Gaining better visibility
One thing that has plagued mobile operators for many years is the near complete lack of visibility to the mobile originated internet traffic flowing through their networks. Bandwidth requirements are growing almost exponentially for high-end phones, laptops and tablets, with no signs of slowing down. Yet, operators still continue to have a very low real understanding of how exactly all this bandwidth is used.
Why then, is it so important for mobile operators to know what users are doing with their devices? Two major reasons are:
- Investment and R&D- Some mobile operators are beginning to invest into building their own application stores and next generation web services. Although operators do have a lot of catching up to do, there’s still plenty to go around for all those who do it properly.
- Subscriber Retention- As mobile markets slowly saturate all over the world, subscriber retention is becoming one of the most vital aspects of running a profitable mobile network operation.
For both the above reasons, it is vital to understand users’ behaviors in the network, as well as, in the different services. User activity, satisfaction, device capabilities, personal opinions and above all, the right combination of all these attributes make users come back for more.
The emphasis here is on combinations. Users more and more often have more than one device (if they don’t, we would like them to), they use a suite of services which are a blend of native applications on their device(s), web services, media streaming and messaging in a combination of categories that fit the users lifestyle, work and hobbies. In order to really understand not just what users are doing, but also why they behave in certain ways; we must understand user behavior as a whole. Therefore, we also need to understand behavior and usage patterns in services and applications that are not within the mobile operators’ own or partners’ domains.
Today’s technology does provide some very advanced tools to view and analyze network traffic, whether in mobile data-, or fixed broadband networks (Deep Packet Inspection or DPI). Monitoring network traffic provides visibility to all traffic, regardless of what services are used or where they are. It is, however, important to correlate this network originated behavioral information with all the other information obtained from mobile applications, websites and end user surveys. Only then can we piece together a picture of our users in a way that corresponds with reality.
To summarize, the thing to strive for is an integrated view of users or user segments that include correlated data from sites, applications, mobile- and broadband (WiFi) networks and user opinions. Only with this view, ideally also linked to a corporate business intelligence solution, can users and user segments truly be understood and appropriate and continuous improvement actions be a part of everyday business.
