Telesperience: "Mobile offloading: not being done very smartly"

       

Teresa Cottam (picture), Research Director at Telesperience, analyzes the current state of mobile offloading, concluding it needs more intelligence - including policy control. 

"Currently, offloading is happening whether the carrier is in control or not. While some carriers with both fixed and mobile networks have encouraged offloading to alleviate congestion in the radio network (Orange being a good example of this); others have encouraged it and dumped traffic onto fixed networks without business models being in place to compensate fixed providers; others have implicitly supported it; some haven’t encouraged it but their customers are offloading anyway".

See "Mobile Data Offloading – could be smarter, needs to work harder" - here.

"Done well, offloading can save CSPs money, offer a rapid solution to help maintain QoS in the face of rising data traffic, and therefore deliver a better experience to customers. By building in the capability to meter and charge for traffic, CSPs support commercial goals such as charging for offloading traffic or compensating third parties for carrying traffic"

Nevertheless, a recent survey, of the very same Telesperience found that "73% [of CSPs] will Use Offload" (here).