Optimization Deployments (30): StarHub Uses Huawei to Reduce Network Signaling by 83%

In a recent post - "NSN CEO: “Finding ways to support the 10,000% increase in smartphone generated data traffic by 2015 is vital for operators worldwide” - here - I covered the "Keep alive" problem - messages commonly used by smartphone applications which consume network equipment resources (such as IP addresses and PDP contexts) with little value to the user and almost no revenues to the operator (and it also drains the smartphone battery).

Mobile Business Briefing reports that Huawei has solved this problem for StarHub, Singapore’s second-largest operator. See "StarHub cuts signalling traffic by over 80%" - here.

"Working with Huawei, StarHub claims to have developed a unique method of creating an ‘always on’ path for the smartphone that uses the network paging channel to maintain a ‘heartbeat’ connection at low enough levels to affect neither data tariffing nor drain battery life. Tests found that this method could reduce signalling traffic by more than 80% for small packet transfers and by around 50% for larger packets."

Peter Cook, VP of mobile network engineering for Starhub said" “ [Starhub] decided to focus on the signalling congestion occurring at the RNC as it believed it was this bottleneck that was the root cause of any overall network congestion .. this is the world's first Smartphone Intelligent Signalling Solution and we use it to reduce signalling load at all levels of the network but especially at the RNC. Congestion is caused both by the way in which smartphones communicate, and the way in which they are used"