23 May 2011

Mobile Offload: Changing User Behaviour

Steve Shaw, Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Kineto Wireless investigates the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods of mobile data offload.

Predicted mobile data growth rates, though staggering, do nothing to convince subscribers that they need to embrace data offload. A recent report from Juniper Research revealed that mobile data traffic will exceed 14,000 Petabytes by 2015 – the equivalent to 18 billion movie downloads or 3 trillion music tracks. Though these figures may leave operators in a hot sweat, they do nothing to infiltrate subscribers’ psyches.

When it comes to mobile usage, subscribers’ concerns are simple. They look for strong coverage and an enriched user experience at a price that they can afford. These elements of mobile service draw in new customers and, if achieved by operators, avoid excess churn.

Subscribers are not interested in the inherent benefits of offload, and so operators cannot simply advertise ‘offload.’ Subscribers will only look to change their mobile usage if it affects the coverage and experience they receive or the price they pay. Therefore, to change users’ behaviour, operators must appeal to coverage, experience or costs in their efforts to encourage offload.

The problem with coercion

Operators across the globe have resorted to placing caps on data usage on the macro network. By adjusting the cost of mobile data services, operators have attempted to force a change in behaviour. However, this has left subscribers feeling disgruntled with their operators’ service while they seek out low-cost alternatives, such as Wi-Fi.

In this way, data caps have been unsuccessful. They have threatened operators’ relationships with their customers while demand for data access grows exponentially. The bad press generated from data caps has left brands tarnished; demonstrating that punitive pricing is no way to tackle the data deluge.

A coverage boost

Rather than adopting a punitive approach, operators should highlight user benefits to subscribers to incentivise offload.

As 50-66% of mobile usage occurs indoors in subscribers’ homes or offices, operators have begun to position data offload as an indoor coverage enhancer. Operators can incentivise subscribers to offload voice and data traffic in return for 5-bars of coverage indoors, in areas where macro network coverage can be poor or patchy.

In built-up or densely populated areas, devices must work significantly harder to maintain even a poor connection, which impacts the capacity and throughput of others trying to access the same network resources. A high concentration of subscribers accessing the mobile network can quickly overwhelm a standard network coverage approach.

By leveraging Wi-Fi for coverage, the subscriber reaps the benefits of enhanced indoor performance, and the operator adds much-needed capacity to its overcrowded network, freeing up spectrum for outdoor users.

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