Posts Tagged ‘bandwidth control’

Device Awareness: The Key to Service Planning

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 by Cam Cullen

Recently there has been a lot of talk among DPI vendors about location awareness. Location awareness is critical to understanding where the bottlenecks on your network occur, and giving you the ability to actively manage traffic in those locations. Although this is a key capability of what Procera offers (and in much more depth than many other vendors), I want to focus on another key “awareness” component that is not often talked about that can vastly improve the capability of an operator to plan their capacity upgrades and pricing plans.

What is device awareness? Simply put, device awareness is the ability of the DPI system to understand what device is sending/requesting traffic on the network. With so many “internet-connected” devices on networks today, the variety of places and formats to access data has exploded. You can watch Netflix on many TVs, DVD or Blu-Ray players, dedicated boxes (like Roku), consoles (PS3, Wii, and Xbox), smartphones, tablets, or your PC, and Hulu on many of the same.

Why is device awareness important? Understanding what devices your users have connected to the network helps an operator to understand the potential impact of several different scenarios:

1)     If I have x users with a certain device on my networks with a certain location bias and usage profile, what happens if that number becomes 2x?

2)     If a new application comes out (say for example Netflix for PS3, or Hulu Plus for PS3), and I have x users with that device, what is my exposure if 20% of my users start using the new application?

3)     If I want to launch a service with a new device (new iPhone or Android device) and other operators have announced that the normal usage profile for that device is 200GB/month, what might happen to my network with an aggressive take rate?

For Product and Marketing planners, being able to answer these types of questions ensures that the network can handle any changes in user behavior – either application or device related. For users, it ensures that the network can adapt to their usage and not experience dissatisfaction with network performance as usage patterns morph over time. All operators are very aware of the user dissatisfaction issues floating around the world as Smartphone and mobile broadband laptop connections become mission critical for corporations. Proactive management and planning are possible with the right kind of awareness and reporting engines.

How is device awareness implemented?  There are many ways that this can be gathered on the network. In mobile networks, it is common for operators to include this information in the Business or Operational Support Systems for each user account, and often make it part of the user authentication and accounting exchange where it can be snooped by a DPI system. It can also be determined by the applications used by the subscriber (i.e. if the traffic matches Rock Band for the PS3, the user is most likely using a PS3). Another method is by information gleaned from the user agent or application specific information that can be gathered by the DPI engine during Layer 7 analysis. Although each of these methods is not a fail-safe method to gather device information, the combination of these methods can provide a very close approximation for network operators. For example, a query on how many unique subscribers matched a PS3 signature during the month could provide the basis for determining how many subscribers would have access to the new Hulu Plus video streaming application when it was released for the PS3, and another query to see how many of those subscribers had used Hulu (or any streaming video service) before would provide additional planning input to determine the impact of that new service on their network.

Device awareness is a key aspect of the “Awareness” capability of the Procera solution, and without awareness, analysis and control are not possible. I will have more to say on location awareness in a future blog, as this is another key awareness factor, not only for mobile networks, but also for fixed and wi-fi deployments as well. As devices proliferate, being able to ensure that the content is served appropriately for those devices and ensure the correct amount of bandwidth is available will be critical.

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Mobile Data Overtakes Voice In Revenue

Thursday, June 10th, 2010 by Jon Linden

Only 18 months ago I was sitting with a mobile operator who told me that their main objective was to ensure that data services didn’t cannibalize their voice revenue. The reason was simple – data service generated about 5% of the revenue.

Fast forward to June 2010. The sun is shining and the World Cup in soccer is just about to kick off, but more importantly Softbank Mobile Japan announces that data services for the first time overtook voice services in revenue in Q1! Japan has always paved the way for mobile data services, and NTT DoCoMo are expected to follow suit during the second half of this year.

But Japan is no different (at least not in this specific sense) than any other country in the western world. I see mobile operators here in Sweden spend the majority of their TV advertising on promoting mobile data services. It has become a differentiator and a big enough piece of the pie. We will shadow Japan and probably break the 50% marker in 2011 in many cases. Mobile data is a $50bn+ business this year in the US according to Chetan Sharma Consulting; a significant business where minor changes and adjustments in packaging, pricing, production cost and ARPU has a substantial impact on bottom-line.

Chetan Sharma also said that the US mobile subscription penetration was approximately 94% at the end of Q1 2010, and past 100% if we take out the demographics of 5 yrs and younger. Growth won’t come from winning new voice users, but from making the ones you have more profitable and to steal customers from the competition – e.g. with compelling data offerings. And you’ll have to control production cost since they’ll constantly expect more at the same price.

