Abstract
Mobile broadband is at a crossroads as networks and business models are
strained by bandwidth demand that is unmatched by revenue generation. In this
context there has been a swell of interest in utilising network resources in a
more optimal way, controlling data-heavy users, differentiating further on
pricing and services, and ensuring applications and services continue to
function well. Traffic management and quality of service (QoS) solutions will
be essential to help achieve these goals, guarantee the mobile broadband
business case and optimise the end-user experience.
Table of Contents
- Executive summary
- In a nutshell
- Ovum view
- Traffic management will become increasingly important
- QoS prioritisation provides a way to differentiate mobile broadband
service offerings
- Prioritisation will be used in conjunction with fair-usage policies to
control data-heavy users
- Application and service prioritisation opens up new business models
- Net neutrality questions will emerge
- Scope of research
- Prioritisation and QoS are high on operators' radars
- Numerous factors have led to recent interest in QoS prioritisation
- Extreme traffic growth
- Desire to manage heavy users
- Need to optimise use of network resources
- Ability to differentiate further on services and pricing structures
- Need to ensure specific applications or services function well
- QoS prioritisation still nascent among mobile operators
- Net neutrality will be an issue
- Use of lower-priority QoS in conjunction with fair-usage policies
- Five options to control usage once fair-usage limits reached
- Option 1: do nothing
- Option 2: throttling
- Option 3: additional charging
- Option 4: throttling with policy control
- Option 5: lower user priority
- Prioritising premium users with QoS packages
- Providing the best possible user experience
- Prioritising realtime traffic and applications based on QoS
- De-prioritising peer-to-peer
- Application or service prioritisation
- Operators' own services or applications
- Third-party services or applications
- Background services to fill up spare capacity
- Moving demand to different times or locations
- Service filtering, data compression and content adaption
- Data and service optimisation
- Disallowing or blocking services or content
- There are dangers with filtering content
List of Tables
- Table 1: Options for controlling heavy users
- Table 2: Possible Gold, Silver and Bronze mobile broadband package
structure
List of Figures
- Figure 1: Mobile data use in Hong Kong
- Figure 2: De-prioritisation of P2P traffic during time of congestion
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