As mobile broadband usage accelerates and wireless networks evolve to become wholly IP, mobile operators face an unprecedented challenge in terms of understanding how demand will materialize on their networks and how they should plan for this. 

Based on a history of delivering purely voice services, Mobile Operators have established processes for planning their networks based on concepts developed by mathematicians such as Erlang – But for mobile data these methods simply don’t work and a completely different approach is required. 

Nobody really how mobile users will use different mobile data applications and where and when associated demand for different services will materialize on the network – Also as demonstrated by recent iPhone campaigns, the launch of new end user devices can have a massive impact on uptake.

Whereas Operators used to plan their networks based on the peak or “busy hour” demand for voice services, they must now plan for a plethora of different data services all having different busy hours and different mobility profiles. As discussed previously, mobility is also an important factor because it creates signaling in the network that acts as a tax on overall revenue earning capacity. 

To overcome this challenge, mobile operators need to radically overhaul their traditional planning processes and replace them with new and more sophisticated capabilities that: 

§         Capture and characterize geographic and time-of-day variances in the demand for different mobile data applications and related mobility patterns as they appear on the network

§        Leverage this information to drive a more granular predictive forecasting process

§         Provides the ability to rapidly assess overall network impacts using a “what-if scenario analysis” engine before making a final decision on how to proceed. 

I am excited about this challenge, because the team at Cerion has been focused on providing a solution to it for some time – It is only relevantly recently however that Mobile Broadband uptake has really started accelerating and that Mobile Operators have recognized some of the major process changes they need to make in order tobe successful. During the last week or two we have put together several white papers that dig deeper into this topic – So look out for those appearing on our website!

Peter