The mobile industry is undergoing a paradigm shift caused by the explosion of always-connected devices with thousands of consumer and enterprise applications based on 3G & 4G technologies.

This changes user behaviour and mobile broadband expectations, thus causing a shift from operator-driven to a services-driven business models.

Findings by 3G Americas show that mobile voice traffic worldwide has doubled between March, 2007 and May, 2009, while in the same period, packet data traffic has increased by 18 times.

According to an IDC report of February, 2010 sponsored by Juniper Networks, this trend is due to several factors.

One of them is that at the time there were a total of 570 3G networks of either Wideband CDMA or CDMA2000 technologies worldwide and the resultant economies of scale has resulted in declining device and service costs, which is a key factor which has resulted in an accelerated pace of 3G service uptake, especially during the preceding 12 to 18 months.

The first driver was the growth in the number of notebook and netbook PCs with mobile broadband connectivity to the Internet, with the pressure these bandwidth-hungry users put on the network rising exponentially.

On average, a typical 2G or 2.5G handset user would would consume tens of megabytes per month but the typical netbook or notebook user would consume from two to three gigabytes per month and this is expected to increase even further with higher bandwidth, fourth-generation technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE).

Smartphones

Adding to that is the growth in the number of smartphones, which already consume 300 MB per month and growing. However, while individually each smartphone consumers less than a PC, their greater numbers put pressure on networks.

According to IDC, sales of smartphones in the last quarter of 2009 was up 39% year-on-year  and grew by 15% overall in 2009, while the market for all devices grew 11% in the fourth quarter, 2009 and actually declined 5% over the whole year. So the general trend is towards use of data intensive phones such as the Apple iPhone, the BlackBerry and new products such as the Motorola Droid.

Another factor driving up data traffic is increasing complexity of the types of applications accessed on them. Users now access bandwidth-hungry applications such as video and rich media compared to text messaging and e-mail previously.

For example, T-Mobile found that the Nokia N95 increased mobile data usage in Europe by 20%, the early EDGE-based iPhone increased traffic by 100%, while the iPhone 3G increased traffic by 200%.

In the U.S., using data usage of a voice-centric 3G phones as a base, a data-centric 3G phone used eight times as much data, while the Android-based T-Mobile G1 smartphone with full touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard consumed 50 times more data.

As data usage continues to rise, it will put increased demand for more bandwidth and increase network capacity, and with the introduction of more personalised and customised services, this will another layer of complexity and pressure on networks.

For example, targeted advertising services require real-time analysis of customer preferences, location and activity, not only increasing demand for additional bandwidth and capacity but also will require a significant level of network intelligence and Internet protocol (IP) competency.

Thus mobile operators are faced with two challenges. the first is to contain costs in the face of increasing usage and the non-linear relationship between data traffic and revenue growth, meaning that the current paradigms in terms of technology, infrastructure and business models are unsustainable.

The second challenge is the risk of dis-intermediation posed by the rapidly increasing third-party applications and services outside of operators' walled gardens, leaving them with little or no revenue-generating opportunity.

To address the first challenge, operators must transform their network through technologies which substantially reduces their costs per bit. A conventional solution to expand network capacity is to add software and hardware elements to the network's service complex but this scales poorly and does not address the non-linear relationship between data traffic and revenues.

So mobile operators need a solution which provides and immediate reduction in total cost of ownership and simplification of the overall network by reducing complexity and cost. These solutions must also both address the requirements of of existing network technologies such as W-CDMA or CDMA2000 and of next generation technologies as operators move towards LTE.

Addressing the risk of dis-intermediation requires changes in policy, as operators' “walled gardens” - ie. suites of its own content and applications provided on its own portal to its own subscribers - are breaking down and giving way to subscriber access to third-party content and applications from outside their respective walled gardens.

Instead, they should embrace those third-party providers as their strategic partners and the technology must encourage and enable an ecosystem of these strategic partners who provide innovative applications and services from which operators can build new revenue streams.

Operators must create and application blending environment where they are at the centre of the value chain. Innovation must occur at a rapid pace and enable multi-partner entitlement models which cater to new revenue concepts – such as those promised by ad-sponsored, fee or subscription-based services.

Also, the environment must be an open and inherently secure user-driven platform which benefits from the creativity of a development community at large. It must also draw upon the advantages and business models from the Internet and Web 2.0 community and bring them into the telecommunications world.

Juniper's solution

Juniper announced a slew of solutions to address rapidly changing customer behaviours and expectations and to improve total costs and revenue opportunities for operators at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February.

They are Junos Ready Software, Junos Pulse for Smartphones, the Juniper Mobile Secure engine, Juniper Traffic Direct, Juniper media Flow and Juniper Mobile Core Evolution.

