The Siri Personal Assistant

Siri provides an intuitive natural language interface so that common tasks such as making a call, creating an appointment or checking messages can be done simply by speaking to the phone. Whilst such voice control systems have been the subject of research for many years, they have become widely used on mobiles only since the introduction of the iPhone 4S in October.

Unfortunately at present, only users in the US can use Siri to obtain local information such as the location of nearby restaurants; everyone else will have to wait until Apple enhances the feature possibly later in the year. Apple has also cannily restricted Siri to its latest model as an incentive to upgrade to mobile phone deals for the latest model.

Data Demands Continue to Rise

Can Siri really be responsible for this sudden increase in data traffic, and what are the implications for users and mobile networks? There can be little doubt that Siri demands more bandwidth than non-Siri smartphones, as it provides a compelling way to interact with the phone and encourages users to engage with applications more than they otherwise would.

However, it’s worth considering some other factors that may be contributing significantly to the upsurge. Apple recently launched a cloud-based synchronisation service called iCloud, which provides a simple way to synchronise multiple devices and supports photos, contacts, calendars and documents. As a consequence, it seems unlikely that Siri alone can be held responsible. Furthermore, the iPhone 4S is a much more capable and responsive device, so users are prone to spend more time online downloading content and browsing the web.

A Challenge for the Networks

These factors pose challenges for mobile network operators, as they become increasingly saturated by the most data-hungry users. There also appears to be an emerging data divide as 10 percent of users are responsible for 90 percent of the total amount used. A small group of “super users” hammer the networks the most, with a 1 percent minority consuming half of the downlink data (split between smartphones at 33% and dongles at 64% – tablets just 1%).

The advent of inexpensive all-you-can-eat unlimited data plans has led consumers to expect generous data allowances, and contributed significantly to an explosion of Internet use both on smartphones and dongles.

The iPhone is not alone in it’s seemingly voracious data appetite either; the Arieso report mentions several Android-based devices have witnessed a dramatic rise in data demand, such as the HTC Desire S. In fact, the average demand is rising by around 40 percent a year. Some UK mobile networks in the past few years already predicted the capacity issues and withdrew or restricted their all-you-can-eat data plans, imposing caps or allowing only the highest paying subscribers to participate.

What May Happen in Future

Eventually, improvements in network infrastructure and new technologies such as LTE will help alleviate the capacity issues, coupled with alternative access strategies such as a greater reliance on WiFi hotspots and picocells. Unfortunately in the UK the commercial rollout of so-called “fourth generation” networks is years away, and in the meantime the appetite for bandwidth will continue to rise. This demand could rapidly expand to meet the available capacity if there are not appropriate safeguards in place.

While consumers will continue to enjoy exciting, innovative new applications and services, they’d be wise to have an unlimited data plan for maximum flexibility and to avoid crippling their devices with limited Internet access. In the meantime, the problem for the networks will worsen because Apple’s rivals are hard at work on their own voice controlled personal assistants, such as the forthcoming Majel from Google. With perhaps more cloud-based sync services on the way too, the rising demand for data is a trend which is here to stay.

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