As mobile devices become more complex, the need for updates grows as well. Updates are needed to fix bugs, address security issues and improve usability. Competitive time to market pressures exacerbate the issue. Operators and manufacturers alike are blamed for deficiencies. Mobile Update, building upon InnoPath’s 6+ years in offering over-the-air device updates, allows mobile operators to remotely update and fix smartphones and featurephones in the field, reducing recalls, returns and often pre-empting support calls. And, it permits operators to deploy a single update solution spanning all OS families, avoiding management stovepipes.

InnoPath is unique in its understanding of handset, OS platform, and mobile operator requirements. It has crafted an un-paralleled update solution that is applicable for any smartphone OS platform or network infrastructure, including those that are IP-centric such as LTE. Our solution includes the intelligence to optimize the update experience across different network infrastructures, while at the same time is scalable to the most demanding update plans based on the number of devices targeted, the update size, and campaign timing.

Using Mobile Update, Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) can trigger one-off updates to address a particular issue that an individual customer is having, while groups of phones can be updated en masse. This proactive approach can often fix problems before a subscriber notices the problem, addressing service-impacting or security issues. In addition, operators may also enable their subscribers to initiate an update from their handset, allowing subscribers to update firmware as soon as a new version becomes available.

• User Experience: User experience cannot be compromised during handling of large package updates. The download process should happen silently without any drama – just the way an average user likes it.
• Performance: System capacity and network bandwidth should be used effectively for large package updates.
• Manageability: Service providers require the ability to finely tune/throttle the delivery of large packages.
• Reliability: The download and update process for large packages should be extremely reliable. Without reliability, OTA updates for large packages is a non-starter.

Mobile Update is offered in two editions: Basic and Advanced. The basic edition supports update packages of up to 4MB, while the advanced edition scales to 150MB, suitable for the most demanding Open OS updates. Both support complex file structures, multi-processor devices, and sophisticated campaign management scalable to millions of targeted devices.

A key component of the InnoPath ActiveCare portfolio, Mobile Update delivers updates over-the-air, giving operators the ability to perform mass updates much like Microsoft can update PCs with Windows Update. Leveraging OMA standards such as FUMO, Mobile Update provides for wide interoperability with both InnoPath and third party clients. Because updates are delivered over-the-air, it eliminates the need for recalls and reduces the number of subscribers seeking assistance in retail outlets. Operator benefits include reduced support costs, proactive prevention of support calls and improved customer satisfaction. Subscribers benefit from improved mobile functionality, fewer problems and better met expectations. In fact, during 2009, North American service providers successfully updated over 4 million phones via InnoPath’s solution, saving upwards of $140 million.

Mobile Update includes InnoPath’s Delta Manager, which creates the Diff Packages used to update the phone with FOTA. With a number of patents both granted and pending, Delta Manager lets the operator juggle a number of different compression algorithms and diff generation techniques, allowing updates to be tuned to optimize for various parameters such as memory usage, download time, file size, network impact, decompression time and CPU usage.