No Point In Networks Selection Unless You Know What To Select!

By Lonnie Schilling, CEO of Birdstep – Panelist and workshop sponsor of the WBA, Carrier Wi-Fi Summit at Mobile World Congress 2014 #MWC14CWS

Wi-Fi offload has grown up since it first emerged on stage in the early smartphone era as a way of coping with increasing mobile data traffic in a more cost effective way than just building out the cellular operator infrastructure. While traffic growth remains the single biggest driver of data offload, the emphasis has changed subtly from routing data to selecting the best network through intelligent application of real time analytics. We now use the term Intelligent Network Selection to describe the technologies applied in our platform to give operators the best of both worlds, in being able to offer a high quality user experience while optimizing network costs. It turns out that these seemingly conflicting requirements can be reconciled effectively by applying policy rules that take account of factors at different scales, ranging from longer term business rules such as content rights to transient network conditions such as relative congestion on the Wi-Fi and cellular networks. These rules can also take account of factors relevant to the user, such as the specific performance demands of the application they are using or how much battery life their device has remaining at a given point in time. If the battery is low the service might switch from Wi-Fi to cellular to consume less power.

Always Smartest Connected
At Birdstep our Intelligent Network Selection strategy is governed by the principle of “Always Smartest Connected”, emphasising the growing focus on the user. There may be situations for example where a cellular network has limitations over individual connection bandwidth and the available Wi-Fi network has spare capacity. In such a case, if the premium service is say a pay TV video and at the same time the user’s device is a tablet with a high resolution screen, the best possible service may be delivered by offloading the streaming session so that the video can be seen in higher resolution. If however the device is already streaming at full resolution on the cellular network, it may be preferable not to offload that streaming session at that time. Under some circumstances it can also be that on-load to the cellular network is the best option for the user.

Naturally such decisions cannot be taken out of thin air and so require reliable access to data in near real time to make. This is where real time analytics comes in, which is therefore a major focus for us at Birdstep and is continually expanding in scope.

The most obvious data parameters that come from the mobile network are time-of-day, location of the user’s device and congestion of the cell, however, in addition to these network parameters the operator must equally be dependent on information from the user device as well. This is not just to provide information on the user’s application, but more importantly on the device status such as battery consumption, network throughput, delay, latency and jitter from the Wi-Fi network. It is also important to realize that seamless and secure handover between Wi-Fi and cellular can only take place with the full cooperation of the client device in the process, in conjunction with effective policy management on the network side. There is a standard mechanism for orchestrating this cooperation between the operator’s policy management system and the client’s connection manager and this is the 3GPP’s Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF). But for the most effective implementation of policy the client must also obtain the right information and feed this back to the operator, which is where the added value comes in.

Optimizing Network Selection
The key is to give operators full awareness both of the user experience and the status of the Wi-Fi network to optimize control over a device’s network selection across a HetNet (Heterogeneous Network) at the most granular level. This involves taking into account a growing range of contextual information to make network selection decisions, in addition to the basic parameters such as time, location, network congestion, and individual subscriber information.

For such reasons HetNet operators need a flexible added value solution with the agility to offer the best user experience while dealing cost effectively with the data explosion.

– Ends-

NOTE
Smart Wi-Fi Offload For Continuity Of Experience – The True OTT Differentiator is the subject of the following Birdstep events that will provide real-world examples of how Telecom and MSOs deliver a consistent, continuous and best-quality experience across heterogeneous networks combining Wi-Fi and 4G/LTE.