Managing data networks

BY BP TIWARI
I was reading the newest report from Cisco VNI studies and it is worthy to note some of the following data trends which were captured in collaboration with 20 leading Internet service providers. Cisco published “The growth of data centric devices is humongous and mobile data will roughly double each year from 2008 to 2013″[1]. According to Cisco average broadband connection generates 11.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month, or 375 megabytes per day.

Reports from the first 4G mobile broadband Russian operator Yota has some analogous findings where their average traffic per customer is 10 Gigabytes per month [2]. To analyze operator’s strategies and spectrum requirement I have superimposed Cisco’s findings and other information available from leading ISP’s in a way to create a big picture of mobile data growth in next decade. I have categorized data growth in two segments a) Smartphone’s b) Data centric devices like laptops etc(BWA Application) .

Another work carried out by IMT ( report M2072) has published user data requirement for different countries in next decade for identifying necessary spectrum requirements for technologies beyond IMT2000 especially IMT A. [3]

Two main observations for data operators;

• The average busy hour data consumption for Smartphone will reach 366 MB by 2020 and the average monthly traffic will reach 25GB.
• The average busy hour data consumption for smartphone will reach 1.5 GB by 2020 and the average monthly traffic will reach 171 GB.

I was trying to plot the best possible known spectral efficiencies of mobile wimax, LTE , LTE A and 16m to try to analyze operators and regulators strategies to support the amount of data that would be generated from mobile networks during the decade[4]. Certainly regulators will have to release large chunks of spectrum to cater the demands of mobile data and operators will have to strategize their network rollout too to prepare for the data growth.

I would certainly look the following strategies for managing network traffic growth;

• Early introduction of new generation technologies ( Mobile WiMAX,16m,LTE A etc)
• Offload fixed indoor traffic to femtocells
• Complement Wi-Fi for indoor data
• Network optimization (throttling of heavy data users etc)
• Extending Fibers to cell sites for next generation backhauls
• Optimize video by broadcast methods (Video will contribute over 60% in next decade)

To be able to stay ahead of the demand, significant planning needs to go in to deal with data explosion. New technical and business solutions will be needed to manage the growth and profit from the services. Relying on only new 4G RAN won’t be an effective strategy to manage rising data demand. By introducing new business models and technology solutions such as femtocells, Fiber backhauls, optimization, broadcast video, new types of devices and most important take hold of bigger chunks of spectrum would be the strategies to remain profitable in next decade.

Thanks