Always On, Always Connected
By Ike Elliott
Seamless Connectivity Paves the Way for Optimal User Experiences
Technology has redefined the way we interact in every part of our lives. From buying groceries to speaking with our doctors to running our businesses, we can do almost anything online with a few clicks and a reliable Internet connection.
This increasingly connected world has created extraordinary opportunities, but it is not without limitations. Even the most sophisticated technology can be stopped in its tracks by a network service disruption. These disruptions can result in dropped connections, lost productivity, and frustration for users. For operators, they contribute to rising costs and customer churn.
According to Gartner, a single minute of downtime can cost businesses an average of $5,600. An extended outage can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars of losses, or more.
The single biggest cause? Connectivity is disrupted and to date, limited failover options can create a frustrating experience for both cellular and broadband customers, depending on which network they are using.
The crucial role of connectivity
The simple truth is that networks haven’t been able to keep up with the pace of technology evolution. At the same time, consumer expectations for connectivity have escalated, especially since the pandemic. In Cisco’s Broadband Index 2022 report, more than 75% of consumers in the U.S. and Canada said they considered reliability to be the most important consideration for broadband service. As these users increasingly rely on virtual solutions for work, school, shopping, and healthcare, they need dependable service they can count on.
Mobile operators also feel the squeeze as users seek to manually troubleshoot when connectivity is poor. Even prior to the pandemic, CableLabs research found that almost two-thirds of mobile customers would attempt to troubleshoot network connectivity by turning off Wi-Fi and switching to cellular instead. Unfortunately, this tendency toward DIY troubleshooting on the part of customers results in both direct and indirect losses for operators. User frustration results in customer retention problems and rising costs as users switch to a more expensive network.
Clearly, connectivity is an essential dimension of mobile and broadband service offerings as operators seek to manage costs and keep customers satisfied. The good news is that new solutions on the market can create seamless connectivity and alleviate pain points for both customers and operators.
Solve the user experience problem with seamless connectivity
In the past, most standards-based connectivity solutions required expensive changes to infrastructure in the form of new hardware or costly upgrades. The software solutions on the market were centered on users, giving service providers no control over how they route traffic or design routing policies. Compounding the problem, network-centric and user-centric solutions couldn’t work together, creating costly consequences for user experience and operator control.
Seamless connectivity requires a solution that addresses the challenges of both operators and users. Users need an optimized experience that eliminates the need to troubleshoot network connectivity manually, and operators need a solution that manages costs and provides flexible routing control.
Software-based automated routing solutions aim to solve both these problems. By automating traffic routing policies, these solutions deliver a seamless experience that ensures faster load time and uninterrupted connections for users as well as cost savings and better control for operators.
Seamless connectivity for mobile and broadband
Both mobile and fixed broadband service providers can benefit from application-aware, automated routing technologies designed to deliver seamless connectivity. These networking solutions solve the cost and access problems of the past, and they don’t need any additional hardware, updates, or reconfiguration.
For mobile service providers, this means:
- Operators can easily customize routing policies on a per-customer, per-application basis so that traffic is always routed over the best-quality network.
- Network traffic can shift to 4G/5G when the Wi-Fi connection isn’t optimal, and back again when the issue resolves.
For broadband and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), seamless connectivity can:
- Automatically route residential and small business broadband traffic to a smartphone hotspot during a broadband outage and shift back when service is restored.
- Deliver continuous, uninterrupted user experiences while reducing costs.
All of these benefits take place seamlessly, without users having to think about it or manually troubleshoot. For operators, improved user experiences contribute to better customer retention, reduced churn, and improved customer service.
USE CASE: Mission critical connectivity in healthcare
Imagine a world where patients never experienced dropped connections during a crucial telemedicine appointment, where physicians could count on immediate access to patient records no matter where they are, and where patients can send real time data from medical monitoring devices to their physicians, even if they have poor Wi-Fi. These mission critical outcomes directly rely on seamless connectivity to ensure optimal patient care and outcomes in a variety of scenarios:
- Telemedicine appointments
- Remote patient monitoring
- Provider access to patient records
- Patient access to specialists without geographic limitations
- Medical monitoring devices
As healthcare has increasingly shifted online since the pandemic, advances in technology have made it possible to increase patient access to necessary care via telemedicine. To reap the benefits, however, both patients and healthcare practices need reliable Internet connectivity. Automated routing control technology solves this problem by immediately recognizing when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor and routing traffic over a mobile connection instead. Because the process is automated, users never experience disruption and never need to worry about connection quality while speaking with their doctor. Providers would also benefit from reliable access to patient records and test results in real time so they can make critical decisions quickly.
USE CASE: Optimal process operations for the energy industry
The energy industry relies on mission critical applications to optimize process operations. These essential applications need reliable connectivity to keep wellheads working properly, drills functioning optimally, and processes running efficiently.
To achieve these objectives, energy operators need stability both in their wired networks for onsite functions and wireless networks for field operations. Seamless connectivity is critical to keep applications up and running and to support long-term productivity and profit.
USE CASE: Keeping retail stores and restaurants up and running
Broadband network outages for small retail and restaurant businesses can be devastating, especially if that outage occurs during peak times and transactions cannot be processed. Most backup redundancy solutions are expensive and complex, which makes them out of reach for many small businesses.
But new technology innovation now automatically routes traffic to a smartphone hotspot when wired networks are disrupted – without manual intervention or additional hardware. This is of critical importance to small businesses that are dependent on their point of sale equipment staying connected.
USE CASE: Working from home
Since the pandemic, many of us now have first-hand experience with a lost broadband link during a critical video conference meeting, or an interruption in connectivity as we move away from our home Wi-Fi network and our devices attempt to use Wi-Fi even when the connection is poor. These frustrations are due to the mobile and fixed/Wi-Fi networks being operated independently – the technology in these two networks was not designed to correct these problems for residential users.
Now, new software can make these issues a thing of the past. Seamless connectivity software can automatically re-route traffic from the network that is failing to a network that is working, with no user intervention required.
Stay connected at work, at home, and on the go
User expectations for online experiences have evolved, and technology must keep pace with those demands. High-speed service is no longer enough. More than ever, seamless connectivity is essential for mobile and broadband service providers as they seek to deliver optimal user experiences.
Automated routing technology like Kyrio’s Adaptive Route Control (ARC) steps into this gap and solves critical connectivity challenges with cost-effective solutions. ARC recognizes when an outage or disruption is occurring and automates the switch from a wired broadband connection to a smartphone hotspot or from Wi-Fi to mobile networks for users who temporarily don’t have good Wi-Fi connectivity. In a mobile environment, ARC incorporates application awareness and empowers operators to customize routing policies per application and customer, enabling them to route traffic over the best quality, lowest cost network. By removing the need for users to manually troubleshoot, ARC delivers a premium, seamless user experience that keeps users connected at home, at work, and everywhere in between.
Ike Elliott,
President & CEO, Kyrio
Ike Elliott is President & CEO of Kyrio, a growing provider of services for the broadband industry, including software and testing services. Ike joined Kyrio in late 2020 after leading the CableLabs Strategy team for a decade. Before joining CableLabs and during his 37 years in the communications industry, Ike held senior executive operating, strategy, and technology roles at Level 3 Communications, Unity Business Networks, and MCI. Ike holds 36 patents and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science.
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