One of them combines Traffic Direct and Media Flow to immediately reduce data load on mobile networks.

As data volume increases, operators are faced with the challenge to effectively scale the capacity of the service complex – ie. that part of the network sites between the evolved packet core and the Internet cloud which contains hardware and software elements such as WAP gateways, content filters, firewalls and so on - and increasing their capacity involves high capital and operational expenditures.

Also, many of these elements are not designed for the kinds of bandwidth and data volumes required in 4G and even 3G networks and as more elements are added to the service complex, latency in the network is increased,which risks degrading the overall customer experience.

In conversations with mobile operators, they told IDC that most of the content involved in the explosion in data traffic is web-based traffic which does not need to pass through the service gateway.

So, Juniper Traffic Direct combines intelligent subscriber and application policies with Juniper's highly scalable MX 3D Series universal edge routers to shunt bulk data traffic directly to the Internet, bypassing the service gateway.

Juniper Media Flow on the other hand optimises mobile and fixed networks for fast, efficient video and rich media delivery — enabling a TV-like experience on smartphones and other mobile devices, while reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) for mobile operators by employing advanced software from Juniper partner Ankeena Networks, which enables smooth adaptive bit streaming for uninterrupted video viewing.

Expected to be available in Q2 2010, Media Flow will include a Juniper VXA Series content delivery engine and Ankeena software to provide video and content delivery up to 10Gbps per engine.

The survey which was validated by IDC found that over a five year period, Traffic Direct and Media Flow working together help operators lower their capital expenditure by 76%, operational expenditure by 66%,  transit costs by 64% by bypassing the service gateway and power costs by 75% or 70% overall reduction in TCO.

Expected to be available to selected customers in the fourth quarter, 2010, Juniper Mobile Core Evolution, will provide an open and secure mobile packet core to monetize 3G and 4G services on the same network.

It employs MX 3D Series routers and Juniper's Junos software and also shunts traffic arriving at the network's packet core edge on the IP/Ethernet backhaul connections from the base stations and diverts it directly to the Internet cloud, bypassing the packet core and service gateway.

Mobile Core Evolution delivers 3G and 4G gateway capabilities while accelerating service innovation and time to market with high scalability across bandwidth, subscribers and services. It will  enable new services based on Junos SDK (software development kit), while offering strong built-in security features to protect subscribers. to fundamentally transform the mobile packet core to drive down costs, increase revenue opportunities and improve user experiences on a unified network.

It will also enable services migration from 3G to 4G networks with the purchase of an additional software license for existing Juniper MX Series customers.

Junos Ready Software is a growing portfolio of Juniper and third-party developed applications based on the Junos software platform. Specifically for mobile operators, Juniper is delivering new third-party applications for mobile video delivery, addressable advertising, service monitoring, service delivery and security. These applications are certified to run on Junos, Juniper's cross-network software platform which is the operating system of its routers, switches and other network equipment.

Mobile security

Available this second quarter, Junos Pulse, based on the world's most scalable Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) technologies, is the industry's first downloadable client software which provides secure connections across smartphones, notebooks and netbooks to a wide range of corporate applications to provide built-in mobile security in an extensible software platform to enable news service models for operators.

“As mobile devices become ubiquitous tools for enterprise productivity, delivering transparent security – regardless of device and location – it's critical to protect the corporate network and ensure the productivity of mobile users,” said Wan Ahmad Kamal, country manager, Juniper Networks Malaysia.

It provides customers with protection against malware from Internet security leader Webroot and Juniper will seamlessly integrate its detection engine into Junos Pulse for Windows to let customers restrict access to corporate data and applications when security threats are detected, and automatically eradicate threats so that employees can stay connected and productive.

Business customers have informed Juniper that Junos Pulse has allowed them to let their Windows Mobile users securely access documents and applications securely, while Paul Bryan, senior director of Windows phone product management at Microsoft said that it lets Windows Mobile users easily access Microsoft SharePoint document libraries using SharePoint Workspace Mobile.

This first half, Juniper is working with mobile platform providers to deliver Junos Pulse on Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile smartphones or about 76% of all smartphones in use today and will extend it for other platforms later.

Meanwhile, Juniper Mobile Secure is a new solution which lets service providers embed security throughout their infrastructure – across mobile devices, applications and networks to deliver secure user experiences which is highly scalable based on Juniper's SRX Series services gateway and Junos Pulse software to ensure broad device support, investment optimisation and services.

“With Mobile Secure featuring Junos Pulse, we can now help mobile operators drive new economic models with scalable built-in security to enable new revenue streams and faster service delivery,” said Wan Ahmad Kamal.