LTE Diameter Signaling Traffic to Grow More Than Three Times Faster Than Mobile Data Traffic Over Five Years

Published on: 12th Sep 2012

­According to the new Tekelec LTE Diameter Signaling Index, Diameter signaling traffic growth will more than triple mobile data traffic growth through 2016. Tekelec forecasts Diameter Messages per Second (MPS) to increase to 47 million Diameter MPS by 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 252% between 2011 and 2016.

Tekelec estimates that more than 87,000 Diameter MPS traversed mobile networks globally in 2011. By 2016, Diameter MPS will reach 47 million MPS, for a CAGR of 252 percent.

Policy has the largest impact on total Diameter signaling traffic with nearly 24 million MPS crossing LTE networks by 2016 in support of policy use cases. This represents a CAGR of 269 percent over the 2011-2016 period. Sophisticated data plans, personalized services, and over-the-top (OTT) and advertising models will introduce new complexity policy use cases, driving increased Diameter signaling traffic.

Online charging is the largest area of growth for Diameter signaling MPS as service providers migrate their charging networks to all IP-based architectures. Online charging Diameter MPS is forecast to increase from nearly 18,000 MPS to nearly 14 million MPS by 2016, for a CAGR of 280 percent.

Tekelec also modeled Diameter signaling growth by service type. Results indicate that subscriber authentication will generate 5.4 billion messages in 2016. Social networking activity is forecasted to spike from about 155 million Diameter messages in 2011 to 17 billion in 2016.

VoLTE and video streaming will sharply increase Diameter signaling with about 36 billion and 30 billion Diameter messages, respectively, in 2016. These two services generate high amounts of Diameter signaling due to Quality of Service (QoS) requirements.

The growth in Diameter signaling traffic directly correlates with innovative LTE services and new business models, such as:

Geographic Forecasts

• North America: Diameter signaling traffic will rise to 15.9 million in 2016, for a 216 percent CAGR. North America will be the largest contributor to global Diameter traffic through 2015.
• Asia-Pacific (APAC): Diameter signaling traffic will rise to 16.7 million MPS in 2016, for a 263 percent CAGR. APAC will lead the world in Diameter MPS starting in 2016.
• Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA): Diameter signaling traffic will rise to 13.8 million MPS in 2016, for a 320 percent CAGR.
• Caribbean & Latin America: Diameter signaling traffic will rise to nearly 540,000 MPS in 2016, for a 962 percent CAGR. A sharp rise in LTE subscribers is expected in the region beginning in 2013.