Need For New Ways To Manage Networks To Stop Tsunami Of Data Causing Havoc

With Nokia Siemens Network releasing a blog post called “Wake up Call: Industry collaboration needed to make beyond 4G networks carry 1000 times more traffic by 2020” it was seen as a call to arms to force fear and reality into the major operators as demand for mobile broadband services is set to massively outstrip the providers capabilities. The largest provider AT&T wireless is preparing itself for the barrage of demand, not only at the outer reaches of its network, but at the very heart where most of the demand will be as the world moves into the next generation with an all-IP upcoming service which will come complete with video services.

Coming straight from the middle of the AT&T Labs, Krish Prabhu said “Over the next five years, our traffic volumes tell us that when we launch LTE each one of our 11 regional cores will have a throughput of two to three terabits, and the national core will have a throughput at least 10 times that. … We are very involved in the solution to that problem. We’ve identified a layered approach to get us there even as we support the launch of our LTE network and get LTE to 90 to 95 percent of our end-users. That to me is the biggest challenge.”

This highlights just the magnitude of the problem facing provider as demand rockets to never before seen levels. The drastic rise in demand is mostly due to the transition from simple voice traffic to data; bringing not only an influx of extra transmissions but a requirement to change the way in which it is handled. Data traffic is often unpredictable and harder to anticipate where peaks will occur, which could lead to overflowing of the network. The providers are all working hard to see how apps act on the network and monitor their dataflow in particular as they search for a way to control the possible data rushes that may happen.

Instead of simply raising fear by the issue of the blog post, Nokia Siemens Network began to look at some potential ideas for maximizing every airwave to increase the abilities of the networks to transmit data across them, also going in the direction of looking at cognitive radios and self-optimizing networks, an idea that is at the front of many vendors suggestion as the networks become more complicated.

However the providers intend to deal with the growing situation, one thing is clear, the change is coming and it is coming fast, so they must work together to find a solution before the networks become overloaded with pressure.

Cell Phone Networks Jam As Panic Spreads After Quake

A lot of the east coast were left in the dark about what was going on after a large 5.8 quake hit just outside Richmond, Virginia. As people desperately tried to find out how the ongoing situation was affecting friends and family they were met with a contact brick wall as the cell phone service was jammed, leading many to believe that many improvements still need to be made to help mobile phones remain active in the aftermath of emergency situations.

All the main cell phone service providers (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T) reported disturbances to their services after the earthquake hit on Tuesday 23rd August. Despite the fact that no damage actually occurred to the cell phone towers, because the quake was felt all along the east coast it was felt by millions in large cities such as New York, Boston and Washington D.C. leading to a rush of people trying to contact each other to find out about the situation elsewhere, which very quickly began to overwhelm the lines and eventually jammed them.

Even with all the improvements that have been made to the networks and the technology used, huge blasts of usage are still enough to bring the networks to standstill, because of the limitations of how much traffic the towers can handle, CITA (the wireless trade industry association) said after the quakes hit. Customers were also urged during the loss of service, and for any future situations, to send messages and emails to avoid clogging the lines up for vital calls. This message was echoed again by the leading service providers.

As for the future, cell phone companies are aiming to extend the 4G services all over the country and increasing the number of antennas to reduce the impact of high usage periods which may lead to jammed network services being a thing that only happened in the past.

The role of social media is becoming more and more obvious and with stress on the mobile networks still proving to be a problem, services like Facebook and Twitter are options to take over where mobile networks fail. Even during the quake last week people were using Twitter once the cell phone networks fell out of use, with the use extending to the network provider Sprint who informed customers to avoid using their cell phones for calls in anything but emergencies and instead use text messages.

How the situation will be resolved will be seen over the coming months and years, but until it is truly tested again in a real emergency we will not know exactly how effective the methods being used have been.