Table of Contents
- The Importance of Traffic Steering in Modern Networks
- How ARC Enhances Traffic Steering
- Quality of Service (QoS): Ensuring Seamless Performance
- Why ARC Is the Smart Choice for Your Network
This article is part 2 of a 4-part series on Sparro ARC’s full range of capabilities for adaptive connectivity and device management. Stay tuned for upcoming articles that describe more of its unique features.
As noted in part 1 of our series, mobile devices are essential tools for efficient, real-time data capture in many industries. Analysts estimate the 2024 market for industrial tablets at USD 1.05 billion. By 2029, that market is expected to increase to USD 1.44 billion, with a CAGR of 6.38%.
Despite the necessity and ubiquity of these devices, they often struggle with connectivity gaps, especially in remote or high-demand environments. Some solutions claim to solve these challenges, but they haven’t all been able to ensure seamless, adaptive connectivity.
Part 2 of this series discusses how Sparro Adaptive Route Control (ARC) goes beyond existing solutions to ensure seamless, adaptive connectivity and fewer business interruptions.
The Importance of Traffic Steering in Modern Networks
Unreliable connectivity for mobile devices in industry can mean delayed updates, incomplete data, and disrupted workflows. Fleet drivers, logistics teams, and factory workers all rely on stable, reliable connectivity for efficient operations:
- Spotty connectivity in fleet management affects real-time data logging and route tracking. This results in compliance risks and potentially costly penalties.
- Poor connectivity in logistics settings complicates delivery schedules, asset tracking, and inventory management. This increases costs and decreases the quality of service provided.
- In smart factories using IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) devices, limited connectivity can disrupt automated systems, resulting in costly downtime.
Connectivity gaps often lead to manual workarounds, creating operational inefficiencies. These issues can also result in data gaps, hindering the real-time decision-making that is necessary to stay competitive.
While many traffic-steering tools offer basic connectivity features, few are designed to meet the unique demands of fleet, logistics, and smart factory environments. Traditional solutions often lack features like adaptive signal optimization and true quality of service (QoS) functionality.
How ARC Enhances Traffic Steering
Sparro ARC offers uninterrupted connectivity across all devices. To accomplish this, ARC creates a VPN tunnel that sends all traffic through the ARC application. This application is smart enough to steer traffic from one wireless medium to another – for example, from Wi-Fi to cellular or other licensed networks and vice versa. In Q2 of 2025, ARC will add satellite/LEO mobility.
ARC complements 3GPP Access Traffic Steering, Switching & Splitting (ATSSS) with additional features for improved performance and flexibility:
- ARC supports application-based traffic steering & switching, with a network-controlled steering policy per data flow. It also supports uplink and downlink on different network interfaces
- ARC routes Wi-Fi traffic through the provider’s network. (In traditional ATSSS, Wi-Fi traffic traverses the 5G 3GPP core, which is not useful for MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators).)
- While Wi-Fi & mobile traffic can be anchored to a network server, ARC can provide local breakout for specified traffic to bypass the ARC tunnel for improved battery life and cost savings.
- ARC classifies data flows in application types without any DPI (deep packet inspection) or packet marking.
- Whereas traditional ATSSS requires a 5G standalone core network (user & control plane), ARC works with any mobile network, including 3G, LTE, and 5G networks.
- ARC does not require 5G standalone headsets.
- ARC network components (containers) can be deployed in a central location (as in traditional ATSSS) or distributed at the edge where low latency or geographical load balancing is required.
Quality of Service (QoS): Ensuring Seamless Performance
Enhanced traffic steering is crucial for improved and seamless connectivity, but another important aspect is quality of service (QoS). QoS uses traffic steering to prioritize critical applications and services. This network management approach can improve reliability and performance by reducing latency and congestion.
For example, Sparro ARC’s QoS capabilities can prioritize time-critical information such as GPS data for fleet drivers. ARC can determine which traffic needs to be prioritized and rerouted to avoid lag – kind of like an emergency vehicle taking a service road to bypass stuck traffic on the freeway.
Why ARC Is the Smart Choice for Your Network
While other solution providers have discussed the importance of QoS for network traffic steering applications, few have demonstrated proof of concept. With its combination of traffic steering and QoS, Sparro ARC is unique in the industry. Our combination of features allows ARC to make network-switching decisions before a failure occurs, yielding the stable, reliable connectivity that fleet drivers, logistics teams, and factory workers rely on for efficient operations.
Need reliable and adaptive connectivity and device management for industries like fleet, logistics, or smart manufacturing? Contact Sparro to discover how Sparro ARC can keep your operations running smoothly.