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Most telecom service providers recognize that the mobile environment has perhaps the greatest need for increase bandwidth capability. The prospect of increased video streaming, file downloads and Web browsing among users of wireless handsets is enough to send a carrier off on an infrastructure building spree.

 

Expanded wireless broadband capacity will no doubt be followed by more massive and sophisticated forms of network packet processing to guarantee Quality of Service and regulate bandwidth. One can recall the now-defunct Crescent Networks (whose assets were acquired by Marconi Corp. in 2003) and its Dense Virtual Routed Networking (DVRN) networking paradigm designed to enable enterprises to use multiple services from multiple providers, utilizing many varying types of network infrastructures, or what they called “Collaborative IP Services”. Crescent Networks’ DVRN Application-level Quality of Service used deep packet inspection and application awareness to support millions of flows across a network. But that’s another story.

 

One of the current masters of deep packet inspection, Allot (News - Alert) Communications, is well-known for their intelligent IP service optimization and revenue generation solutions (hardware and software) for DSL, wireless and mobile broadband carriers, service providers, and enterprises.

 

As it happens, Allot is quite interested in the broadband market in which it sells its wares – so much so that it has inaugurated a Global Mobile Broadband Traffic Report, the results of which may lift a few eyebrows. Allot’s GMBT report indicates that, worldwide mobile data bandwidth usage has increased significantly by approximately 30 percent during the second quarter of 2009. Asia leads the growth with 36 percent; Europe posted 28 percent growth and the Americas 25 percent. The Allot GMBT Report, which tracks global IP application usage and growth, collected data from leading mobile operators worldwide with a combined user base of more than 150 million subscribers.

 

The report reveals how subscribers, particularly heavy data users, don’t distinguish between their fixed and their mobile networks, and seem to expect the same level of service from the Internet, irrespective of how they access it. By extension, today’s mobile operators face the same challenges as their wireline counterparts, but with more technological limitations. All of these problems are exacerbated by the network infrastructure where the cells themselves can serve as natural bandwidth bottlenecks, often greatly contributing to network congestion and delay.

 

Some interest facts from the Allot GMBT:

 

• HTTP browsing is the most popular application globally and usage increased by 21 percent.

• HTTP streaming is the fastest-growing application with a usage increase of 58 percent. This includes streaming sites such as YouTube and Hulu (News - Alert).

• HTTP downloads, which experienced 34 percent growth globally, are now almost as popular as P2P, and in EMEA have even overtaken P2P in popularity.

• P2P accounts for 42 percent of bandwidth utilization in the busiest cells on the network, but only 21 percent in the average cell.

 

The Allot GMBT Report data was collected using the long-term reporting capabilities of Allot NetXplorer, Allot’s centralized management and reporting system. The length of the collection period allows accurate identification of usage trends and patterns, reducing the influence of temporary events in the monitored networks.

 

The full Allot GMBT Report can be found on www.allot.com.