Acision, which supplies messaging and data services to eight of the world top 10 mobile operators, and many smaller ones as well, has been demonstrating its Broadband Mobility Suite in London this morning. The solution combines media optimisation, policy control and Value Added Services.

The demo showed how an operator could assign policy rules to an individual subscriber when they were using mobile broadband services via a smartphone or dongle at home; out of the home but still within their home operator network; and while roaming. The solution enables the operator to enforce controls relating to the bandwidth the user can use, data download speeds and other factors, depending on where they find themselves. It would, for example, enable an operator to put someone on a tariff where peer-to-peer activity was disabled, or restricted in terms of the bandwidth allocated to it, the time of day it could be used, etc. Users would also be alerted when they were getting close to their mobile broadband allowance, and given the opportunity to top-up, in order to avoid unexpectedly high bills.

Acision head of mobile broadband Steven van Zanen said the solution, which was first unveiled at Mobile World Congress in 2009, is ready for commercial deployment now. He conceded that the flexibility built into the system could lead to a wider choice of data tariffs for consumers, with the added complexity that could bring, but argued that in fact, operators could start by offering a limited range of options, then tweak individual users’ plans as their usage pattern emerged. Transparency, said van Zanen, is key.

The Broadband Mobility Suite is Acision’s response to the network congestion problems that operators are experiencing due to increased smartphone ownership and the availability of data-rich content such as videos on mobile. Van Zanen said operators now acknowledge that they need help in coping with the issues this has created.

“Carriers are starting to go public explaining their problems, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before,” said van Zanen. “This is something we as an industry are stumbling into. The volumes (of data traffic) we are facing are unheard of; we haven’t seen anything yet.” He also said he believed that the data capping measures being introduced by operators were “rudimentary”, as they do not solve the issue of congestion, which is one of the areas addressed by the Broadband Mobility Suite.

Acision also shared the results of research conducted on its behalf by YouGov which showed that 84 per cent of mobile broadband users (including smartphone, dongle and embedded device owners), have had a bad experience with mobile broadband; and that mobile broadband users would be prepared to pay more for a better user experience.