At present, ~30% of operator cell sites have a true fiber connection with a significant proportion of the backhaul being provided through microwave connectivity.  It is also worth noting that there is a 4 to 1 difference in the 5 year consolidated OPEX and CAPEX between fiber and microwave, indicating a very strong need to maximize the life of installed microwave and transmission infrastructure in order to realize these significant savings.

By focusing on the need to supply video content, operators will actually be “on-loading” content.  Off-loading is a term that is strongly associated with the use of Wi-Fi and spectrum conservancy, with the benefit that data is not traversing the core network.  However, when the customer is using the Wi-Fi network, their experience is in the hands of another, potentially unknown, third party supplier.

The Altobridge technology enables packet inspection and allows not only off-loading and caching of data but, more specifically, it prepositions data to be “on-loaded” to the wireless network.

Altobridge Data-at-the-Edge™ (DatE™)

With the DatE™ feature-set positioned on both sides of the transmission link, user data is minimized in terms of bandwidth requirements, while caching and pre-positioning features further enhance the solution.  Importantly, however, proprietary signalling and voice signalling are left unaltered.  This approach (see below) enables E911 Lawful Intercept and billing requirements to be maintained.

 
Further optimization of this solution allows expansion of the data “on-load” capability (see below), resulting in significant savings and heralding the arrival of new financial business models for network operators.

Next: Wireless Network Caching