The Cisco wireless access analytics solution "Mobility IQ" won the top prize for the "Most Innovative Big Data Platform/Service" at the 10th annual LTE Asia Awards this month in Singapore.

So what is so innovative about this solution, given that Wireless Access analytics is not a new area in the industry?

Extracting value from the huge amount of data inthe network has always been a challenge. It's been the "drinking from a firehose" issue of how to extract the data that is meaningful, and then present it in a way that doesn't drown the user in the process. In the past Service Providers have required an expense bespoke solution, usually as part of a Customer Experience Management initiative, for the use by network operations and customer care. The missed opportunity has been that the same data presented in a different way would be invaluable to other parts of the business, like marketing on the corporate managed service group.

What is unique about Mobility IQ is that first it's a pure cloud application. This means there is no up-front CapEx, integration is quick and easy and the end-user interface is simple and intuitive. In my region of APAC, this is very attractive for Service Providers who need to be cost optimised and also struggle to find and retain talent in specialist areas like data analytics.

Second it's designed to take the mass of data and turn it into actionable insight through three lenses; Network Operations for Network Health, Marketing for Customer Behaviour and Managed Services for Value Added Services. The same data but three very different users who extract value for the business in different ways.

Network Intelligence at the Venue

Business Intelligence at the Hotel

Another benefit of the cloud service is that any report view created for one Service Provider's value is immediately available to the other Service Providers who subscribe to the service.
I think we will see more innovation in this area of Cloud hosted services; from Analytics to Network Management to Network hosting. Mobility IQ is just the start.