In a country like India where illiterate and Corrupt Bureaucrats without domain knowledge and vision of the Telecommunications industry are the ones deciding allocation of the precious Spectrum, it is the Telecom Operators who have to find ways and means to maintain the QoS to retain customers. In heavily concentrated[High users/Sq Km & Concrete Blocks] Metro Cities Telcos are facing a big challenge of providing 3G mobile data services. In discussion with Network Engineers on the Ground here are the 6 commonly used techniques to handle the growth in 3G Data Usage with Limited Spectrum which is is also in 2.1GHZ band.
Fine-tuning / optimisation of radio networks, which includes fixing cell and antenna parameters (e.g., positioning), or increasing sectors, or resources per cell.
Deploying more efficient signalling (for example, paging channel, which uses 30% less signalling) or queuing signals from various applications to transmit them in one go. There are various RAN solutions, too, that can reduce activation request signalling.
Traffic shaping is a broad term that includes throttling speeds based on customer profile or 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.
Software solutions such as predictive management analytics, which help telcos to manage networks using various analytics that can provide real-time information about congestion. This is a combination of managing demand-side (data allowances and pricing) and supply-side (controlling traffic patterns based on real-time information) parameters.
WiFi or small-cell offload or side-loading content. WiFi offloading is being increasingly adopted with data demand from 3G. Given that a substantial portion of mobile traffic occurs inside buildings, telcos are investing/ partnering for
offloading data to WiFi hotspots.
In Future, use of HSPA or LTE upgrades, as this technology inherently provides higher throughput and spectral efficiency.
Additionally, in the United States and Japan, Telcos are closely working with Mobile App Developers to optimize Network Usage. For example, we have already highlighted on how WeChat is a significant drain on China Mobile Network for Signalling Problems This is something not new. NTT DoCoMo in Japan was one of the first operators globally to face the signalling problem as reported in Jan-2012. They developed a a new packet switching system to replace the the existing system. However the new system failed to complete the processing of control signals that have increased due to the rapid proliferation of applications (VoIP, etc.), which caused congestions and resulted in connection difficultly for FOMA voice/packet services. Since Many of the Apps were running on the Android Platform, NTT DoCoMo and Google entered into discussions to resolve application design issues, and since then many other global telcos have joined these conversations.