Oct 28, 2010

Looking Past Dumb Pipes to profit

It's not enough to have big, fat data pipes. Wireless operators need to make those pipes smart as well, said Cisco's Ashraf Dahod during this morning's keynote address at 4G world.

Dahod, senior vice president and general manger of Cisco's mobile Internet technology group, said operators must leverage information about traffic patterns and subscriber behavior to ensure their networks remain profitable amid soaring demand for mobile data.

"In a dumb pipe business, the opportunity for revenues and profits is very limited. It's only by going beyond really fast, dumb pipes that we can increase our profitability," Dahod said. "We really have to look at a new business architecture"

Dahod gave several examples of ways operators can monetize their mobile Internet traffic with network intelligence tools, including new pricing models, premium download speeds, "freemium" services and subsidies from content provider and advertisers.

Hand-in-hand with these consumer-facing services is the need to optimize network traffic with tools like video compression, offloading and matching subscribers' bit rate to current network conditions.

"The savings on the radio network can more than pay for the additional intelligence in the IP core, " Dahod said. "We believe that the intelligence is really the answer to how to become profitable."

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