by David Puron

Recently, SEVEN joined the Open Mobile Alliance to collaborate with our industry counterparts on solutions that will help manage and optimize data traffic on mobile networks.

Our timing was perfect. While my colleagues in Redwood City were launching new software products in our Open Channel traffic management product line, I was in snowy Budapest overlooking the Royal Castle District, hearing about two new OMA initiatives that will contribute to the effort to reduce signaling and bandwidth congestion on the mobile network.

Here’s an update on those two technologies:

Always On Initiative: Some apps are always on, meaning they are always connected to the server to deliver timely content updates. As more apps turn to the cloud for updates or data storage, the challenges created by always-on apps will grow. The committee tackling this initiative is still in exploratory mode: evaluating the technical challenges of these apps and what that can mean to the mobile network. Open Channel Signaling Optimization is a great fit for this challenge, because it is designed to optimize the signaling activity of chatty mobile apps. The value added by Signalizing Optimization, compared to a “push-like” engine approach, is that it is able to dramatically reduce unnecessary signaling in a way that is fully transparent to the apps, and does not need any app re-coding or registration in servers.

Device and Network Efficiency: The ‘DANE’ working group was formed to help operators find ways to improve the quality of experience for applications. The core of the discussion was about standardizing device APIs to build in the potential for an app to request “premium” quality of service on the cell network. This group discussion quickly turned to how to better utilize Wi-Fi networks. The challenges here revolve around connection management issues, including how an app can switch to Wi-Fi without interruption depending on network conditions or policies. Thanks to SEVEN’s recent acquisition of SNRLabs, the Open Channel product line of software products now includes solutions to address these issues.

It was exciting for me to exchange ideas with these working groups and the other peers that I met during this meeting. The feedback I received confirmed for me that the Open Channel platform is on the right track, and will play a big role in helping the industry improve network performance.