Traffic shaping comes to mobile networks
Service can inject ads and slow down or block heavy users

The mobile internet has arrived, and instead of just reading email on our phones, we're streaming music and video, or getting online with a netbook and downloading torrents the way we would on a DSL connection.

That's great for users, but not such good news for the mobile networks, which now are looking to data optimisation techniques to manage and prioritise traffic.

One such data optimisation firm is Bytemobile, which works with T-Mobile in the UK (and over a hundred other networks, including Orange and Vodafone in some countries) to speed up their networks.

"The amount of data is phenomenal," Graham Carey, Bytemobile's MD, tells TechRadar, "and the amount of audio and multimedia data is rising. [On laptops] over 40% of the traffic is video and 50 to 60% is audio, video and photos." And mobile internet connections are commonplace - in Austria there are now more mobile internet users than mobile voice subscribers.

The iPhone and the G1 bring the same traffic patterns to smartphone users, says Carey. "It's becoming much easier for users to go to the internet and, when they do, the sorts of services they are looking at are the multimedia services. And what we're seeing is the operators are planning for that type of growth. They're very interested in video optimisation, multimedia optimisation where you can deliver a quality service but reduce the amount of traffic being delivered."

Speeding up the mobile internet

"We sit in the operator network," says Carey, "and we see all the data traffic passing through; all the http traffic." Caching popular sites on the operator's own network can speed things up by up to five times and dynamic bandwidth shaping uses quality of service policies to give users a much better experience with streaming video.

Rather than just giving the video a higher priority than other traffic, Bytemobile optimises the video stream itself. The right connection speed is more important than the fastest connection speed, says Carey; if you're downloading faster than your phone or PC can handle the video, it will just throw away the packets it's not ready for. "And on a mobile, some users will stop playing the video before they've watched everything they've downloaded."

By knowing what device you're using and what bandwidth you can receive at any given time, Bytemobile can optimise the video so it downloads at the maximum quality for the bandwidth you have. "We can save 30% on the traffic being downloaded; if video is 40 to 50% of the overall traffic that's going to have a big impact on the investment the operators need to make in network traffic. They can design for a lower level of peak throughput or they can take on 20, 30, 40% more users."

Policing heavy users

The system is sophisticated enough to police users, too. Carey doesn't have figures for the UK but in the US, he says, "broadly speaking, 2% of the users consume something like 50% of the traffic; that's a problem for operators on a fixed flat rate tariff because they're clogging up the network in an unfortunate manner. Most operators have a fair use policy, but they don't know how to enforce it."

Bytemobile can use bandwidth shaping to reduce the bandwidth that what Carey calls "excessive or abusive users" get, perhaps during peak hours. Degrading the service isn't the only option, he points out; "You can turn the service off, redirect the user to another site or throttle the service for the user. When they reach the limit, we could pop up a warning and ask them if they want to pay for an extra package. Or it could be the policy of the operator to say they don't want that type of user - it is a very small percentage of people."

That could certainly make a network unpopular with heavy users. Carey admits it's a "tricky situation" and says networks "need to be professional about how manage those users". He insists "the average user would never notice".

And heavy users? "Some will be prepared to pay for a better service; others will go elsewhere. Operators don't want there to be a restriction but they want to see they can earn revenue from this service. They're trying to prevent themselves becoming a bitpipe. Doing all this doesn't help them raise their profile; it's a bit like putting a speed restriction on the M25."

Targeted advertising

Other options Bytemobile can offer could be intrusive for all users. The service is more than compression or prioritisation; it analyses and sometimes transcodes what you're downloading. That means it can add an area to the top of web pages that Carey calls a 'navigation bar' to show the operator logo or advertising, and that advertising can be specifically targeted.

The mobile operator already knows your location, and the Bytemobile service knows what handset you're using and what sites you've been surfing. "If you know someone has gone to a sports site perhaps they are more inclined to see a sports advert. We look at the current real-time context and give that information to an ad server. Add in location-based information, billing and CRM data and the operator can then provide a very much richer service to the consumer."

To avoid privacy issues with individually targeted ads, Carey suggests operators can create 'pseudonyms'. "We can class users as groups; other people who've gone to this site have gone to these other sites. So advertising can be context sensitive to where the user has been going or sites the user has visited over last week or what other people in similar location on similar devices at a similar time have been doing."

Mobile networks have always been keen to remind mobile internet users what network they're on; the walled garden approach of portals is as much about branding and advertising revenue as about user experience.

Carey says Bytemobile will let the operator "stay in touch" with you when you're not on their portal, but the thing about mobile internet is that it's the internet you're using; users may not want their mobile network showing up on every page they visit, even if that does give them a better, faster connection. Services like Bytemobile give mobile operators plenty of options, but the history of the web proves it's compelling rather than intrusive services that succeed.

By Mary Branscombe