The Great Debate UK
Potential own goal with congested mobile network traffic
-Steve Nicholson is CEO at The Cloud. The opinions expressed are his own.-
There we were, transfixed as a nation hoping to see England beat Germany to progress in the World Cup – we watched the match from our homes, maybe the office, or in my case at the pub.
Over the course of the World Cup more and more of us have been able to snatch a glance of the matches whilst out and about – on our mobile phones, iPods or maybe even iPads for those lucky few..
Oh how the world is changing – we used to dream of using our mobiles to watch TV and here we are thanks to Sky, the BBC and ITV, with their iPlayers, able to do so. However, just as the moment arises, the mobile networks don’t have the capacity to enable this to happen.
I remember vividly back in the early 90’s shouting from the roof tops about how 3G would transform the way we use mobile technology, how our mobiles would switch the lights on and off, set the central heating, the alarm and even park the car – ok, that bit’s not true!
So here we are nearly two decades on, the third generation of mobile telephone networks has arrived (3G) and its already choked to capacity before we even start.
Are mobile networks at risk of a meltdown?
- Steve Nicholson, CEO at The Cloud. -
Five years ago the thought that we could be on the move accessing applications such as You Tube or Facebook, or watching TV or listening to music using our mobile phones was no more than a dream – today it’s a reality.
If we take a step back and assess the journey of the mobile phone over the past few years it has been nothing short of epic. It has progressed from a piece of technology for the modern business person to a must-have item.
A mobile phone is no longer just for making calls or for sending texts. Apple, Google and traditional stalwarts of the mobile industry like Nokia are increasingly adding sophistication and functionality that turns our phones into multi-media entertainment devices – capable of watching TV, listening to streamed music, downloading films and even playing high quality interactive games.
The majority of TV broadcasters are making their TV programmes available via the internet and their iPlayers – thus starting the process of enabling people to watch TV using their mobile phones.
According to both Facebook and YouTube we are viewing over one billion video clips on You Tube each day and over 2.5 billion photos via Facebook each month – with a clear and increasing trend to do so using our mobile phones.
There are many more examples that culminate in a massive surge in our collective demand for bandwidth hungry Internet services that are slowly beginning to outstrip the available capacity on traditional mobile networks.
