Pokémon Go was a phenomenon with repercussions still being felt throughout the mobile telecom space in terms of security, information management and AR.
I have a confession. Temptation got the better of me. It happened on July 6. Yes, I was amongst the 30 million Americans estimated to have downloaded “Pokémon Go.” I blame my young son – he and I have been running around the neighborhood looking for PokéStops, capturing Pokémon and training them in the gyms – and asking others what level they were on. Even my neighbors joined the quest. “Pokémon Go” has truly transcended gender, race, class and creed – it would make any community leader proud. Across the world, more than 75 million people have downloaded the game. No wonder it has been hailed as the most popular app of all time.
Many people predicted (probably nongamers) the Pokémon craze would be a short-lived blip.
When the game launched, it stayed for weeks at the top of Apple’s iTunes store. It is now around No. 30. According to data from Apptopia, there are currently around 30 million worldwide users. Did “Pokémon Go” suffer from app fatigue? Definitely not. Most apps have a very (very) short life span. User numbers fall off a cliff within a few days – let alone survive a month. So, nearly three months since launch, Weedle, Charmander and Squirtle have been going strong.
Could anyone have seen the Pokémon coming?
In recently analyzing mobile data traffic patterns of a tier-one operator we had a “Eureka” moment. The cloud/network functions virtualization analytics provided a detailed breakdown of mobile data by application (e.g. Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) for all data traffic including encrypted traffic. Staring me in the face – no, it was not Pikachu – was the analysis of the “Pokémon Go” data a few days after its launch in the U.S.
I was looking at a three-day data sample and it showed a huge surge in “Pokémon Go” traffic with the total number of transactions tripling from 10 million per day to 30 million per day over a three-day period. Also, interestingly the application had a unique traffic profile whereby the app opened a large number of connections but only transmitted about 10 megabytes of data per hour, which is miniscule compared to YouTube (consumes same amount of data on average in two-to-three short video clips). So, could a mobile operator have predicted this tsunami of “Pokémon Go” players simply by looking at early reports when the app was launched?
The short answer is a resounding yes. Service providers are sitting in the middle of all mobile data traffic. It is often said this data can be very valuable to various external stakeholders and “Pokémon Go” provides an excellent example. Just imagine the advantage that Wall Street stakeholders including investors and financial analysts can and most likely do have over the average investor with access to such data that can predict which application will be a hit.
The reality though is more complicated. While service providers have access to a wealth of data, they have clearly struggled to utilize their subscriber and application data effectively. That’s in stark contrast to the over-the-top behemoths who have used their customer data to maximum effect. Amazon.com’s algorithm for presenting customers with relevant products is now the stuff of legend.
Why the struggle to utilize subscriber and application data? That is because some mobile operators have their data spread across multiple systems that often don’t talk to each other. Legacy technology also impedes operators from accessing and “federating” their data.
And that’s not the only headache.
An encrypted migraine
Unfortunately, mobile operators are also losing visibility of data on their networks. Why? That’s because secure – encrypted – data levels have risen five-fold in just one year. In some regions it has reached almost 80%. The reason for this is OTTs such as Google and Facebook use encrypted protocols – all in the name of privacy. Look at it this way: OTTs use their customer data to upsell and cross sell – and they don’t want others, i.e. mobile operators, to gatecrash their party. The call for more third-party neutral data on Facebook ad take rates reached a crescendo recently when Facebook had to apologize for the error in how they were reporting video ad take rates. In fact, interestingly, our analysis of “Pokémon Go” traffic revealed the app opens multiple connections to OTTs including Google API (for maps, analytics and ads).
The encryption challenge facing operators is also about to get tougher. Beginning next year, Apple is forcing all apps to comply with its app transport security HTTPS encryption protocols. This will adversely impact mobile operators that do not have the technology to manage encrypted traffic. Currently operators rely on HTTP header enrichment technology to deliver a personalized experience to subscribers. Once Apple’s ATS protocols are enforced, mobile operators will lose this capability.
This could deprive operators of the ability to collaborate with app developers to deliver tailored services to subscribers. And it is not just Apple, as Google will also start labelling websites as “non-secure” if they use HTTP. Put simply, encryption levels are going through the roof for operators.
The future is augmented
Excuse the pun, but getting back to the game at hand – operators who do have the ability to detect secure applications via advanced flow-based heuristics and do analytics on secure traffic will have a distinct advantage over those that don’t. Such service providers will not only be able to proactively manage new secure apps like “Pokémon Go,” but they also have the ability to partner with trusted OTTs to provide a personalized user experience.
Of course there will be more games and opportunities to come. One thing “Pokémon Go” has proven is the popularity of augmented reality games. A report last year – before Pokémon even landed on our phones – found the AR market could be worth $120 billion by 2020. To take advantage of this, mobile operators must collaborate with app developers and publishers to maximize gameplay for subscribers and deliver tailored services.
Three months on and Pokémon provides the perfect example of how mobile operators can and should leverage the wealth of data traversing their networks, regardless of Google or Facebook’s efforts to block every middleman out from gathering any insights by encrypting the data. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But just think … what can operators do with this data, especially when you consider the role they can play in the mobile ad ecosystem as a neutral third party? The possibilities, like those Pokémon critters just keep on coming though even the optimistic in me cannot dismiss the million-dollar question – can operators be more agile and keep up with the ever changing world of OTT applications? Not without outside help.
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