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[Q&A Series] Seamless Wifi Offloading and Advanced Analytics Driving Competitive OTT Video Services

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Lonnie Schilling, CEO Birdstep TechnologyPCC Mobile Broadband's Exclusive Interview with Lonnie Schilling, CEO of Birdstep Technology on 'Strategies for mobile operators to provide competitive OTT video services by seamlessly combining Wi-Fi and cellular networks, using analytics to deliver a continuous experience'.

 

PCCMB: 2014 marks an interesting start for players in the WiFi offloading segment, with the new standard, Hotspot 2.0/ Intelligent ANDSF being in place. How will this bode for the Wifi Offloading segment in terms of the growth in its deployment and how much traffic (as a share of total traffic) that is expected to move to the WiFi network?

Lonnie: With standards bodies like the IEEE and 3GPP defining around 802.11, it is, first, a sign of maturity for the technology and secondly, a broader indication of growing acceptance from the operator industry. While both provide capabilities necessary for an MNO to offer a seamless experience driven by policy for network selection, neither fully address the broader notion of Experience Continuity. Until the standards bodies have agreed and defined how to take network status and resource availability into account when making a network selection, we at Birdstep will continue to provide our customers with Intelligent Network Selection solutions, driven by ANDSF augmented with details of the network performance. Experience Continuity is ensuring that the best bearer service is being used at the time of network selection. While significant growth rate in WiFi Offload is being documented by both Cisco and Ericsson, our experience shows that as much as 35% of our customers data is actually being moved to WiFi, based on our smartANDSF. In addition, Experience Continuity compels users to consume more as is witnessed in the WBA stating that in Q4 2012 WiFi users consumed on average 5.5 GB/month and in Q4 2013 6.6 GB/month, while our results show that using a reliable WiFi service, our customers in Q1 2014 were consuming 7.3 GB/month.

PCCMB: Most networks are evolving toward heterogeneity. While the cellular and WiFi networks have interworked successfully, we see small cells coming into the picture in the last year. How will this change the overall landscape for the network architecture and what is the impact of this to Wifi Offloading?

Lonnie: Small cell HetNet architectures will create even greater densities and allow the operator to be more creative in their service offering, potentially defining policies which differentiate applications across the cellular or WiFi bearer service. Nevertheless, small cell HetNet’s will exacerbate the challenge and need for a reliable client manager to execute the intelligent network selection from the UE. Just as cellular has achieved a global footprint through roaming agreements, so too will WiFi through roaming agreements, WiFi exchange services and credential clearing facities.

PCCMB: Video OTT is definitely one of the most demanded services on mobile data with tremendous growth in usage across the world, in terms of traffic and minutes. What have been the main concerns among Operators in delivering video services on their mobile networks? And how have solution vendors responded to these concerns?

Lonnie: Video today, undeniably consumes the greatest amount of bandwidth and has been the greatest challenge to the MNOs in managing network resources. With the addition of WiFi into the MNO’s infrastructure, providing a high bandwidth best effort service, we’re beginning to see MNO’s manage video as an application, creating policy that moves (non-premium) video to WiFi. Many operators with a premium video service will often make an attempt to keep premium content on cellular in an attempt to guarantee service while using existing subscriber management and billing systems. I believe we will continue to see innovation in this area, one example being to add knowledge of the CDN and video caching into the WiFi policy architecture 

PCCMB: We expect, with most MNOs improving their video delivery capabilities, the competitive edge will be attained via a strong degree of service differentiation. How can today’s solutions in the market assist MNOs to create their own suite of service plans that include some form of OTT video offerings, especially with the availability of advanced features such as analytics?

Lonnie: As mentioned above, MNOs are beginning to differentiate premium content from non-premium at the handset as opposed to the packet core. The ability to associate premium content with a connection manager that understands the performance characteristics of the WiFi network, ie Intelligent Network Selection and Always Smartest Connected, will allow the MNO to route that premium content over WiFi with the knowledge that sufficient resources are available. This will continue to reduce contention on the cellular network if it exists but more importantly, can provide an agnostic access network based on a multi bearer HetNet, and focus more on the service architecture.

PCCMB: As MNOs make foray into other revenue segments, namely digital services, OTT video is expected to be one of their main service choices, as it has already demonstrated high take up rates and huge income potential. MNOs are therefore expected to look out for solutions that not only enhance their existing video delivery capabilities, but also that will enable them to roll out new service packages that incorporate video content. With the kind of solutions available in the market today, what can be some of the ‘quick win’ use cases for OTT video monetization? 

Lonnie: Based on #4 above, the MNO can continue to develop their policy driven WiFi strategies more quickly and cost effectively, knowing that an intelligent WiFi infrastructure can provide the resources needed to support non-premium content and use their cellular infrastructure for premium content. Over time, as they gain more faith and trust in an intelligent WiFi service, they will begin to treat the HetNet access more agnostically, carrying premium traffic over WiFi. If we are brutally honest, the perception of a poor WiFi service today is actually a reality in cellular network too. It’s an issue of correct engineering and resource management that define a positive customer experience, WiFi or cellular. 

 PCCMB: What is your take on the opportunities and challenges for solution providers as well as MNOs in bringing the best user experience, not only on OTT video, but also on all other rich content that is expected to be delivered on mobile networks?

 

Lonnie: At Birdstep we believe that the success of any mobile broadband service is measured directly against the quality of the user experience. In other words, users directly relate poor experience to bad service and this take away is associated with the operator's brand. Therefore, we do believe that an optimal quality experience is the key differentiator in any operator's strategy for maintaining customers and growth of their customer base. In today’s market, churn is too easy and very vast and while price is certainly a motivator, we believe that poor customer experience is the greatest motivation for customer churn. Therefore, we believe that technology such as always smartest-connected, such as intelligent network selection and ensuring an optimal experience continuity are key differentiators for the operators to go to market with, in achieving an optimal customer experience. 

Last modified on Thursday, 27 February 2020 05:37
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Ray is a news editor at The Fast Mode, bringing with him more than 10 years of experience in the wireless industry.

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