Responding to the overwhelming demand for mobile data services can stress the financial resources of even cash-strong operators, but according to research firm Chetan Sharma Consulting, it doesn’t have to.
The firm conducted a study on behalf of Bridgewater Systems, a provider of policy management and other mobile personalization products. The result was a report called Towards a Profitable Mobile Data Business Model that tells mobile operators they can save approximately 60 percent of the delivery costs for mobile data over the next three years. And they can do so by addressing four key issues around network congestion management: policy management; data traffic offload, evolution to 3G and 4G networks; and network optimization.
“A holistic approach to managing this traffic ... is critical or costs could exceed revenues and become unsustainable by 2012 or sooner,” said Chetan Sharma, president of Chetan Sharma Consulting.
The report highlights the impact of growing 3G penetration, lower cost smartphones and USB dongles, new tablets like the iPad and the popularity of mobile applications on the growth in mobile data traversing operators’ networks. It also provides insights into new service models underpinned by Bridgewater's deployment experiences with operators and customer case studies from Ovum and Morgan Stanley.
Sharma claims policy control could contribute annual cost savings of more than 10 percent, or $15 billion, in annual cost reduction by 2013 in the U.S. market. More savings are to be found in deploying a data offload strategy using Wi-Fi networks or femtocells. It can save up to 25 percent, or up to $40 billion in that time and in that market.
