MWC: NowFactory congestion platform maximizes mobile network profitability

One of the most talked-about topics during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has been capacity management, and the different approaches to addressing it while driving up revenues and driving down operational costs.

The NowFactory, whose Active Subscriber Intelligence (ASI) platform helps operators deal with their congestion management problems, today also released information noting that traffic patterns vary significantly depending on the device and operating system being used to access mobile data. For instance, some iPhone apps put a huge burden on signaling resources, while certain Android apps burn through bandwidth with video and audio downloads.

The answer, for operators, is to understand those differences and manage their networks accordingly.

“Rather than continue to throw equipment and capacity at the problem of increasing traffic, operators have to start measuring throughput at a very granular level—across correlations of devices, applications, service types and locations for different devices and services,” said Oliver Finn, marketing director, NowFactory, which has 31 customers including Vodafone and T-Mobile. “Building network capacity at an aggregate or macro level is not enough. Operators need to think about how to do planning around different variables, such as certain applications, subscriber groups, and device types to really get a sense of what the throughput is for their most-valued and most typical customers in different locations and times of day,” added Finn.

That is increasingly challenging with more and more devices entering the market, as well as more demands for personalization in applications and configurations used over both fixed and mobile networks.

NowFactory’s approach is to apply hardware-based probe technology that captures data in real time. That allows operators to collect data about subscribers and their preferences, devices and their applications, and network behaviors whether fixed or mobile—all in real time.

“In a constantly changing environment, we think hardware-based IP probing captures and correlates information in the best way,” said Finn, noting the NowFactory platform drives six applications—each of which makes use of the same data but with different views for different user types, such as marketing, network planning and operations, and customer care representatives. “The management and delivery of data services means higher degrees of intelligence have to come into play, which requires granular data about smart devices, the level of personalization and the usage of data by different user types,” said Finn.