The Race to be the Fastest

This post is by Merav Bahat, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Flash Networks

Now that we’ve all recovered from the LTE World Summit, which was both informative and enjoyable (it was in Amsterdam after all), I want to share with you some insights, not from the conference speakers, but from you, the conference attendees. To make the most of our participation at the event, we took a survey among attendees wandering the exhibition hall to find out your perspective on how important speed is, and what your plans are to make your networks faster. We discovered that there’s one thing almost everyone agrees on – speed is everything. In fact, 75 per cent of respondents said speed is the primary factor in choosing an LTE network.

Interestingly, over 50 per cent of the 50 executives surveyed rated their network as “superfast” (20Mbps or more) but, despite this fact, over 60 per cent of respondents believed that their network was still not fast enough. And when we asked what rate of acceleration would make it worth your while to invest in technologies to boost your network’s speed, over 60 per cent of you said you would be satisfied with as little as 20 per cent acceleration. At Flash Networks, we find this especially interesting as our TCP-4TE LTE acceleration solution boosts network speed by up to 50 per cent, and sometimes even more, without any investment in additional network infrastructure – far exceeding your expectations.

In addition, over 60 per cent of you indicated that you plan to implement technology to speed up your network within the next two years. These findings are consistent with a Computerworld  survey published last week, reporting that all four of the largest U.S. wireless carriers are planning to invest in LTE Advanced in order to boost speeds even further. This is not surprising, as most operators are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep raising the bar on quality of experience for their subscribers and win the race to be the fastest.

Finally, we asked participants what they think are the main challenges of LTE networks. Two of the top three answers were related to profitability (low ARPU and low ROI). So, while accelerating the network is certainly one of the best ways to differentiate your LTE network from your competitors, especially if it comes with a relatively low price tag in terms of network investment, by itself it’s not enough. Operators also need tools to monetise the mobile Internet experience.

For more information on how Flash Networks plans to tackle that issue, and how we can help you become the fastest network in your region, please visit our website or blog.