Amdocs Research: 98 Percent of Mobile Network Sessions Now Data

Research highlights need for optimal network build and organization to assure network performance; introduction of LTE improves customer experience, doesn't drive new usage behavior

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Amdocs

Apr 16, 2014, 06:00 ET

ST. LOUIS, April 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Amdocs, the leading provider of customer experience systems and services, today released new research into mobile traffic, showing an almost complete shift from voice to data. The research highlights the urgency for service providers to build and optimize mobile networks to assure network performance and quality, increasing customer satisfaction and creating new revenue opportunities.

The annual State of the Radio Access Network (RAN) Survey[1] of more than 100,000 mobile devices from the busiest network locations around the world in the past twelve months, analyzed more than 4 million voice and data connections. The radio access network provides wireless mobile connection for phones and tablets, using a combination of technologies, including small cells and macro cells, utilizing 3G, 4G (LTE) and Wi-Fi (for data).

Key findings include:

  • The share of network traffic from data has grown to 98 percent – up from 90 percent in the previous 12-month period.  The growth demonstrates subscribers' overwhelming use of smartphones and tablets to consume and share content. 
  • Data demand leads to an increase in dropped calls: The stress placed on networks has led to an increase in customer experience issues as network demand grows, with dropped data and voice calls increasing by 121 percent. The most stressed locations showed a 17 percent dropped call rate. While these figures give a stark reminder of the ever-increasing load carried by the RAN, the level to which individual customers were impacted often depended on their choice of mobile handset.
  • LTE (4G) improves customer experience but does not increase data traffic exponentially: The time to establish a LTE data session is less than half that of 3G, delivering a data experience that is much closer to home broadband. Although LTE drives some increase in data consumption, high bandwidth data consumption (eg video) did not increase, indicating that usage patterns, potentially governed by data plans, remain little different from 3G networks.
  • Data traffic becomes the primary source of subscriber issues: Top customer frustrations include: Lack of data coverage (47 percent); monthly limits (30 percent) and download costs (16 percent)[2].
  • Voice grew too, customers move indoors: Despite voice calls also increasing by 16 percent, the greatest shift was to indoor usage - the period saw an increase of mobile phone usage in-building by 33 percent.  With indoor data users experiencing up to a 50 per cent drop in data throughput; this shift will have a significant impact on customer experience.

"The research shows that the move to LTE/ 4G provides an opportunity to improve the customer experience without exponentially increasing data demand," said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs. "Service providers need to address this challenge by implementing planning and optimization solutions to manage an increasingly active subscriber base that not only wants to consume data but produce and share it in real time."

Amdocs offers a range of solutions to maximize the business value of networks by ensuring that service providers deliver the right experience to the right subscribers at the right time. Through the combination of Amdocs' network solutions and B/OSS market leadership, Amdocs enables service providers to deliver a holistic, integrated customer experience. Solutions include Amdocs Self-Optimizing Networks solution, Amdocs Small Cell solution and Amdocs Smart Net solution, an intelligent Wi-Fi offload solution.

[1] Amdocs' analysis of call data of 100,000 mobile devices in Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia-Pacific regions.

[2] According to On Device Research on behalf of Amdocs, October 2013

 Supporting Resources

About Amdocs

For more than 30 years, Amdocs has ensured service providers' success and embraced their biggest challenges. To win in the connected world, service providers rely on Amdocs to simplify the customer experience, harness the data explosion, stay ahead with new services and improve operational efficiency. The global company uniquely combines a market-leading BSS, OSS and network control product portfolio with value-driven professional services and managed services operations. With revenue of $3.3 billion in fiscal 2013, Amdocs and its 21,000 employees serve customers in more than 70 countries.

Amdocs: Embrace Challenge, Experience Success.

For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com

Amdocs' Forward-Looking Statement

This press release includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about Amdocs' growth and business results in future quarters. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic conditions, Amdocs' ability to grow in the business markets that it serves, Amdocs' ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, adverse effects of market competition, rapid technological shifts that may render the Company's products and services obsolete, potential loss of a major customer, our ability to develop long-term relationships with our customers, and risks associated with operating businesses in the international market. Amdocs may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future; however, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These and other risks are discussed at greater length in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2013 filed on December 09, 2013 and our Form 6-K furnished for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 on February 11, 2014.

SOURCE Amdocs

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