3G Smartphone features may affect Telecom’s productivity
filed in Mobile Productivity on Feb.24, 2010
I do know for a fact that the data services that we use are far less than voice data when it comes to constraints that the cell tower of wireless carriers use. So how come the wireless carriers are still so much affected? Ars Technica have a good article on this, specifically, the smart monitoring of connections could be causing this:
The first problem that O2 encountered was that the iPhone uses more power saving features than previous smartphone designs. Most devices that use data do so in short bursts—a couple e-mails here, a tweet there, downloading a voicemail message, etc. Normally, devices that access the data network use an idling state that maintains the open data channel between the device and the network. However, to squeeze even more battery life from the iPhone, Apple configured the radio to simply drop the data connection as soon as any requested data is received. When the iPhone needs more data, it has to set up a new data connection.
The result is more efficient use of the battery, but it can cause problems with the signaling channels used to set up connections between a device and a cell node. Cell nodes use signaling channels to set up the data connection, as well as signaling phone calls, SMS messages, voicemails, and more. When enough iPhones are in a particular area, these signaling channels can become overloaded—there simply aren’t enough to handle all the data requests along with all the calls and messages.
It’s important to note, however, that this technique is not limited to the iPhone. Android and webOS devices also use a similar technique to increase battery life. While the iPhone was the first and currently most prolific device of this type, such smartphones are quickly becoming common, and represent the majority of growth in mobile phone sales in the past year.
Our source at O2 told us that network equipment that is configured to handle signaling traffic dynamically—shifting more spectrum to signaling channels when needed—can mitigate this problem. But even with more signaling capacity, network nodes may not be able to set up a data session, or may have problems getting a valid network address from an overloaded DHCP server. He said that data capacity is rarely the problem—nodes themselves can usually handle much more data than is flowing through them. However, the networks need to be configured to handle a growing number of devices connecting and disconnecting at a much higher rate than they’ve been accustomed to.
We spoke to another expert who works in the telecom field to find out why most European networks were not experiencing the problems that AT&T and O2 did. He told Ars that Europe embraced heavy text messaging and data use far earlier than users in the US. SMS and MMS messages rely heavily on signaling channels to operate, and so networks were generally configured to dynamically manage changes in signaling traffic.
O2 worked with its network equipment vendors to identify the problems and adjust the configuration to adapt to the changing needs of its smartphone users. For its part, AT&T has announced publicly that it is increasing backhaul capacity by running fiber to its cell sites, and plans an additional investment in network infrastructure—including adding up to 2,000 additional towers this year. The company would not comment on its efforts to address the kinds of issues described by our source at O2, though we know that O2 shared what it learned with AT&T and other carriers.
