The Art of Asking

Not long ago I received a link from a friend to a TED talk called “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer. This was a remarkable talk by music artist, Amanda Palmer, that demonstrated an alternative kind of thinking about music fans, sales, and human interaction.

Instead of just selling her music to her listeners, Amanda tries to connect with them. Rather than having people pay for her music, she uses social applications to ask for donations while offering her art for free. The results are astonishing. Amanda has made more money giving her music away for free than she would having selling it. And at the same time, she has developed a relationship with her fans that benefits both herself and her listeners. This is an unprecedented phenomena.

Mobile operators can learn a lot from Amanda. Just as the music industry and the way artists interact with their fans is changing, the way operators do business should also be changing.

Now, as LTE becomes increasingly pervasive, operators are looking for ways to return their massive investment in infrastructure. Some turn to the promotion of sophisticated pricing plans as a way to increase their revenues from LTE networks. However, taking an example from Amanda, mobile operators could generate revenues by engaging with their subscribers, rather than just focusing on selling data packages. They already provide their subscribers the means to connect to online content, applications, emails, videos and all other mobile data activity. And they now have a unique opportunity to become an integral part of the mobile Internet experience.

By changing their business model, mobile operators can generate revenues not directly from their subscribers, but indirectly from revenue-sharing agreements with content providers. It’s a win-win-win opportunity. Users benefit from more personalized and relevant content; content providers can promote their content directly to their desired audiences; and operators generate new revenues while offering their subscribers an improved and differentiated user experience.  

Just as Amanda has turned the music industry on its head, now is the time for mobile operators to do the same for the mobile Internet.

-- Yoav Shay Daniely, Director of Product Management

The Need for Speed

Commute, file downloads, Valentino Rossi, mantis shrimp.

What does this eclectic list of subjects have in common? If you read the title you probably already know. That’s right, if you are part of western culture you probably want all these things to be FAST. Not standard fast, I mean super-ultra-extra fast!

Mobile operators are no different in their quest for speed, investing more and more in frequencies and equipment in hopes of becoming the fastest mobile data network. One of the primary reasons operators invest billions of dollars in their LTE network is speed. Speed is the number 1 benefit operators use to publicize their new network, only to find out that their competitors are using the same trick. Because it’s not only about being fast – you have to be the fastest.

This is a given in our speed-obsessed world. Mobile Internet was in its infancy just a decade ago, and now we roll our eyes if it takes more than a couple of seconds for “Gangnam Style” to load on our iPhone. Therefore, it is no wonder that we see so much interest in network acceleration solutions. Once LTE networks are in place, to accelerate performance further requires additional investments in frequencies, antennas, and network equipment. Think of how much it would cost to accelerate an existing network by 50%.

Network acceleration solutions promise to accelerate downloads and browsing for a fraction of the cost of radio investments. At Flash Networks, we live up to this promise by delivering 50% acceleration with zero investment in network infrastructure.  By using our patented technology to adjust the TCP send rate to the wireless link, we utilize the available bandwidth, even as it fluctuates with network conditions, increasing the effective bandwidth and boosting download speed.

Network speed may not yet be as fast as “Beam me up Scotty”, but it’s getting there.

-- Tal Dagan, Director of Product Management

P.S. The mantis shrimp? Unexpected, but apparently this animal exercises the world’s fastest punch.

Trains, Airplane and Seating Strategies

As an avid train commuter I have often wondered about the manner in which train seats are occupied. Suppose you board a train at the first station, half of the 4-seat areas are occupied with one or more passengers and half are empty, offering you the promise of a whole 4-seat area to yourself.

The inexperienced passenger will probably opt for one of the empty 4-seat areas. Alas there are more stations on the way and the train quickly fills up, people sit next to you, people you did not choose to sit beside. Sometimes it will be someone that invades your personal space, and sometimes it will be someone that feels compelled to shout into their cell phone. If you’re lucky it is someone pleasant and quiet, but a guy called Murphy will never let that happen.  