The conclusion is that mobile operators must take a seriously look at the packaging of their data services. “All you can eat” is not the best for (almost all) your customers, and it’s certainly not the best for your business case – especially as access speeds go up. That’s why we see more and more mobile operators moving away from flat rate data packages, as Cam referred to in his recent blog post. Tiered services are happening – thank God!

Eventually we will have options for people with different needs. But let’s stop for a second and consider what you’re trying to accomplish. Tiered services can either be a customer incentive or a cost insurance – or both. Don’t get too introvert in controlling potential exceptions with caps and limitations. This will add complexity, customer concern (even if they’re not even close to any limit/cap), and you’re up against some serious competition out there. But still, as said, small changes can have a big impact. Offloading peak hours to better utilize your network, attract new customers, or offer added value services that can boost ARPU can boost your profitability and ability to invest even more in your services and customer support.

I hate to say it, but we know from experience that devices (e.g. iPhone launches or subsidiesed phones) actually sell more subscriptions than any packages we produce. But service packages will support the devices and add to the differentiation. Make sure you know who your customer is, where he is, what applications he’s running, and what device he’s using – in order to accommodate his then current and general needs. Make sure your information is reliable since accurate intelligence enables proper business decisions.

So what are my recommendations? I’ve said it before (Do’s and Don’ts in Bandwidth Control) – keep it simple! Your biggest challenge will be to communicate it, implement it, and justify it (“is YouTube video or web?”). Know your customer. Define your target group and offer applicable services. Serving young savvy nerds with the same offering as unsophisticated 65+ Internet users won’t work. Don’t become too technology-driven and introvert in your business model. And avoid too many options since they will cause confusion.

So, do I need to say that we know this space and offer the solution you’re looking for? Well, we are, and we’re darn good at it! I look forward to you reaching out to me to discuss this further, but in the meantime I’ll kick back and enjoy some seriously good World Cup soccer. Sweden didn’t qualify this year, which gives Swedish mobile operators another four years to work out a business model that supports the network being flooded with real-time streaming video. Good luck (no irony intended).

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Mobile Data Plans that Work

Monday, June 7th, 2010 by Cam Cullen

Mobile data plans have been in the news quite a bit lately, with Verizon (LTE plans) and AT&T (iPad and iPhone plans) updating the market on their mobile data positions. Verizon has all but announced that there will be no unlimited data plans on their LTE network, which is now scheduled to go live in 30-40 cities in Q4 2010, and people will pay based on their usage. AT&T announced that they are doing away with the unlimited iPad plan (already) and will now support tethering for the iPhone (but only for a 2GB/month plan). Other mobile operators also would rather have data plans based on usage rather than unlimited plans, but it remains to be seen how long or if operators with rich data devices can hold out, or if the pain of congestion will hit their network as it has for AT&T.

But is the ideal answer for mobile data to always bill based on usage? Although I understand the issues that are driving the operators to implement usage based plans (cost control, congestion management, etc.), I think that there are hybrid plans that could significantly accelerate the adoption of mobile data usage (and fixed mobile substitution for some users). Mobile operators could serve their customers better by offering flexible plans that were targeted towards different “consumer” types on their mobile network that were sensitive to application usage and time of day. These plans would be ideal for the new generation of rich media devices (Android phones/tablets, iPhone, iPad, and laptops) and accelerate their adoption by the consumer groups that covet the devices but are still afraid of bill shock (which will be even higher now that overage charges are going to be pervasive). It has been proven that devices can sell data plans, but the plans can also stunt the usage of the devices if using them becomes too complicated and expensive.

What would these plans look like? Most plans would be similar to the existing plans, with usage meters for the majority of data and separate usage meters for the applications that are attractive to specific consumers, with streaming video, audio, and file sharing leading the pack. Although web pages can be a lot of data (I once read an analysis that said the BBC front page was 1MB of data, which could cost you a pretty penny when you are roaming!), the real problem for mobile operators are long-lived streaming or downloading applications that can cause persistent congestion in a cell or on the network. Some examples of targeted plans:

  • Streaming Video: Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., 25GB of data, unlimited nights and weekends
  • Streaming Audio: Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., 10GB of data, unlimited nights and weekends
  • Unlimited Web: Unlimited web browsing and email, 2GB streaming media and other applications
  • Social Media: Unlimited Facebook/MySpace/IM/email, 2GB other applications

These plans could either be an add-on to an existing data plan, or part of different bundles for users. A very attractive iPad plan would offer unlimited web browsing, but a usage meter on other applications. I don’t see these plans as being negative towards Network Neutrality, since they will be selected by the users – as an alternative to the pure usage-based plan that the mobile operator would also offer. Time-based plans are already popular among mobile operators for voice, and could easily be popular among students and business travelers (i.e. Nights and Weekends plans).

