Mobile network builder Nokia Siemens Networks unveiled tools to optimize video performance on mobile devices on Monday, just in time for the CTIA Wireless trade show that begins Tuesday in Las Vegas.
The new capabilities come out of Liquid Broadband, a portfolio of network performance technologies that NSN announced in February at Mobile World Congress. That lineup includes Liquid Applications for boosting app performance, plus other tools.
Amid all the effort going into small cells, more spectrum and other ways to boost total available wireless capacity, mobile vendors are also crafting tools for using that capacity more intelligently. Around the same time Liquid Broadband debuted, NSN rival Cisco Systems introduced Quantum, a software architecture that can analyze real-time data about the network to improve performance, among other things.
NSN wants to help carriers satisfy their subscribers with smooth video streaming, which may pose a challenge when many users on the same base station want to watch. The company says its new capabilities can reduce video stalling by 90 percent while also cutting demand for capacity by 25 percent.
The company created the new video capabilities by enhancing the Liquid Broadband portfolio, combining its Flexi Content Optimizer, policy management software and new real-time congestion awareness.
Flexi Content Optimizer tunes video to the screen size of the viewer's device so the network doesn't waste capacity sending a bigger video stream than the device can show. It can also cache content that's in high demand, such as frequently requested online videos.
Real-time congestion awareness can trigger bandwidth-conserving steps if a base station gets heavily loaded. That could include favoring traffic for customers with higher priority, based on policies, to make sure their video streams keep running smoothly.
Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com
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