When I talk to service providers around the world,many of them tell me how difficult it is to capture intelligent information about their customers' mobile usage, including whom their top customers are, which social media sites are being accessed, and what information is being streamed live. What's more, mobile data and usage continues to grow exponentially which will make capturing this information even more difficult over time. According to the most recent Cisco^?Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast by 2019, there will be over 21 billion mobile connections. In addition, mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57 percent, reaching 24.3 exabytes per month by 2019.

Now, mobile service providers need to better manage allof their networks including cellular, small cell and Wi-Fi so they can provide real time value to their customers. To do this properly, they'll need a holistic view into the health of their network to understand what's going on with traffic, what their customers are experiencing, and where they need to drive more adoption. The reality is that most of this network information is captured and reported too late for service providers to take advantage it. As a result, there is little to no opportunity to create and launch new customer offers based on that information.

A few weeks ago at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, we launchedCisco Mobility IQ, our first Cisco Cloud Service for service providers that enables a single comprehensive view into real-time Wi-Fi, 3G and LTE network activities, and enables statistical analysis of mobile subscriber usage patterns. For service providers, this solution is a game changer. Now they can extract and capture visual network knowledge, then use that knowledge to create better customer experiences. For example, during a football game a service provider might see that most of the customers are Apple subscribers using their iPhone 6s at the stadium. As a result, they could offer those customers an Apple Pay option to pay for goods and services while at the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULrJGVNrz_k

Since Cisco Mobility IQ is offered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) and hosted on our Intercloud platform which is built on OpenStack, it allows service providers to quickly gain the benefits without having to deploy bespoke infrastructure. Furthermore, the Intercloud enables hyper-scalability and compliance with local data sovereignty regulations, enabling operators around the world to leverage this solution. We also envision that other business partners such ISVs and application developers will extend these capabilities in the future to create more value in their mobile ecosystem.

As we evolve into a more connected world of clouds, networks and platforms, analytics will play a key role in differentiation -and monetization. Harnessing visual network intelligence is just the beginning of this convergence. Imagine the incredible value that service providers will be able to create by 2020!

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