Summary
- Airvana reports that smartphones as compared to laptop PCs are 8 x more demanding of their wireless data networks
- The market for smartphones from Research in Motion, Apple and those using Android from Google are growing very rapidly and represent 30-50% of post paid mobile users, depending on the operator and region
- Are the mobile operators going to run out of spectrum to accommodate all this traffic and all these devices and all these users?
Analysis
Airvana reports that smartphones pass 8 x more data in a given period of time than USB modem-attached laptops is intuitively true. Although these results may have been measured in a lab setting with typical applications, it is probably quite representative of the actual in-field experience.
That's because the typical user experience and expectation with the smartphone is quite different than with the laptop.
The laptop is first a personal computing device and second a communications portal. While the priority of functionality for the smartphone is exactly the opposite - it is a communicating device first and foremost and a personal computing device second. Where this affects data network attributes most profoundly is over the course of a day. The smartphone user's device will be checking and receiving emails throughout the day regardless of their stationary status, while the laptop user will be checking their email only when stationary.Typically closing the laptop shuts down operations, including network connectivity, so the average traffic per time period for a laptop is proportional to the time spent connected - the longer the laptop screen is up and the laptop is connected to the network and the email server, the greater the average traffic.
Applying this to smartphone operations suggests that the smartphone is always connected and always checking email or other communications services such as SMS or instant messaging. Therefore, smartphones have higher average traffic per period of time than typical laptop operation and in this release from Airvana it's a factor of 8 x higher.
This is a real consequence of the unique always connected design and special user expectations for smartphones.
The point of Airvana's press release - that the success of smartphones is changing the average and peak load requirements of modern mobile operator network operations - holds true. In the days leading to the SUPERCOMM show in Chicago, this is a timely reminder that operators should accelerate their femtocell strategies and their overall spectrum management plans, particularly as it relates to data services, or else the busy signal is something mobile users will have to get used to.
This author consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
