Pipeline Publishing, Volume 6, Issue 7

	This Month's Issue:
	Bandwidth Management

Leveraging Network Intelligence
to Maximize Bandwidth and Revenue

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willing to pay. They must also simultaneously guarantee a high quality of experience for subscribers particularly when dealing with delay-sensitive applications, and ensure the smooth operational running of the network. The key to doing this lies in the ability to answer a number of questions, the answers to which enable network intelligence to translate into invaluable business intelligence:

Some of the questions that need to be answered are:

Can you build a model of different subscriber groups using your network? How do they behave on the network? Are they heavy users or light users? Do they behave differently when they move from a mobile to a fixed network?
What are the applications being used? How often are they used and how much bandwidth do they consume? Which are the most popular applications? Are certain applications more popular in certain geographical regions?
How are subscribers accessing the network? Are they accessing the network using a fixed workstation or a mobile device? Are they using a smartphone, a netbook or a USB dongle?
When are subscribers using the network? When are their peak hours? What are the network congestion levels during those hours?
In today’s wireless world, where are the subscribers geographically situated when they use the network? What areas are inadequately served by the existing infrastructure? Which areas should be prioritized for investment and a bandwidth upgrade?

Vital to network intelligence are a range of technologies and solutions from deep packet inspection (DPI) to policy control and enforcement, from media caching to traffic anomaly detection. The need for these technologies has been exacerbated by the recent explosion of video and other bandwidth intensive applications as mentioned previously, as well as increasingly sophisticated security threats to the network. The result of implementing such technologies is the ability to gain a deeper understanding of application, subscriber and network behavior coupled, more importantly, with the ability to act on that information and the subsequent ability to monetize the network and increase ARPU.

A perfect illustration of this is network topology awareness. For example withinmobile networks, cell awareness technology

When are subscribers using the network? When are their peak hours? What are the network congestion levels during those hours?

can help operators monitor and manage the utilization of cell, cell sector, and cell backhaul resources with pinpoint accuracy. In practical terms cell awareness means that the operator, for example, will be able to find out that the recurring congestion on a particular cell uplink is being caused by a voracious BitTorrent user who is downloading several large video files, or a handful of mobile Slingbox users who are tuning into their local sports coverage. One solution would be to implement a fair-use traffic policy limiting all users to 600 Kbps that could be activated at peak hours, or triggered by congestion thresholds, or by subscriber behavior within the cell.

Other examples of leveraging network intelligence include the deployment of tiered and differentiated services. These can range from media caching which enables the provider to effectively monetize internet video by intelligently accelerating its delivery, to network security which intelligently provides real time elimination of network and subscriber originated attacks. Both these services improve the subscriber’s internet experience immeasurably, increase ARPU and reduce customer churn. In addition, offering a range of basic and premium payment packages allows subscribers to feel more in control of their use and retain control of their expenses. It means that the couple who use broadband to access email and periodically browse the internet will not pay the same as the tech-savvy student who downloads music and video files 24/7.

Network Intelligence is Power

Bandwidth is expensive. Investment in infrastructure is the single largest investment that any operator makes, and consequently, it is essential that it is properly utilized. Ensuring the maximum return on investment requires a complete understanding of how the investment is being used, and in the case of bandwidth, how the applications that run over it and the subscribers that use it are behaving.

As we look towards the future it is clear that as fully converged networks steadily take root and become more mainstream, network intelligence will take on an increasingly business-critical role. Networks will typically be characterized by a greater than ever convergence of applications and services, which will offer the subscriber more choice and more control at the same time as making more demands on existing bandwidth. This knowledge will empower operators to make smarter and more cost effective decisions about investments in the network including the roll out of new services, capacity upgrades and more. It is only through network intelligence based on visibility and accurate information that operators will have a clear understanding of what is happening throughout their network, from an application, subscriber and topology perspective, and in turn, will be able to accurately and sufficiently maximize bandwidth to the benefit of the network, the operator and the subscriber.

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