In the past few months many Indian service providers have launched
broadband service. What issues are they likely to face?
Quality of service is a major issue on broadband networks everywhere. Even
if service providers have enough bandwidth, they find it difficult to ensure
quality of service. The challenge for any service provider is to optimize its
network and enhance user experience. One of the major issues facing broadband
networks is the congestion created by peer-to-peer traffic on them. Most traffic
on broadband networks is essentially peer-to-peer. In fact the amount of this
traffic can be anywhere from 50 to 85 per cent. However, the networks have not
been designed for that kind of traffic. Moreover, SPs have no control on this
kind of traffic because it is not generated on their equipment but on the
customer's equipment. This creates an entirely new paradigm for how traffic is
generated and controlled on the network. Can a SP solve this problem by throwing
in more bandwidth? Do you manage this by blocking peer-to-peer traffic? That
would be a sensitive issue, as customers may not like that.
What's the way out for SPs?
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The peer-to-peer traffic, whether it's voice or data or something else,
would continue to grow. It would be soon on wireless as well. It's popular
with users for various reasons. One is that it's the most efficient way of
file sharing. The broadband providers need to first identify the kind of traffic
that is being generated on their networks. To do that, operators would need the
ability to understand traffic at the application level. Once the traffic is
identified, the SPs must have a policy in place to deal with that traffic. They
can either block the traffic or redirect it. In fact many operators (like
Telenet of Belgium) are planning to make peer-to-peer networking on their
network a premium service. This can only be possible if SPs have the ability to
identify the traffic and manage it accordingly. This is where the concept of
service control comes in.
What is service control?
The ability to identify and to optimize traffic on the network and deep
packet inspection-through layer 4 to 7- is what we call service control.
Service control is important in next generation. A fully service-controlled
network would be the one where the SP understands traffic at the application
level and associate the traffic with the user - something that is not being
done now on IP networks. Once the traffic is identified, the SP can create a
policy in terms of what it wants to do with the traffic. Service control offers
SPs the ability to change policy according to their business needs.
Which way are the telecom networks moving?
There is a fundamental shift happening on networks. The focus is moving to
IP because of its cost effectiveness and the flexibility it offers. Moreover,
SPs can create an endless number of new services on IP - something that is not
possible on traditional PSTN network. IP is starting to make business sense for
operators. This is true for both fixed line and wireless operators who are
deploying 3G networks which is essentially an IP overlay on their existing
networks. Also, SPs are looking at the notion of being access independent. This
means that the network should have the ability to identify customers
irrespective of the device they use. For instance, take the case of NTT DoCoMo.
Their customers are moving towards an environment where what access device they
use is going to be immaterial. All this is being made possible by IP.
As such, major SPs across the world are revamping their networks and adopting
IP. It's likely that in the next 5-6 years there wouldn't be any PSTN
networks.