London & Atlanta—Tuesday, April 5, 2011— Volubill and Telesperience released a new report today entitled, “Utilizing offloading and traffic shaping to optimize capacity and deliver commercial success”, which reveals the steps mobile network operators are taking to combat the capacity crunch caused by the dramatic increases in wireless data traffic consumption.

According to the research, undertaken by Telesperience on behalf of real-time policy management and charging specialist Volubill, service providers are beginning to adopt more sophisticated and varied traffic management strategies, specifically focused on more positive, proactive forms of traffic shaping and the wider use of traffic offloading.

The survey found that 47 percent of operators currently employ traffic shaping, and 97 percent plan to by 2013, with 53 percent saying they are doing so with the intention of delivering more granular service offerings such as the prioritization of specific data types by service. Traffic shaping strategies such as these can deliver more personalized offerings to customers willing to pay incremental premiums for guaranteed quality and access to specific services.

The research also revealed that while only 20 percent of operators currently use traffic offloading strategies, 73 percent plan to by 2012. This expansion is expected to move beyond typical offload methods that use WiFi and femtocells to more sophisticated offloading technologies such as radio access network (RAN) edge control that relieve network congestion while ensuring that segmentation and the monetization of data services can continue for traffic that does not travel via the network core.

“The reactionary methods originally deployed to combat the data crunch, such as throttling, usage-based charging and time-of-day tariffing, are being replaced by more proactive approaches where personalization is leveraged to create new revenues,” said John Aalbers, CEO, Volubill. “Policy Control solution providers will play an important role in helping operators move from a defensive stance to a more proactive one by providing them with modern tools and technologies like Volubill's new Edge Offload mobile network optimization solution. With tools like this, operators can leverage more sophisticated traffic management strategies that will ultimately yield more business models.”

Key Research Findings
The research, conducted during February and March 2011, focused solely on wireless and mobile operators, with the majority of the 30 operators surveyed from North American and European markets.

General

• 67 percent cite making better use of the network as their main motivation for adopting traffic shaping and traffic offloading strategies, while 60 per cent are managing a capacity gap until more network infrastructure can be built out.
• 50 percent say they plan to adopt these strategies is to maintain quality of service (QoS) for customers.
• 63 percent of operators believe that policy control is an important supporting technology to enable offloading and traffic shaping strategies.

Traffic shaping

• Usage-based pricing is the most commonly used traffic shaping technique, with 43 percent currently using and a further 10 percent planning to.
• Only 7 percent currently offer differentiated QoS plans today, but 53 percent are actively investigating the use of differentiated service models.
• Prioritization by service type was cited by the largest number of operators, 37 percent, as the form of QoS differentiation being investigated most.
• Prioritization by user type was indicated as the second most investigated form of service differentiation to be utilized, with 23 percent of operators indicating they are investigating its use, up from 3 percent currently.

Traffic Offloading

• 33 percent currently use WiFi as the preferred offloading technology, with 30 percent investigating its use.
• 30 percent are using femtocells, with 27 percent investigating their use.

In response to these findings, Volubill has launched Volubill Edge Offload™, the first solution of its kind from a dedicated policy management provider to bring centralized 3GPP-compliant policy controls to the network edge for selective traffic offload and traffic shaping. The solution enables operators to leverage the benefits of policy control and charging technologies at the network edge for maximum reductions in network traffic congestion and increases in customer satisfaction.

For more information on the “Utilizing Offloading and Traffic-Shaping” report from Volubill and Telesperience, visit the Volubill website at www.volubill.com.

About Volubill

Volubill provides innovative “on the network” charging and control solutions to telecom operators worldwide. The company's solutions enable operators to manage bandwidth based on subscriber- and service-centric usage policies and quotas in order to maximize revenues and service experience and eliminate churn. Transcending the boundaries between the network and IT systems, Volubill provides flexibility and unlocks the potential of real-time BSS integration. Founded in 2001, Volubill is a global company with more than 70 customers worldwide.