Green Light for Mobile Broadband Spectrum: Not a quick fix for network congestion says Acision

The UK government announcement this week that the long-awaited spectrum auctions will finally take place in 2011 represents another significant step in the evolution of the mobile data market. Yet while upgrades to the spectrum are crucial for increasing bandwidth and enhancing the mobile broadband end-user experience, they will only temporarily alleviate the issue of network congestion, rather than serve as a definitive solution to the problem as data traffic growth will, as predicted, always outstrip bandwidth capacity.

Acision, a world leader in mobile data, comments: “The explosive growth of mobile data applications and services has been the defining industry trend of the past 12 months but its success has been tempered by networks’ inability to cope with the increased traffic and unsustainable cost levels of all-you-can-eat mobile broadband packages. This in turn has contributed to an unacceptable end-user experience, with recent research from Acision and YouGov highlighting that 84% of mobile broadband users had experienced quality of service (QoS) issues, such as slow speeds, poor network coverage and connection loss.”

“In order to raise customer satisfaction levels while simultaneously operating a sustainable business, operators cannot solely rely on additional spectrum and 4G technology like LTE. They also need to address three major areas: control cost by employing techniques such as data compression and defining rules and policies to help better manage peak traffic; increase Quality of Experience by optimising media by device or available bandwidth and by prioritising cell traffic; and finally, raise ARPU by introducing differentiated service offerings suitable to subscriber needs.”