My concern is that placing restrictive limits on bandwidth usage will stifle or limit the potential of the nascent market for rich data devices, or limit their use to Wi-Fi networks, which completely misses the goal of upgrades to LTE and other high speed mobile data networks – which is to make access ubiquitous for users (and not ubiquitous just for email). The challenge of implementing these plans is on the systems that would be used to meter the different applications (i.e. DPI systems) to ensure that the application classification is accurate.

An innovative mobile operator that offered these plans as an alternative to a more restrictive plan could tip the scales in their favor when competing for the “high value” users for mobile data. In the highly competitive mobile market, operators that think outside the box and find ways to best leverage the technology that they are already deploying in their networks will emerge victorious and profitable. Flexibility will be a key success factor.

As a user – would you be more likely to purchase a plan that gave you flexibility in how you used your mobile broadband?  I know that I would.

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iPad – Telecom Armageddon or Savior?

Monday, April 19th, 2010 by Cam Cullen

I was having a discussion with a service provider (wireline broadband, interestingly enough) and he asked me if I thought that the iPad would have a significant impact on his network. My initial reaction was no, but as we talked through the issue, my opinion shifted.

When asked that question, my first thought was that the iPad would not affect a wireline broadband network that much, right? It is only a small number of devices (relatively speaking), and it is not like it can be used for file sharing. Sure, it can stream video, but how often are you going to sit and watch video on an iPad?

Then I started thinking about the real impact of the iPhone. Although the iPhone is a great device, and has certainly caused ATT issues in the US, and other operators abroad, as users take advantage of the media capabilities of the phone, it had a much broader effect on the industry as a whole (that incidently led directly to the iPad). Before the iPhone, phone-based data usage was mainly email (ala RIM and Blackberry devices) and light web browsing. The long lasting effect of the Blackberry was that people became used to being connected, and with the scarcity of Wi-Fi hotspots, people began to want always on mobile broadband, and business users began to purchase the data plans from mobile operators. Once the iPhone was released, it kick started the smartphone market like never before, and brought more users to the mobile broadband buffet. Every vendor wanted an “iPhone-killer”, and Android, Palm, Microsoft, and other operating systems began to proliferate on handsets at reasonable prices. These devices gave users a taste of what high quality media and browsing experiences could be had with mobile platforms, and even a taste of some really useful applications (phone-based GPS and mapping applications) that took advantage of the mobile data connections – including some streaming media and VOIP applications. The advent of flat rate mobile data plans (at least in name) for reasonable prices has spurred the demand for mobile broadband, and with so many devices able to connect to the mobile broadband network, has driven operators to invest heavily in the infrastructure to meet the increasing demand.

So the impact (I think) of the iPad will be similar. The “iPad-killer” race is on, with HP, Dell, Google, and many others racing to release devices based on Android or Windows that will compete with the iPad. There have already been application releases for Kindle and Netflix on the iPad, and more streaming applications will follow on these alternative platforms. I am not sure I want to watch all my TV on an iPad-like device, but it is easier than watching on a laptop or an iPhone. Add a camera and a USB port (hint, hint) to a device like this with a 10 hour battery life, and the potential for a truly portable media device is not a future – it is the present.

This is the future I see coming out of the iPad – one that has the potential to dramatically increase the usage (especially streaming media) on both wireline and wireless broadband networks. People will use their wireless at home and mobile broadband while traveling. If you are a heavy media consumer, traveling with an iPad and a laptop makes sense – I can read or watch movies on the plane with the iPad, do email on the laptop, and even multitask in hotel rooms – watching media on the iPad while working on the laptop.

So if you are a provider that is ready for this – and can deliver a high Quality of Experience to your users (and monitor it to make sure that you are delivering a high QoE) – you have a bright future ahead of you.

Me – I can finally have a data pad like I always saw on Star Trek.

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Deloitte Says 2010 Looks Great

Thursday, March 11th, 2010 by Jon Linden

The very nature of predictions is that they can be wrong. But sometimes they’re more substantiated, sometimes the source is more credible, and sometimes you just want them to be true. The former two apply to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s “Telecommunications Predictions” that I read every year. When they predict, for this year, a 100% growth for products that help decongest the mobile bottleneck, then I also confess to wish for them to be true.

