The Evolution of Encryption Protocols in Mobile Network Management

5G Americas Publishes Whitepaper on Optimizing Mobile Media Delivery

BELLEVUE, Wash. – October 25, 2016 – Media’s share of mobile traffic is experiencing exponential growth with a predictable progress driven future. It is expected that by year 2019, 70 percent of mobile traffic will be video. As mobile networks migrate to 5G, the method for video delivery over the network is evolving, especially in terms of encryption and new protocols. 5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced the publication of a technical whitepaper, Optimizing Mobile Media Delivery and The Impact of Encryption , that details reasons for encryption and protocol evolution driven by privacy, security and the increasing restrictions on network operator’s ability to efficiently manage their networks.

“Video usage continues to explode throughout the Americas region,” stated Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas. “It is increasingly important for network operators to be able to utilize the best optimization techniques to provide a high quality of service for all users throughout their networks.”

The growing rate of encrypted transport protocols for traffic carried over mobile networks is causing fundamental shifts in content and diminishing mobile operators’ general network management capabilities. This leads to inclusion of load balancers, Network Address Translators, Hierarchical QoS and transparent Value-Add Services (VAS) such as content/URL filtering and video optimization. It is predicted that security services like firewall and malware detection could become redundant. Additionally, a significant rise in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is observed.

The technical whitepaper focuses on three aspects of mobile video optimization: source optimization, network optimization and client optimization. The source optimization techniques discussed include Adaptive Bit Rate and Video Compression. Network optimization includes Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) optimization, Network Aware Congestion Control, Radio Friendly Pacing and caching. Finally, client optimization techniques include Device Buffering and Server and Network Aware Dynamic Adaptive Streaming (DASH). The techniques are also applicable to cases where the source is the client creating uplink traffic. The user experience can be enhanced when the source, the client and the network are optimized in relationship to one another. The optimization should also consider the evolution of the device as a video source creating uplink video traffic. Also, the network optimization techniques must evolve to cater to protocol evolution and the rise of encryption.

“The best user experience can be achieved with the cooperation of the video source, client and mobile network,” explained Ali Shah, Principal Solutions Consultant at Ericsson and co-leader of the 5G Americas report. “With mobile traffic encryption, network management becomes a challenge for mobile network operators, especially since spectrum is a scarce resource.”

The report explains the reasons for encryption and protocol evolution; presents existing proposals for internet players and mobile network operators to cooperate, enable network management and protect privacy; and the paper also talks about the rise of DDoS attacks potentially from new and legacy User Datagram Protocol (UDP) based protocols and mitigation solutions.

The whitepaper Optimizing Mobile Media Delivery and The Impact of Encryption was written by members of 5G Americas and is available for free download on the 5G Americas website. Co-leaders of the white paper working group are Ali Shah and Sireen Malik of Ericsson, and Jeffery Smith and Henry Cheng of T-Mobile.