 10,000 percent by 2015, says Rajeev Suri, Nokia Siemens Networks CEO. And that's only part of the problem. The other issue is signaling overhead, apart from bearer traffic, that can tie up radio ports even when not much actual bandwidth is being consumed.

That's one reason "adding capacity" does not solve all congestion issues in a mobile network. Congestion also can occur when signaling load is heavy. But bandwidth growth is an issue.

Nokia Siemens Networks predicts that by 2015, annual mobile data traffic will reach 23 exabytes , equivalent to 6.3 billion people each downloading a digital book every day.

Pure capacity is just one issue, however, intermittent connectivity and shifting locations plus signaling overhead are problems as well.

As an example, having predicted the current surge in smarter mobile devices, Nokia Siemens Networks is the only vendor to have built into its networks an industry standard, already common in smart phones, that allows it to reduce unprofitable, congestion-causing signaling by three times while increasing smart device battery life, says Suri.

Surprise, Surprise: Mobile Ops Now See Google as a Partner

Mobile service providers seem to have reached new conclusions about their role in the future mobile ecosystem, Nokia Siemens Networks says.

The single greatest change of business environment is that “the boundary between mobile telecoms and the Internet has all but disappeared,” says Frederic Astier, Nokia Siemens Networks head of customer operations marketing.

So what does that imply about the relationship between network service providers, application providers and end users?

“This study tells us that telecoms operators increasingly see their value, and competitive differentiation, in increasing customer satisfaction through improving network quality, while acting as a content broker for social networks, mobile app stores, TV and voice over IP services," Astier says.

Where the old business model was tight integration of network capability and applications, the new world features an more-open environment where network services and features are sold to third parties who create and deliver services, applications and features to end users.

While voice calls remain at the core of their business, about 78 percent said they plan to open their network as an intelligent bit pipe for new solutions, by while 69 percent said they intend to bundle voice with other content.

Moving away from the walled garden approach of the traditional telecom model, they are embracing two-sided business models by acting as conduits between third-party applications and content developers and the end users.

In that regard, there seems to have been a bit of a shift in attitudes towards application providers such as Google, which now is seen less as a disruptive threat and more as a partner.

The study involved one-to-one interviews with the business leaders of 70 communications service providers from 42 countries, says Nokia Siemens Networks. Its aim was to provide a comprehensive overview of these telecoms operators’ business needs through 2012.

LTE: 160 Mbps Bandwidth in Test by Nokia Siemens

Nokia Siemens Networks has completed the world’s first multi-user field trial in an urban environment, reaching speeds in excess of 160 Mbps.

The test of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, which supports mobile data rates up to 173 Megabits per second, was conducted in a real urban outdoor environment with multiple users using the new 2.6 GHz spectrum.

It confirms that LTE performance requirements can be met using 3GPP standardized technologies and it realized data rates of more than 100 Mega bits per second over distances of several hundred meters, while maintaining excellent throughput at the edge of typical urban mobile radio cells.