While over-all mobile operator spending is expected to grow 7% in 2010, some pockets of technology – where one of the first segments they point out is deep packet inspection (DPI) – can grow more than 10x thanks to a pressing need. In 2009 the last walled gardens were torn down, smart phones became data smart, user interfaces encouraged use of data services, and 3G connections became a true option to fixed broadband (I use it as such at my summer home and when travelling). Data volume has grown and will continue to grow accordingly.

I’ve pointed out in the past that mobile operators are more sensitive to bulky traffic due to higher cost per megabit and fewer available megabits in the access network. Mobile networks become bitpipes, hence it’s more important than ever to know if, what and when the network is being clogged up. The ability to build out network capacity fast enough, and to do it with an intact and feasible business case, drives a great demand for mobile DPI; a demand that will grow this year according to Deloitte’s predictions.

Deloitte says that “at the start of 2010, there should be about 600 million mobile broadband connections between laptops, netbooks, and smartphones” and they predict that “cellular data wireless networks will have gone from underutilization to congestion”. Most mobile operators have designed their networks for some growth, but congestion, also known as over-subscription in this case, is part of the equation. Deloitte predicts an access network issue. My experience is that this is not a big issue since new technologies, like HSPA+, are constantly released. End-users also expect and accept a lower speed when going mobile.

However, the underlying network is typically not dimensioned to support constant increase in access speed or a changing user behavior with longer and more frequent sessions. “Congestion issues sometimes have less to do with providing very high broadband download rates to a few users, instead, they often revolve around providing highly variable two-way bandwidth to many mobile users whose usage requirements change from minute to minute” to once again quote Deloitte. This has an impact on the entire network – from access to backhaul, and all the way up to core and peering.

There will always be overloaded cells due to design, subscriber take-rate, and the dynamic nature of roaming users who occasionally are in the same geographical location. Capacity is a constant game of catching up. DPI is the tool that helps you to plan capacity, identifies issues and resolves them – long-term or until a long-term solution is in place. A DPI deployment pays off almost instantly through better customer satisfaction and timely infrastructure investments. A pretty easy investment decision, right?

Light Reading predicted in 2007 that mobile DPI would be the growth engine for DPI. They expected mobile DPI to catch up with fixed DPI in 2010 and exceed it in 2011. This seems to be a pretty accurate assumption. Especially since we hook on a second locomotive to the mobile DPI train this year – LTE. Thought LTE might resolve access bandwidth constraint, it causes the same challenge for the rest of the network – at an even higher degree.

I suppose all of this is primarily of interest to our investors. Mobile operators are a prioritized market segment for us. No one is actually better positioned than Procera for success in this space. We have the leading technology, we have traction with strong references, and we’ve grown at a healthy pace that beats the competition. To me the above says that we stand a good chance of delivering yet another year of extensive growth, following two remarkable years of 75%+ growth while in a global financial recession. Stay tuned for how this prediction comes true.

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How not to do P2P

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 by Kriss Andsten

Peer-to-peer is rather interesting to work with. Disruptive technologies always fascinate me, especially when it’s closely related to work so I can spend oodles of time on it. It’s also interesting to see the developments in the area – even if I don’t always agree with the sentiments of the researchers (for instance, I quite agree with “http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/11/analysis-of-bittorrent-utp-congestion-avoidance/” George Ou on BitTorrent – for now).

Even so, there are good apples and bad apples. BitTorrent got an undeservingly bad name from people confusing content with transport. Even if I don’t think that they got it right with their be-nice-to-the-network idea, they tried. All in all, a sane actor.

Pando, on the other hand, is an actor that seems quite sane – working in the P4P working group, seemingly trying to make a living out of a very kosher sort of P2P. The protocol isn’t too bloody bad either – the only problem is that parts of the client lodge themselveswhere it’s quite invisible on a Windows system. That, and the usual foray of “Would you want to make xyz.com your default website? Search page? Dog grooming service?”.

Some quick testing shows PMB.exe – Pando Media Booster – disregards the Pando client setting telling it not to start on Windows startup. Different binary from the Pando client, you say? Sure. Explain that to the average user. The net effect is that the software is happily chugging along at 1.5 Mbps without any sort of user notification. No tray icons, or windows – nothing.

Speaking in terms of ISP per-subscriber data usage (on average per user), Pando will skew it to the tunes of one Pando user not knowing she runs PMB to 50 – give or take – purely average users. That, in my book, is the dark side of P2P. Users running BitTorrent, Spotify, Voddler, etc. make a conscious decision to run it. Users running PMB don’t and really have no simple way of knowing why World of Warcraft lag went up or why pages are loading slowly.

