Mobile Data Offloading: Benefits, Issues, and Technological Solutions

Abstract

Apart from voice services, data made its foray in cellular networks with 2.5G networks. Today, with 3G network already in place, the data requirements of mobile subscribers is very high. With the increasing demand for mobile internet and rich data services such as streaming media for audio and video, this data requirement is expected to multifold in near future. Correspondingly the existing network infrastructures will have to scale to satisfy this huge bandwidth demand in future. The simple solution for this is to build up new infrastructure. But huge investments are involved with it. So, network operators have started looking for the alternative ways of satisfying this data needs. Among many alternatives, mobile data offloading is a most promising one. This paper presents the extensive need, benefits, and technological solutions for Mobile data offloading.