As Q1 ended, the discussion around wireless signaling is hotter than ever and continues to eclipse headlines throughout the mobile industry. Here’s a quick recap now that more emphasis has been placed on the signaling challenge over the past three months than during the entire 2011 year.

In January Light Reading Mobile reported on a major network outage at NTT Docomo Inc. in Tokyo that left 2.5 million subscribers unable to make voice or data calls for about four and a half hours. The culprit? A network upgrade attempt gone awry, as the network operator was trying to address the surge in signaling traffic on its network. Following the incident, NTT Docomo shared its hopes to work with other operators through the GSM Association to deal with smartphone signaling.

In February, Jon Fredrik Baksaas, CEO of Telenor, shared during the carrier’s Q4 2011 call that signaling volumes need to be taken seriously and that the carrier is moving over to a full IP network because of the signaling demands on its network.

In March, analyst Chetan Sharma predicted that mobile data will double again in 2012 with signaling traffic expected to grow in even faster. He also shared that signaling management solutions are gaining traction as ways to help alleviate the problem. Also in March, the iPad 3 began its presales and publications like Communications Technology reported on the expected volume of network signaling on LTE networks by these new tablets.

Industry trade shows, conferences and associations are also adding sessions and workshops about network signaling in their agenda bringing the issue to the forefront of the discussion on network congestion.

We’re keeping a close focus on all of this signaling talk and are eager to share the latest on how our Open Channel™ traffic optimization solution can provide relief from the signaling storm. Stay tuned for more on that shortly!