NSN wants the mobile base station to be ‘intelligent’ and store local content

Emeka Obiodu, telco strategy analyst, Ovum

SPAIN: "We attended NSN’s analyst and press event on Sunday where the vendor unveiled its Liquid Applications innovation. The new development will turn the base station into an intelligent cache store for frequently accessed local content. NSN CEO Rajeev Suri talked about how the innovation will enable telcos to deliver a better service and make their networks more efficient. NSN has also signed up IBM as a partner to deliver the mobile edge computing platform and is lining up a telco partner to be unveiled soon.

“NSN proclaims this as the biggest transformation in the role of the base station since the launch of GSM 22 years ago. This is true to an extent, although we note that NSN is not the first vendor to tout local caching at the base station. Much smaller vendors like Altobridge have developed similar local caching solutions.

“But this is still a big development for the mobile industry. Research consistently shows that consumers use their mobile phones predominantly when at home or in the office. Therefore, it is logical to map user preferences and provide local intelligence at the base station. This extension of intelligence from the core to the base station is thus something to watch in the next few years.”