The Advent of SmartPhones has led to the rapid usage of Apps which by design consume network resources resulting in Signal Overloading on Wireless networks. As per White Papers of Network Operators available in public domain, common ways of managing signalling issues are via paging features or queuing.
In Europe, T-Mobile has used the paging channel feature to control signalling traffic, wherein the telco activates the paging channel mode for communication / signalling between RAN and handsets. This reduces signalling by almost 30%, per NSN. Combining messages from various apps, and then transmitting them together when the user brings the mobile phone into an active stage, or periodically, is another way of controlling signalling overload. Qualcomm has designed a protocol, called network socket request manager (NSRM), to implement this.
Packet data such as videos or IM can be bursty; that is, their actual transmission might be periodical but needs a dedicated connection. This consumes battery, too. 3GPP has defined various standards around this ‘connected mode’ to allow for optimal use of radio resources, which range from only paging to allow for high data rates or low data rates. These standards always keep evolving, but overall the operators are the ones that will eventually need to modify their networks to address this.
Traffic Shaping by Telecom Operators
Traffic shaping is a broad term that includes throttling speeds based on customer profile and allowing fast upload of web pages but slower file transfers, for example. This requires adjustments at the cell sites or routers and even the core network. Telcos can also classify data into real-time (open two-way communication), quasi-realtime (such as emails), or time-insensitive (M2M), and all these have different characteristics and can be transmitted at different times and modes.
Data throttling, or data repricing, is a common practice in most countries now, based on subscription levels. The prioritisation of traffic can also help telcos manage bandwidth consumption; however, there are uncertainties around this, and net-neutrality principles (net neutrality propounds that pricing for data access should be based on specified speeds and usage allowance rather than the application/content that is being accessed) are subject to regulatory considerations. For example, AT&T in the United States used to consider the top 5% of data users for throttling for the balance of the billing month.