RAN Congestion Management

Mobile operators face unpredictable congestion challenges due to surging OTT content, encrypted video traffic, and uneven user patterns. Enea’s Radio Access Network (RAN) Congestion Manager tackles these issues head-on with an AI-powered solution that predicts, detects, and mitigates congestion in real time—without requiring any changes to the RAN infrastructure.

Deployed on the Gi-LAN (or N6 in 5G), RAN Congestion Manager uses supervised machine learning models trained on live traffic data to deliver actionable insights and targeted interventions. It increases effective RAN capacity and enhances subscriber Quality of Experience (QoE), particularly for video and gaming applications.

Congestion often occurs when many users demand data from the same location—like city centers or events. Traditionally, the answer is to “add more radio,” but that’s slow and costly. Enea takes a smarter path.

• Boost Effective Capacity by 10%: By managing flows during peak load, RAN Congestion Manager enhances network efficiency—delivering up to 10% more throughput without deploying new infrastructure.
• Improve Video Quality by 15%: Instead of throttling all video, RAN Congestion Manager selectively adjusts higher-bitrate streams during congestion. This leads to a 15% improvement in perceived video quality.
• Fully Dynamic and Automated: RAN Congestion Manager activates only when needed and automatically deactivates when congestion eases. It’s real-time, self-tuning, and works seamlessly in both 4G and 5G environments.

• Video Buffering Reduced by 31%
• Per Subscriber Consumption Up by 29%
• Congested Cell Reduction by 15%
• Cloud Deployment Achieved in 6 weeks

• Data-Driven Congestion Scoring: Enea’s patented technology analyzes per-flow, per-session traffic metrics to calculate a congestion score for each network location. This score reflects real-time congestion levels at the cell, sector, or eNodeB level without requiring RAN probes or signaling overhead.
• Localized Session Awareness: Congestion status is maintained for every subscriber session. This enables advanced traffic management, including selective optimization of encrypted and non-encrypted video content during congestion events.
• AI-Powered Modeling: The system learns and adapts continuously. It detects subtle congestion patterns—like increasing round-trip times or rising packet loss—before they escalate, reducing false positives and enabling precise targeting.

Real-Time, Localized Congestion Detection

Most congestion solutions rely on time-of-day assumptions or fixed-location probes. Enea RAN Congestion Manager instead provides real-time, per-location visibility. It continuously monitors traffic metrics to accurately score congestion and identify hotspots—even as user demand shifts dynamically.

Seamless Network Integration

RAN Congestion Manager is deployed as a Gi-LAN (or N6) function, meaning no real-time integration with RAN or core network elements is required. This avoids delays and complexities related to RAN feedback loops, vendor-specific configurations, or control-plane signaling overhead.

Intelligent, Targeted Optimization

When congestion is detected, Enea applies selective measures using advanced heuristics. For example, it moderates heavy video flows or HD content, reducing congestion impact without degrading all traffic equally. This “surgical” approach ensures smoother user experiences without violating net neutrality.

Congestion Analytics & Dashboards

Focus areas can be selected manually for precise operations. However, operators also gain instant access to a visual dashboard showing:

• Congested vs total sessions per location
• TCP uplink throughput trends
• Average throughput across the top 10 congested areas

Fully Compliant with NFV Environments

Enea is certified across major NFV platforms which ensures rapid deployment in existing cloud-native environments. These Network Function Virtualization platforms include:

• OpenShift
• VMWare
• Cisco
• Huawei
• Ericsson

• Congestion Detection Without RAN Integration
• Encrypted Video Management
• Per-User Traffic Shaping
• Improve QoE for Gaming and Streaming
• Traffic Classification with Net Neutrality Compliance

RAN Congestion Manager is a core component of Enea’s broader traffic management suite, which delivers full-stack, subscriber-aware optimization for modern mobile networks. Discover:

• Enea Encrypted Video Manager – selectively optimizes video traffic while respecting privacy and encryption. Read more.
• Enea TCP Accelerator – enhances TCP throughput performance across mobile networks. Read more.

Enea RAN Congestion Manager is already deployed in Tier-1 operator networks, proving its value in the field. If you’re looking to increase capacity, reduce costs, and deliver an outstanding mobile experience—without the delay and expense of new infrastructure—RAN Congestion Manager is the answer.

Let’s talk about your congestion challenges.