|
|
The biggest challenge is to ensure a satisfactory, pleasant, and useful consumer experience while delivering maximum value. Even though North American mobile operators protect the consumer experience, managing the end-user experience is not always possible since an increasing amount of traffic is increasingly causing several operational impediments.
Phone for Mobile E-Commerce?
Additional growth could come from a stronger move by telecom providers into e-commerce as they seek to provide some of the payment service that has been long controlled by Visa and MasterCard. Analysts point out that the telecom firms already have experience with recurring billing, the necessary customer information and method (the cell phone) to provide such a service. Discover Financial Services and Barclay’s Bank would reportedly provide the credit and financial services expertise.
However, promises of mobile technology capability in theory tend to be ahead of practice in many instances. 3G capabilities were discussed for years before the technology became widely available. Location-based services were available in Asia long before they were available in the U.S.
Similarly, carrier-based mobile commerce has been successful
|
|
RIM initially adopted a hard-line posture against providing government access to instant messages and e-mail |
|
Several approaches and technologies will play specific roles in relieving network congestion, according to ABI, citing Wi-Fi, femtocells, and mobile content delivery networks. The research firm said that one of the most effective tools is media optimization, predicting that media optimization will grow the fastest and deliver the greatest traffic reduction of all these methods.
RIM Seeks Resolutions
The increased challenges of the edge are far from being completely solved. In fact, for all of the discussion the traffic growth in parts of the Middle East and Asia will depend at least in part on the resolution of government oversight issues. BlackBerry provider Research in Motion was battling threats of blocked service in Saudi Arabia and India, which were somewhat reminiscent of Google’s fight with China over similar issues earlier in the year.
RIM initially adopted a hard-line posture against providing government access to instant messages and e-mail, but by the end of the month was trying to work out a solution that would appease the governments.
|
|
|
|
|
overseas already, but only time will tell how quickly such a payment option will make any headway in the United States.
More Mobile Offloading Expected
The growth of mobile traffic will lead to a sharp increase in uploading in the next five years, according to ABI research. The firm says that about 16 percent of mobile data is diverted from mobile networks today, a figure that is expected to grow to 48 percent by 2015. Data delivered to smart phones and other mobile devices will proliferate, continuing to choke the capacity of many mobile networks. Network expansion by itself won’t be able to handle the growth in traffic, leading to the offloading.
|
|
RIM had promised to offer technical solution for decoding encrypted
BlackBerry data to the Indian government by the end of August. The government had warned that it would block BlackBerry services if the company didn’t comply. The company was reportedly near a similar deal with Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates was also seeking to view encrypted BlackBerry messages in an attempt to thwart terrorism.
While concessions by RIM could give some customers pause due to privacy concerns, communications growth even in those countries is likely to continue strong, with any restrictions shifting only the method (i.e., to VPNs), not the amount of network traffic.
|
|
|