One way around this is to place your personal bag in the seat beside you and pretend to be deeply immersed in the sports section. This may earn you a neighbor less ride; however there are two problems with this approach:

1. It is anti-social and not very polite to deny someone a seat just because you want your ride to be more pleasant.
2. Most probably, it will be the less pleasant people that request you move your bag so they can have a seat.

Airplanes and first class trains solve this problem by assigning seats per ticket. They also sell different types of tickets at different prices. The main difference between the tickets is (you guessed right) the amount of space you have.This method has two main advantages:

1. It allows airlines to better monetize their service – this is crucial in high cost services.
2. It optimizes seat allocation – there are no disputes on seats, people get more or less what they paid for, and the space is allocated in the best possible manner - no passengers stand while other passengers take up two seats.

As Flash Networks is all about optimizing mobile data networks, the allegory is probably well understood by now. Fixed line ISPs are like trains – they have enough space to accommodate all types of behavior and do not need to invest in optimizing their service – their costs are very low so whenever there is a problem they just “add more wagons” or “throw bandwidth at the problem”. However mobile operators cannot use this method, they are like the airlines – they have very high costs, and their resources, like airplanes, need to be obtained well in advance, leaving them with the need to best optimize and monetize their service in order to prosper and avoid pitfalls.

-- Tal Dagan, Director of Product Management

Mobile apps taking over your phone?

I know the feeling. Most of us find ourselves weeding out old and unused applications from our smartphones; apps we don’t even remember when and why we installed in the first place. 

At the beginning, the whole app experience was new and exciting. I personally downloaded more and more applications just to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything. When the amount of apps on my phone became overwhelming, I started to use the old-style directory system to make them easier to find. But now, after a few years and hundreds of apps, I am lost.

The whole experience of consuming data through mobile apps has gotten out of control. Is it really intuitive (or convenient) to install a specific app to read news from several publishers, buy goods from several retailers, or even check a train timetable? Let’s think about how it’s done on our laptops. We open the browser, search for the train timetable in Google, and that’s it – we have what we need. The information is immediately available, we just browse in and out without the need to install anything.

The whole mobile app mania started with iPhone. They wanted to provide the best user experience on mobile devices (which, back in 2007, the browser couldn’t support) and control the content and its potential revenue. But now businesses are no longer eager to share 30% of their revenues with Apple (The Financial Times is a text book example).  They prefer to build their own mobile web apps which are accessible to a wider audience and better maintained for multiple platforms. From a technical perspective, both browsers and development tools provide an easier user experience, which better suit a wide range of app development segments.

Between the preferred experience of searching and consuming without installing (… and removing) apps and the shift away from proprietary apps, my wish is that we will see more publishers, content developers, and users moving back to the browser.

-- On Kalich, Director of Product Marketing

Making traffic growth work for you

A recent report issued by Latitude Group caught my attention:  in Q2 2012, one in five website visits came from a mobile device – a 26% growth over Q1. At first it sounded like another standard item which shows the growth of the mobile Internet, but there was something bigger in between the lines.

Growth in mobile web visitors driven primarily by iOS

So, why did it catch my attention?

What’s surprising is how low this figure still is (20%) in comparison to the amazingly high growth of mobile traffic we constantly experience. With growth of 26% quarter over quarter, we will soon see 2 of every 5 website visits, or even more, coming from mobile devices. This means that while we haven’t yet reached a plateau in traffic growth, it won’t be long before mobile traffic overtakes fixed traffic with respect to page visits.

So what does this mean for mobile operators? On the one hand, their window of opportunity to take action in managing traffic is rapidly closing; but at the same time, it is rapidly materializing with respect to monetizing this OTT data. It is time to manage the data growth while monetizing the incremental data.

The good news for mobile operators is that there are advanced technologies out there that can help them with both challenges simultaneously. By adopting solutions from companies, like Flash Networks, that understand these opportunities and combine cost saving solutions with revenue-generating solutions in a single system, operators don’t have to choose only one direction to pursue. Investing in only one may be too little too late. The smart investment is a solution that can grow in both directions.

