NSN is adding more location-aware capabilities to its basestations via its Liquid Apps line and a new partnership with ChinaCache. (See NSN Adds ChinaCache Smarts to Liquid Applications .)
Liquid Apps is one of the more unique concepts to spring from an infrastructure vendor like Nokia Networks . It is a way to push content to edge of the LTE network, right into the basestation.
NSN says it enables localized video caching using its own Radio Applications Cloud Server (RACS), an application server blade, integrated into its basestations. By doing so, Liquid Apps powers localized processing for up to 400 GB of storage, saves on bandwidth consumption, and provides access to real-time radio and network information. (See NSN: Understanding Liquid Applications.)
Saguna Networks was rumored to be NSN's caching and optimization partner, but today's announcement would seem to displace the cloud vendor in favor of ChinaCache . NSN says it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to incorporate ChinaCache's content delivery network (CDN) tech into its Liquid Apps platform.
NSN says that using ChinaCache's CDN will enable content to be delivered straight from the basestation to the wireless user so that it's delivered faster, with lower latency, and with more personalization. NSN can help wireless operators target their customers more granularly, based on their locations, awareness of their behaviors, and with real-time adaption to network conditions. The end result will be new apps and services that take advantage of this data.
The vendor says it's working with multiple operators -- in the double-figures, including a trial with SK Telecom (Nasdaq: SKM) that is going swimmingly. The operator is using Liquid Apps for location-based mobile advertising, augmented reality, and premium app delivery. (See NSN Turns Up Pre-MWC Volume and SK Telecom Completes Liquid Applications Proof-of-Concept .)
Partnering with ChinaCache will give NSN a bigger foothold in the competitive Chinese market in which personalized services will become an important way to differentiate LTE networks. (See Year of the Horse: Can China Telecoms Break Into a Gallop?)
— Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading
By moving content and applications to the edge the Round Trip Time between the user and the server is reduced to about 15msec from 60msec to 100msec. This reduction is RTT reduce page download time and apps loading by few seconds creating a "fixed line experiance" also in mobile networks.
For thouse how are interstead there is a great paper by google explaining the imporatance of short RTT http://www.igvita.com/2012/07/19/latency-the-new-web-performance-bottleneck/