Differentiated service strategies for broadband

POLICY CONTROL ON CLIENT DEVICESWWW.GOSNETWORKS.COM

Strategies to Differentiate Services,Target New Customers & Grow Customer Base

Peter Thompson

Chief Scientist

GoS Networks Limited

1


Industry Trends

• 2015: nearly 3.5 billion mobile broadband subscriptions, – Largely smartphone-based

• Rise of over-the-top (OTT) services and applications• Increased availability and user appetite for OTT services on

mobile devices– shift to cloud-based services and applications

• Extract the maximum value from the connectivity• Broadband is almost a commodity

2


Operator Challenges

• Environment for successful services– Launch– Operation– Management

• Consistent user experience– Mobile context– With multiple parallel

applications

• Customer retention– Brand loyalty

• Customer acquisition– Brand differentiation

• New sources of revenue

• Avoiding commoditisation

3


New Strategies

4

• Yankee Group: – Most service providers believe that improving the quality of the user

experience increases ARPU (see it as a key competitive differentiator)

• Ericsson:– Best user experience in terms of service choice, availability, speed and

quality will gain brand loyalty

So, focus on:• Optimising the user experience

– Must be based on the customer view – not the network view– Requires knowledge of the user activity

• Introducing value-added services (increase ARPU) – But differentiate from competitors (avoid need to discount for customer

acquisition)

• Exploiting existing infrastructure– Get the most out of what you have


Optimising the User Experience

• Customers don’t really want ‘bandwidth’, they want a broadband service!

• So to charge a premium, rather than offer more bandwidth, operators should offer a better broadband service

How?

Improve the Quality of Experience of a user of the service:• Consistency and reliability• Customer service and fast problem resolution

5


Implementing the Strategy

• Maintain service performance and user experience– With growth of bandwidth demands and offload decisions

• See exactly what is happening on the device – From the user’s perspective

• Aggregate and integrate existing “point” solutions– Offload, signalling, radio connection, customer messages

• Maximise existing resources– Requires integration with network infrastructure and systems

• Manage signalling overhead• Real-time congestion management

– Multiple triggers (cell status, location, throughput etc.) – Give priority to what’s important (to the customer)

6


Prioritising Applications

• Users don’t understand QoS– Any more than they understand megabytes!

• They do understand ‘applications’– So, need to manage traffic based on the application it is from/to– Can only do this on the client device

7


Prioritising Critical Traffic

• Mobile broadband is easily saturated– Laptops– Smart(er) phones

• Failure to discriminate critical traffic will degrade QoE– Losing DNS requests– Multiple TCP drops– Delaying VoIP packets– Etc.

• Have to do this starting at the client device to implement service plans that prioritize:– VPN traffic– IM– e-mail access to corporate server– Real-time apps

8


Prioritising Critical Traffic

9


Local Congestion Management

• When an Operators wants and needs to:• Influence customer activity and traffic management

– At point of congestion– For individuals or groups of users– For specific traffic types– For specific customer service plans

• Identify and promote sales propositions to customers– Open applications and display messages

• Offload based on specific “triggers”– Location, TOD, traffic, throughput thresholds

10


Enhanced Customer Service

• Customer issues demand rapid resolution– Reduce costs– Increase customer satisfaction

• Easy to see the customer from the network– But the network may not have a problem

• Harder to see the network from the customer!– But the customer may have a problem with the network– This is crucial to properly understand the customer’s issue

• Need to see the network as the user sees it– Visibility out to the client device– Including when roaming/offloaded

11


Enhanced Customer Service

12


Optimising Bandwidth

• Mobile bandwidth is expensive!• So it’s vital to use it efficiently• Trade-off between bandwidth utilisation and effectiveness

of QoS differentiation – Depends on queuing/scheduling algorithm used

• Possible to provide reliable QoS up to 90% of total bandwidth– And still use the rest for best effort

13

Bandwidth ≈ Spectrum x Spectral efficiency x Spatial re-use

Licensed New equipment E.g. LTE

More sectors and masts


GoS 360°

14


Visibility out to Client Device

15


Value of GoS 360°

• Seamless extension of Policy Control on to Client device• Integration with existing network solution

– Agent:– Manager:– Resolves concerns about integration with existing OSS / BSS

• Solution across customer base or user groups – not individuals• Manage user experience whilst delivering benefit to Operator• Manage signalling overhead before it reaches the network• Enforce dynamic offload based on specific rules• Enhances value of PCRF

16


Who We Are

• GoS Networks develops and supplies embeddable software solutions– Key focus is visibility and improvement of user experience & QoS

• Private company with HQ in Cork, Ireland– UK & Global offices

• Backed by International Investment and Underwriting– Dermot Desmond– Padraig Harrington

17


Summary

To avoid commoditisation, provide a better mobile broadband service:

• See the service as the user sees it– At the client device (UE/MT)

• Prioritise critical traffic, based on application– Not just on traffic type

• Optimise the bandwidth you have– While providing differentiated QoS

18


Thank you!

Peter Thompson

[email protected]

19

Technology

Differentiated service strategies for broadband