-- Gil Mildworth, Director of Business Development

Mobile Traffic Surges During UEFA EURO 2012

As football (soccer) fans already know, last week was the final of UEFA's EURO 2012. And although the game was disappointing for Italy fans (probably an understatement), it showed us interesting trends in mobile data traffic.

During the games, Digital Spy published research showing that 8.3% of British fans were watching the EURO 2012 games on the web via a desktop, notebook computer, smartphone, or tablet.

Using Harmony Analytics, we found the same thing, and not just in Europe.

We observed a 156% increase of traffic to sports sites in Asia-Pacific and a 215% increase in Europe during the final match day. In addition, in Europe, there was a 210% increase in HTTP streaming of live sports broadcasts during the EURO 2012 final match day, while in Asia-Pacific the increase was only 20%. These statistics were reversed for P2P streaming, with a 123% average increase in Asia-Pacific and a 42% average increase in Europe in June, the month of the competition, compared to the same timeframe during the previous month. These findings reflect the differences in the way Europeans and Asians view football over mobile networks.

Unsurprisingly, in North America there was only a minor increase in sport-related traffic during EURO 2012, with an 8% increase in mobile internet traffic for sports sites and a 24% increase in the P2P streaming peak during the games. This demonstrates the popularity of European football in Asia-Pacific and Europe versus North America where, despite David Beckham's best efforts, "soccer" hasn't yet caught on at the same rate as the rest of the world.

With the summer Olympics rapidly approaching, it will be interesting to see how mobile traffic trends are affected. Four years ago, at the Bejing Olympics, iPhones were only a year into the market and iPads were only a pipe dream. With mobile devices of all types penetrating the market in increasing numbers, we look forward to seeing how operators plan for the anticipated surges in traffic. Stay tuned for more Olympic insights ...

-- Naomi Rabbie, Director of Corporate Marketing

Mobile Operators Should Think More Like Facebook

Facebook Stock Certificate

With the Facebook IPO on the horizon, and its estimated valuation reaching over $100B, this is a good time for mobile operators to rethink their business models. Needless to say, Facebook has never charged its users, asked them for their credit cards, or sent invoices to their homes. Nevertheless, its revenues are expected to hit $5B in 2012, with 85% coming from ads. Facebook is capable of reaching these enormous numbers primarily because businesses, no matter how large they are, are always interested in increasing exposure to their products and services, and are willing to share their revenues in order to do so.


So what does this have to do with mobile operators?

First, and this is obvious, the mobile internet is a sustainable source of revenues for its industry. As Jon Stewart said about the internet, “it’s a keeper.” This is good news for mobile operators struggling to maintain revenues from traditional voice and messaging services in the face of competition and regulation.

Second, for mobile operators to compete in the Internet playing field, they need to get in the game and start thinking more like Internet players, such as Facebook. Rather than sticking to traditional subscription-based business models, they need to get creative. This means not only selling their own content and services directly, but also using their unique position between their users and the internet to offer interesting and relevant content and services from anywhere on the web, using affiliation plans and revenue-sharing.

To do this, operators need to find the real-estate to effectively present these recommendations and promotions to their users – either on the monthly bill, their portal, or, for maximum visibility, within the browser itself. Our monetization solution provides operators with this valuable real-estate - our web toolbar - and the supporting ecosystem to start generating and sharing revenues today. 


-- Chen Didi-Barnea, Product Marketing Manager

Football frustrations – a personal experience

Every football fan (or soccer fan, for those of you in the US) in Europe and worldwide was watching the El Clasico last Saturday. For those readers who are not die-hard football fans, I will just say that this is “The Game” – between the two biggest rivals in the Spanish football league. Needless to say, it’s a big deal.

No doubt, the best viewing experience for a game of this magnitude is a 50” HD TV set in the living room, surrounded by good friends, cold beer, and plentiful snacks. But recently, with the proliferation of large screen smartphones and handsets, a new mobile experience was introduced. In theory, you can now watch entire football matches on your mobile device, in high video resolution, over advanced 3G and 4G mobile networks.  But does this really work, and can it satisfy a true football fan?