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File Transfer – The Ugly Way

Monday, February 1st, 2010 by Kriss Andsten

Working in the field of traffic analysis, you get to see a rather modest number of good solutions to a given problem, a larger number of decent solutions and – sadly – quite a few less than stellar ideas as well.  My favorite pet peeve – and believe me, there’s a slew to choose from, is using FTP as an update mechanism for games, and doing it in a not very thought-out manner.

Say that you have 4000 asset files in a given game. Most of them are pretty small – well under 8KB. You want to support users going from version A, B or C to version D, utilizing the least amount of bandwidth in the process. Logic dictates that it would make a lot of sense to get a checksum of all your local files, send the checksums to the server and have the server return a list of files you need to update, right? A minimum amount of bandwidth is utilized and the user can update from pretty much any version.

Enter FTP. FTP uses one control connection and n data connections, where n equals the number of transferred files and directory listings done over the lifetime of the session. And by ‘connection’, that’s a full-blown TCP stream, three-way handshake and all. Let’s pretend that I have a 100ms latency to the update server and the server or clients themselves incur no extra overhead – that leaves us with:

* One PASV call in the control connection and the response to that one. 200 ms.

* One three-way handshake, add another 300 ms (SYN, SYNACK, ACK) – plus another 100 ms before I start seeing the data from the server.

So the tally: To transfer a given file (be it 0.5 KB, 200 KB or 15 MB), the transfer overhead itself will be 600 ms. ,which could be OK’ish for one large patch file. Let’s say there’s a 200 MB update covering 1500 files – that’s 15 minutes worth of waiting for the transfers to start for a set of files that should take something along the lines of two minutes to actually transfer over a pretty basic broadband connection.

I think World of Warcraft  (and others, but they’re a good example) got the right idea from a developer’s perspective – they transfer the patches in sets – going from A to D would require you to go from A to B to C to D – more to download, but people can do such over BitTorrent or any old HTTP mirror rather than the developer’s own site. Game developers, take note. Please.

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Do’s and Don’ts in Bandwidth Control

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 by Jon Linden

Suddenly it all happens at once. We went from zero to two events focused on DPI in one week – Light Reading’s virtual tradeshow Policy Control & Deep Packet Inspection, and Informa’s Broadband Traffic Management event IRL in London early last week. These events are good validation that DPI has grown up to get proper attention.

I was on-site at the event in London – and I apologies for the hotel lobby background noise on my line in the LR panel discussion. But I also had the pleasure to be on a panel in London together with Benny Lim from SingTel and David Hodgers from O2 Ireland, moderated by Mark Newman from Informa. The topic was “Lessons Learnt: The Do’s and Don’ts of Bandwidth Control”.

So what are the lessons learnt on bandwidth control? Let me quickly go through my conclusions and what I told the audience. When looking at do’s and don’ts I see two categories: what works and what ‘s ethical. The latter is more challenging with today’s fast moving social media where bad news travels fast and subscribers vote with their feet.

How do you manage this? Well, don’t expect to “get away with it”. Internet users are savvy and operators in London confirmed that non-transparency came back to bite them. You must be able to defend what you’re doing, and a good test is if you’d accept it yourself. Greed is not an acceptable reason, though a viable business case normally is.

Do’s and don’ts also depend on what you’re trying to achieve. DPI and bandwidth control spans over a broad range of applications, from network protection and congestion control to quality assurance and service differentiation. We tend to be very introvert and technology-driven in this industry, but you must start from business benefits and objectives in order to define intentions and make it understandable to your end-users.

The key to what works is knowing what’s going on. It’s not an option to guess what your customers do and how your network is doing. And conditions change – all the time. What used to be 80% filesharing a year and a half ago is today replaced with 40% streaming video as the largest bandwidth consumer. A policy rule-set that is not up-to-date will cause some strange consequences.

I wish I could provide a blueprint for what works, but every situation is unique. Your product mix, fixed and/or mobile, target groups, price positioning, and on top of this there are geographical differences like what applications are used and what bandwidth control practices are accepted.

This means that the number one thing to do is try. You will have to try it out and assess the outcome in your specific situation and your environment. I know this sound scary, but be adaptive, be quick, and make sure you make qualified decisions based on facts rather than guesstimates and assumptions.

Let me also summarize my don’ts: Don’t lie – be transparent. Don’t insert packets – honor integrity. Don’t get introverted and super techie – understand your business and your customers. And don’t do nothing – this is the most expensive decision of them all…

Let me wrap up with one more suggestion for what you should do: Keep it simple! Complexity kills this cat. If it’s too complicated you won’t be able to communicate to your subscribers, it’ll be impossible to update and change, and you won’t be able to measure if you successfully achieved what you intended to. This is hard to make simple – which is why we, Procera, are here to help ;-)

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