campaign updates
PACE provides designers with a wide range of strategies through which they can efficiently update campaigns.
Almost every PACE campaign requires an update sometime during its life cycle. Using the network consumes a significant amount of power, however. For this reason, the client provides a rich set of networking features designed to facilitate easy campaign updates, while minimising battery drain.
scheduled updates
Scheduled campaign updates occur under the control of metadata associated with a campaign channel.
They are the bluntest instrument available to designers: simply stating that a campaign should be updated after a given date.
The client schedules these updates only when certain conditions are met:
- The client is on the home network or network use when roaming has been specifically allowed.
- The battery level is above a certain minimum level.
- The signal strength is above a certain minimum level.
- ...
The aim of these conditions is to minimise the battery draw when the network connection is made. Ultimately, this ensures that core telephony services are not compromised for the sake of a campaign update that is almost certainly non-essential.
rule-triggered updates
Where metadata does not provide the required fidelity, the campaign designer may opt to use rules in order to request an update, to install a new, or delete a channel.
The syntax of rules is rich and expressive and so this feature provides for very fine-grained triggers to campaigns. A simple example is of a rule that triggers a campaign update as soon as the handset is placed on a charger.
in-call updates
A key feature of 3G UMTS networks is their ability to support simultaneous voice and data sessions. Simultaneous voice and data means that the handset can be making a voice call whilst the user is also surfing the web without interruption to either service.
Once a call is established, the incremental energy requirement to establish a data session is minimal (the difference is shown between the red and green lines on the graph, below). This is because the handset radio is powered up by the in-progress call at the point where the simultaneous data session is established.
campaign designers can make use of this fact to provide battery efficient updates to campaigns. PACE provides simple hooks that can be used by a campaign to trigger an update during a call or when battery power is unlimited (the handset is connected to an external power source) or another application has opened an Internet connection.
These features are particularly useful for updating campaign data that is refreshed very often, for example a weather forecast, as well as for contextual in-call and after-call mobile advertisements.
session re-use
Session re-use is a technique where the client waits for a network connection to be made by another app (for example the web browser), and, when this happens, schedules immediate updates to PACE campaigns in order to re-use the connection to the mobile network.
Once again, the aim is to conserve power — the incremental battery draw caused by the update of a typical campaign through session re-use is significantly less than the energy requirements to open a network connection in the first instance.
campaign versioning
The PACE client supports the idea of campaign versions based on a major/minor numbering scheme.
This is a very powerful feature as it allows only those elements of a campaign that have changed to be updated by the server. For example, a campaign that provides a weather forecast may include all of the required forecast image icons in the major campaign version. On a daily basis, the campaign is updated to a minor version. The server application is responsible for only packaging the weather forecast for the user's current location in a minor update, thus saving significant network bandwidth and reducing battery draw.
technical benefits
PACE was designed with efficiency in mind. For this reason, the client supports a large number of features expressly designed to enable campaign updates in such a way that has the minimum possible impact on battery life and thus the user's core telephony experience.