Striking gold with mobile broadband

As the global 3G markets develop, mobile data services will account for an ever larger percentage of applications. Among all mobile data services, wireless network access is distinguished by the highest mobility requirements. Congruently, compared with fixed, mobile broadband networks face greater challenges regarding the introduction of content, applications, terminals, and tariffs.

The dilemma for operators is how to afford mobile broadband network construction and operation costs while providing inexpensive, quality mobile broadband services.

The key distinctions of fixed and mobile, at present, is that fixed broadband networks traditionally guarantee high speed, while mobile addresses the issues of convenience. Each network dictates addressing the differing needs of divergent audiences like younger generations and business people create the demand for mobile, while fixed broadband users are mostly represented by home and office users.

The technical development capacity of a mobile broadband network is typically less than one tenth that of fixed broadband networks while the declining ARPU trend is putting more pressure on the cost per bit of a typical mobile model vis-à-vis the fixed.

Compounding these concerns, it is believed that mobile broadband network demand for transmission resources and data traffic will become as much as a hundred times that of current 2G networks. As the size of a conventional mobile network grows, it will become increasingly difficult to allocate site address resources and reduce network operation and maintenance costs.

To date, because service revenues have not increased commensurately with traffic, mobile data service operators globally are facing challenges on faster return on investments. For example, while mobile data service traffic might increase 50 to 100 per cent, corresponding revenue may only grow by 10 to 20 per cent. Understandably, an uncertain return can give operators cause to hesitate before committing to such network investments. However, delaying deployment of mobile broadband can lead to loss of subscribers and slowing of critical business momentum.

Based on global operator feedback, there are three key issues that must be considered, according to Huawei. First is to balance the allocation of site address resources while effectively reducing OPEX. Then, focus on reducing backhaul transmission costs on access networks so that, after P2P applications on legacy networks are transferred to mobile Internet, traffic can indeed grow exponentially, unimpeded. And finally, to provide a platform for innovative, cost and time-efficient ways to increase revenues as service traffic grows.

Currently, applications on mobile Internet are largely those of legacy 2G networks. By definition, mobile broadband must provide more than just the addition of mobile voice networks to the Internet. Mobile operators must design more feasible and economical mobile network topologies.

On present fixed broadband networks, operators typically separate voice from broadband networks, especially on the access level. By configuring simple QoS policies, operators preferentially allocate bandwidth resources for delay-sensitive services such as IPTV and VoIP.

We believe that mobile operators can apply this model to mobile broadband, but, when building such new networks, operators need to think out of the box:

They should look at separating applications of voice networks from those of data to gain freedom from the constrained models of legacy voice network deployments. Accepting the fact that revenues will remain low in the earlier stages of mobile broadband network development even though data traffic is massive, operators should look at finding a way to effectively reduce the cost per bit by optimizing utilization of channel resources to maximize value.

The Clout behind 'Two Clouds'

The great value of inspired improvement lies in the level of experience with which the resulting innovation is supported. The world has seen some of the service providers gaining heights with quick adoption of smart technologies. EMOBILE has quickly become the most competitive mobile broadband operator in Japan with the launch of that country’s first 7.2 Mbit/s HSDPA and 1.4 Mbit/s HSUPA services. StarHub in Singapore built the first commercial HSPA+ network in the Asia Pacific region and the world's first commercial Femtocell network. Telefónica O2 Germany has deployed the world's first 28-Mbit/s commercial HSPA+ network.

Optus in Australia is working on the largest UMTS900 network in the southern hemisphere — UMTS900 provides an ideal frequency for sparsely populated areas (a single UMTS900 base station provides broader coverage than the 2100 frequency spectrum currently being operated by the majority of the world's 3G carriers), reducing the cost of rollout — ultimately intended to cover the entire continent.

TeliaSonera announced the industry's first mobile broadband Internet connection over a live commercial LTE network in Oslo, Norway in June 2009, well on target for completion of the world’s first 4G/LTE network in 2010.

With the road-map of early success in mobile, fixed broadband networks, we now respond to the mobile broadband dilemma facing operators with the unique ‘Two Clouds’ solution.

Employing optimal topologies for access networks providing DSL-level bandwidth for users across the board, the two clouds work together to deliver the most cost-effective means of enhancing user experiences.

A high speed cloud, consisting of Pico and AP BTSs, is typically deployed in densely populated urban areas to deliver an average bandwidth of 2 Mbit/s.

A continuous cloud of macro BTSs is applied for wide coverage delivering a bandwidth of 256 to 512 kbit/s.

This 'Two Clouds' model allows operators to profitably deploy mobile broadband networks while utilizing an intelligent site management framework to automatically adjust bandwidth and reducing construction, operation, and maintenance costs.

(The author is deputy director, marketing and strategy, Huawei India. The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CIOL)