Mobile broadband gateway developer Stoke today introduced enhancements to its award winning Mobile Data Offload application together with a new ecosystem that allows operators to improve mobile data service delivery efficiencies, saving millions of dollars in core infrastructure and capacity expansion costs, while re-tooling for the realities of explosive growth in Mobile Internet usage.
Stoke Mobile Data Offload (MDO), introduced in January 2010, has been upgraded as a result of engagements and testing with operators throughout 2010. The new enhancements now enable a growing set of largely core-bound applications to be deployed with greater effectiveness at the edge of the Radio Access Network (RAN). This new edge deployment location, together with control plane information not available in the network core, is affording application providers new opportunities for innovation and is already leading to service delivery improvements. For example, laboratory trials combining MDO with a collocated Content Distribution Network (CDN) edge server saw mobile user website load time latencies reduced by 60{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3}.
Stéphane Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics Research, commented, “We believe there is a need for innovation at all points in the network to manage the next surge in mobile data use, and an important opportunity for network modernization is at the edge of the RAN. Operators are now actively looking to innovate to provide a superior user experience. This is driving them to look at every aspect of their current network architecture, and the work being undertaken by Stoke and their partners is extremely promising in this regard.”
“Existing mobile data infrastructures are strained to the limit, and surviving the next wave of data growth may well exhaust current infrastructure upgrades and traffic mitigation solutions, said Daniel McBride, Senior Director, Product and Solutions Marketing at Stoke. “Stoke MDO, together with Edge Service Exchange ecosystem companies, effectively modernizes today’s mobile network infrastructure while also managing unpredictable data growth.”
Edge Service Exchange Ecosystem
The Edge Service Exchange empowers mobile operators to innovate and discover new efficiencies beyond the boundaries and inertia created by incumbent suppliers. In tests with participating companies, and validated in operator trials, Stoke has proven that additional network service capabilities are available at the edge. Enabled by Stoke’s selective traffic breakout solution, application providers are able to improve performance and QoS by locating critical traffic control, optimization, and content acceleration functions closer to subscribers.
As a result, Stoke is enabling a new Edge Service Exchange ecosystem that makes possible network modernization and service enhancements, even in today’s overstretched mobile infrastructures. Stoke has begun extensive testing with a number of globally recognized application providers, includingVolubill, the leading provider of real-time policy management and charging solutions, and major players in mobile traffic optimization, cloud-based web application and content acceleration, and video CDN technologies.
Stoke Mobile Data Offload Enhancements
Stoke’s MDO solution moves beyond selective offload, offering a new approach to deploying 3G network services, enabling content and services to be accessed closer to the user, from selected breakout points outside the network core.
Stoke’s 3GPP standard selective breakout gateway intelligently intercepts and re-directs select data traffic, with extraordinary levels of specificity. New enhancements in support of the Edge Service Exchange ecosystem include the following:
* API accessible RAN routing area details for offloaded sessions (e.g. RAC/SAC)
* API accessible session details (e.g. IMSI, APN, Device IMEI, etc.)
* API accessible Radio Access Bearer (RAB) and QoS parameters for sessions
* Network controlled, real-time offload policy updates
* Programmatic session start and stop notification for Service Exchange applications
* Enhancements to breakout controls that mitigate potential failures in Service Exchange partner applications