Honestly, not always.

First of all, for this kind of experience your mobile device becomes stationary by default. Your device’s battery consumption while watching multimedia is so huge, you have to stay close to a power supply.

Secondly, the video viewing experience is obviously affected by the quality of your network. The high expenses and environmental limitations of mobile networks naturally create bottlenecks during the busy hour, which means not everyone can watch a live game at the same time in a limited geographical area. The result – a frustrating viewing experience with frequent stalls and freezes. And unlike the battery issue, where users are prone to blame the device manufacturer, when your viewing experience is affected, you blame the mobile operator. Is this what I’m paying for?!?

Mobile operators know this but are very limited in how to deal with the problem. They can’t just provide unlimited bandwidth to everyone who wants it. Some operators plan to offer you more bandwidth during the busy hour for extra money. But how would they do this? In order to allocate additional bandwidth for premium users, they will have to reduce the bandwidth of their remaining subscribers. And the most common way to do this is to throttle videos using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) appliances. While this might solve the problem for premium users, it will also create a lot of unsatisfied customers – those who haven’t upgraded their data packages.

A better alternative would be to adapt the video to a lower bitrate whenever needed. This would make the video watchable for everyone, albeit with slightly lower (but still entirely acceptable) quality. If I had to watch Christiano Ronaldo’s goal, and the network was loaded, I would prefer to see it with slightly lower quality rather than have it freeze at the critical moment right before the kick. And I think my fellow football fans would agree with me.

The El Clasico ended with Madridista fans cheering for a 2-1 victory which probably leads the way to a championship over the glorious Barcelona. And with the new technologies, everyone should be able to see the next nail-biter on their mobile device.

And to help you get the impending summer season started in a typical Spanish style, here is a nice quick way to make your own Sangria:

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of red wine
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice (natural)
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 100 ml rum
• 3 peaches
• 2 apples

1. Melt the sugar in a small amount boiled water and chill
2. Cut the fruit into small cubes
3. Put all the ingredients in a big bowl and stir well
4. Chill well (better with large ice cubes than small ones, as they chill faster and melt slower)
5. To make it extra festive, you can add 250 ml of vodka

Enjoy!

-- Amir Lapid, Director of Product Management

What do mobile experience and a first grader’s math class have in common?

I’d like to tell you a little bit about my son’s day in school.

In fact, I would be happy to talk about it for the better part of the day.

The problem is, I don’t know much about it.

I only know it was “fun.”

Actually, I’m not sure about that either. “Fun,” is the automatic reply I get when I ask him, “How was your day at school?”

So what does this have to do with the mobile experience?

Mobile operators’ knowledge of what their subscribers are doing and how users experience the mobile Internet is similar in many ways to a father asking his son how his day was.

Operators may have limited knowledge about the radio side of the network, but not much more. This is analogous to me knowing my son’s curriculum. I may know when he starts  his math class and when he has recess, but I don’t know how he felt in class. Did he enjoy himself? Or maybe (like too many of us) he hated every minute. And what did he do during recess? Did he play football? Maybe he had an argument with his best friend?

In the same way, operators today are looking for ways to know more about their subscribers’ experience and they need to have clear metrics to do so.

What are their users most interested in while they surf the web? (Maybe you can offer them a deal that relates to their field of interest.)

What was their experience? How long did it take for the video to start? How long did it take the page to load? (Maybe you can prevent subscriber churn if you spot a problematic event and act on it.)

To help operators answer these questions, and many more, we enable them to extract user experience data from their networks. But we also provide much more information, such as data hogging subscribers, top applications, top web sites, average browsing speed, and more! All this information helps operators create a more complete picture of their subscribers’ online behavior to better target their interests while addressing any problems that may arise – a win-win for both you and your users.

Of course, you could always just ask your subscribers how their experience was but you’ll probably get the equivalent of “fun” as an answer.

-- Tal Dagan, Director of Product Management