Chris Lamour, Chief Marketing Officer at Actix which provides solutions to help operators optimise network performance, looks at the challenges facing network operators as mobile broadband usage increases rapidly

Late last year, Apple was slammed after complaints about a TV advert that was seen to inaccurately represent the speed of Internet browsing capability on the iPhone. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ad was likely to lead viewers to believe that the device would operate at near the speeds shown in the advertisement and told Apple that the ad must not be run again.
Although the ad in question was withdrawn, the underlying network condition that causes this to be true cannot be resolved so easily. The fact is that iPhone web browsing will only ever be as fast as the network the device is connected to, making it the performance of the actual radio network that determines the service level delivered in a given location. How this service is delivered affects performance when downloading massively; there is always a trade-off between coverage, capacity and quality – more capacity can impact coverage and vice versa. 
This leaves Apple – which has staked its reputation on delivering an exceptional user experience – at the mercy of the mobile network provider to ensure the quality of mobile surfing. Apples brand is therefore under threat of being tarnished by a reliance on networks that do not provide good connectivity. And although it may be the fault of the network, users will typically start venting their frustration at the nearest piece of equipment, the phone itself.
Every mobile network has a different way of providing service to a specific location, depending on a wide range of factors, and each network inevitably has differing levels of quality and capacity. The best networks have more effective techniques to provide good quality, coverage and capacity, typically using smart, automated algorithms to solve tricky physics problems.
But the capacity issue can only get worse as increasing numbers of iPhone users and those of similar devices continue to drive gigabyte-level data loads. The end result is that the average performance will degrade for all users, because the radio network has a fixed bandwidth, and there is already not enough capacity to go around.
The last 12 months we have seen mobile data usage skyrocket: 10 times more data is being used on mobile broadband networks today compared with a year ago. Average users are substituting their fixed DSL lines with cheap USB dongles and flat rate services, downloading 5 – 10GB per month. Some operators saw a 40% increase in data traffic just one week after introducing this kind of flat rate offer.
But while the number of users and the volumes of traffic continue to head skyward, mobile networks are being put under intense performance and financial pressure. Operators are seeing the divergence of revenue and traffic load curves for the first time, meaning they are carry more traffic for less money. This means networks urgently need to find ways of controlling traffic, and ultimately, to find lower cost ways of delivering service.
Without investment in fixing current issues, by upgrading existing capabilities or deploying new networks like LTE, this situation will lead to roadblocks on the mobile data highway. This is something that could stall the uptake of mobile broadband data, by creating the same kind of customer dissatisfaction that we have seen in the fixed broadband world in recent years.  
In the short term, operators will need to limit traffic while they make plans to deploy more capacity, hitting the consumer with more stringent terms, and possibly higher fees for mobile data. We are already seeing this happen with the introduction of so-called fair use policies in all-you-can-eat packages. But the genie is out of the bottle; a vast new mobile broadband business opportunity has finally been unlocked, and many mobile operators will be reluctant to put the brakes on something that opens to the door to lucrative new streams of revenue like mobile gaming, shopping and advertising.
An exciting time, and one that will also be hugely challenging for network CTOs.