Since the number of mobile Internet users is rapidly growing, the demand on mobile CDNs is at its peak. What challenges does mobile Internet has, and how to overcome them with the help of active routing?

About active routing

Most Internet CDN providers use passive technologies of delivery, such as caching for loading distribution and DNS. But the mobile network requires new technologies for enforcing policy control, storage and traffic optimization. Active CDN network request router works well with policy controllers of mobile networks, and improves QoS for personal content requests. Besides, now mobile operators can reduce or increase video bit rates for some certain subscribers. Now they may decide on the level of capacity available for standard or premium users and providers.

DNS technology is based on assuming that IP address can be used to define users’ location and proximity to edge servers. However, users inside a mobile network roam, their IP addresses constantly alter, and DNS may appear to be useless for geographical load balancing. This is why active routing was invented. It can be integrates with mobile networks to define to which radio tower a user is connected, and send requests to the nearest delivery node.

Usual CDNs always send users’ requests to delivery edges, but mobile network is 3 tier layered network with severe edge capacity limitations – you can’t cache all the content on radio towers. And you cannot transfer all the traffic from the core. This is where a multi-tier CDN with request routing will come in handy. Requests are sent to caches at the core and at the GGSN, which improves performance, optimizes storage and backhaul.

Mobile CDN industry challenges

There are a lot of features invented for solving the problems of mobile content delivery networks. However, the largest challenge is not about technology (anymore). The main issue is a rapidly growing number of mobile Internet users. Modern business model has changed considerably. A few years ago, people used mobile phones to make calls via mobile operators’ networks. Then social networks appeared, and made communication far simpler and cheaper. People used to text SMS and MMS messages. Whatsapp destroyed that business. Millions of people switched to Internet connection, because it is cheaper and faster. Mobile industry has changed a lot: Apple, Samsung and Google are the dominators today. CDN service is what many companies rely on, and it is only going to conquer the IT market making global connection stable and rapid.