Amdocs, a provider of OSS, BSS and network control products, released a white paper entitled 'State of the Radio Access Network (RAN1)', highlighting the almost complete shift from voice to data in mobile traffic and the urgency for service providers to build and optimize mobile networks to assure network performance and quality, increasing customer satisfaction and creating new revenue opportunities. The research was conducted across more than 4 million voice and data connections from more than 100,000 mobile devices at some of the busiest network locations around the world in the past twelve months. The radio access network provides wireless mobile connection for phones and tablets, using a combination of technologies, including small cells and macro cells, utilizing 3G, 4G (LTE) and Wi-Fi (for data).Other key findings in the white paper included the increase in data share of network traffic to 98%, from the previous year 90% mark due to overwhelming use of smartphones and tablets to consume and share content and the increase in the stress placed on network which saw dropped data and voice calls increasing by 121 percent. The research also pointed out that LTE (4G) improves customer experience though it does not increase data traffic exponentially indicating that usage patterns, potentially governed by data plans, remain little different from 3G networks. The research paper also discussed, among others, major sources of subscriber issues and the increase in in-building usage of mobile phones for voice.
"The research shows that the move to LTE/ 4G provides an opportunity to improve the customer experience without exponentially increasing data demand. Service providers need to address this challenge by implementing planning and optimization solutions to manage an increasingly active subscriber base that not only wants to consume data but produce and share it in real time."
- Rebecca Prudhomme, Vice President, Product and Solutions Marketing, Amdocs
