Originally published on Product Design & Development on September 28, 2016

Smart technology may connect all our devices and make it easier for us to track the people and things that are important to us, but it’s also leading to explosive growth in LTE Diameter Signaling traffic, Oracle says.

Diameter signaling is a protocol or language critical network functions use to communicate across core LTE networks.

Oracle’s report demonstrates this Diameter signaling is expected to generate 565 million messages per second by 2020. As 5G implementations roll out in the coming years, this growth will only accelerate.

“As Oracle’s new report clearly indicates, LTE traffic shows no sign of slowing down in the near future due to consumers’ smartphone usage and emerging applications like connected car,” said Greg Collins, founder of Exact Ventures. “In order to control costs and efficiently and effectively route signaling traffic, CSPs [communications service providers] need to continue to invest in a scalable, reliable Diameter signaling infrastructure – or they risk network outages and overprovisioning that could damage their brand image, their customers’ experience, and their profitability.”

Looking at traffic by region, North America leads the world in LTE penetration as 2G and 3G services are being aggressively outmoded. It’s projected that 59 percent of connections in the U.S. will be 4G/LTE by 2020. The region will more than triple MPS to 46 million by 2020, representing a 32.1 percent compound annual growth rate.

Latin America and the Caribbean will generate 15.6 million MPS by 2020, a CAGR of 59 percent.

Asia is poised to become the world’s largest generator of Diameter signaling traffic with more than 56 percent of the world’s LTE connections by 2020, representing 385 million MPS and a 59 percent CAGR.

“LTE continues to gain momentum, fueled by new ways of transmitting and consuming information – from Vine videos to car sensors that detect upcoming road hazards,” said Doug Suriano, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Communications. “CSPs need to continue to innovate and properly plan for Diameter signaling growth to meet changing industry and consumer demands, and leveraging the Cloud is one of the clearest avenues for CSPs to achieve these goals.”