The Wi-Fi Alliance on Wednesday revealed its plans to begin certifying devices under its new Passport initiative, which ensures mobile phones – among other things – can log into Wi-Fi networks seamlessly. Now it’s the Wireless Broadband Alliance’s turn to pick up where its partner left off, integrating those devices and the access points into the mobile operator’s network.

The WBA has closed out trials of its Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) standard with some of the world’s biggest operators, including ATT, China Mobile, BT, NTT DoCoMo and Orange. Encouraged by the results, the WBA on Thursday said that the technology is now ready for commercial launch and expects the first NGH deployments over the next 12 months.

The Wi-Fi Alliance aims to negotiate the tricky connection between phone and access point without messing around with log-ins and registration pages as part of its Hotspot 2.0 and Passport initiatives. If a device is authorized to use a particular hotspot operator’s network it simply connects.

From there NGH takes over, extending that handshake between phone and hotspot to the operator’s back end systems where the connection can be treated like a regular cellular link. A Wi-Fi access point becomes just another cell on the operator’s network: data sessions and even voice calls can be passed from the cellular to Wi-Fi, operator services like mobile wallet or media streaming subscriptions can be maintained and the carrier can track data usage and even bill for Wi-Fi consumption (though many wouldn’t consider that positive).

Here’s what WBA Chair Chris Bruce had to say about the trials recent completion in the WBA’s statement:

“The complementary relationship between Wi-Fi and mobile networks is finally becoming a reality. Next Generation Hotspots allow smartphones and tablets to automatically roam from the cellular network on to Wi-Fi hotspots thereby augmenting the coverage and capacity of both. Fixed and mobile operators alike are leading a Wi-Fi hotspot renaissance in a renewed effort to sate the seemingly unquenchable desire for ubiquitous broadband connectivity. What has made this trial so unique is that the key players from both the mobile operator community and the Wi-Fi ecosystem have actively come together and supported each other for this industry-wide program. The future is a great broadband experience that operates over all sorts of different technologies.”

One of the biggest benefits of NGH will be its support for complex roaming arrangements. No operator is going to build Wi-Fi hotspots in every cranny of the world, so they will need to partner heavily to either share capacity or buy it from third parties. NGH will be able to negotiate those multi-leveled agreements, allowing devices to not only connect to multiple networks seamlessly but also prioritize which networks they connect to.

Expect to hear much more about Hotspot 2.0 and NGH next week when Mobile World Congress ramps up. As I wrote last week, Wi-Fi has become a huge theme at the show and threatens to overshadow LTE and HSPA as its dominant network technology discussed. All of the key operator players will be in Barcelona as will its major industry backers, Cisco System, Ericsson (which just became an NGH fan by virtue of its BelAir Networks acquisition), Google, Intel, Ruckus Wireless, Aruba Networks and Accuris Networks.

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Article source: http://gigaom.com/broadband/next-generation-hotspot-standard/

According to Verizon’s tweet, only the 4G network appears to be affected:

VZW is investigating customer issues in connecting to the 4GLTE data network. 3G data, voice and text services are operating reliably.

Update: At 10:21 PT, Verizon notified customers through its Twitter feed that LTE service had been fully restored. Verizon called the outage a “brief issue,” which may be true, but it certainly wasn’t a localized one. As you can see in the comments to this post, GigaOM readers reported losing 4G connectivity, and sometimes 3G, from all over the country.

Depending on the scope and duration of the problem, this outage could pass by with little notice, or it could be another black eye for Big Red, which suffered a chain of big LTE failures in December. Those problems were all caused by bugs in Verizon’s core service delivery architecture – in telco speak called the IP Multimedia Subsystem, or IMS – but Verizon VP of network engineering Mike Haberman said the carrier had since taken multiple steps to ensure that such problems wouldn’t occur again. From our December post:

While Verizon won’t promise that no more outages will occur, Haberman said it has taken measures to ensure that they’re minimized when they do happen in the future. He said he’s begun geographically segmenting the LTE network, so if a software bug does break out it can be isolated to a particular region or market instead of spreading nationwide. Verizon is also upgrading all of its software and cutting down on the signaling clutter running over its IMS grid.

“Our goal is to ensure that our 4G network meets the same high standard that our 3G network does,” Haberman said. “We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.”

In the current outage, 3G service appears to be working for LTE smartphone customers as it did in previous outages. Thus, Verizon may  be experiencing problems with its IMS core once again.

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But network equipment maker Ericsson wants to even the score. It can’t reach parity between uplink and downlink capacity, but new network technology it plans to show off at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week will boost uplink capacity on HPSA networks by a factor of three, helping to shrink the ever-widening gap between downstream and upstream speeds.

Ericsson achieves this in two ways. First, through receive diversity, which is a fancy way of saying a butt-load of antennas on the tower (in this case four)  gathering up the weak signals transmitted by the device. The second is a technology Ericsson calls Interference Suppression, which basically involves throwing a lot of complex math at those signals when they reach the base station. Out of the other side pops an uplink connection with a theoretical ceiling of 12 Mbps, which puts the 1-2 Mbps we’re seeing over today’s HSPA+ networks to shame.

Unlike other “We’re the fastest!” announcements that vendors like to make at MWC, there is no fine print in Ericsson’s pitch. It’s not throwing additional frequencies into the mix or loading up your phone with more antennas than a police-edition Crown Vic. Ericsson is talking the same handsets, using the same spectrum, over the same networks, albeit with some modifications to the base station software and an upgrade to the tower’s antenna mast.

Ericsson has completed lab trials of the technology and plans to do live demos at its booth (really its building – it’s renting a lot of space) at MWC. But there’s still no word on when the technology will be available for commercial deployments. The sooner, the better, though.

Asynchronous networks were fine for the early days of mobile data, when we were passive consumers of content on our phones. But the rise of mobile social networking has turned us into active creators of content. We’re uploading photos and videos from our devices almost as much as we’re viewing them. Download emails used to clog our airwaves, but now uploaded tweets and Facebook updates are doing the same. And new real-time applications like video chat and multi-player mobile gaming require intense upstream connections.

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Of course, by soon I mean in five years or so. But why not break out the party hats, because the UT Dallas guys have discovered a way to make the very specialized radios needed to transmit and receive terahertz signals using conventional CMOS manufacturing processes. This is a big deal for the industry, because once you can make a chip using traditional manufacturing processes you make it less of a science project and more of a real business. It’s the silicon equivalent of crossing the valley of death.

However, the primary properties of terahertz wavelengths aren’t going to be for broadband, despite researchers showing off a 1.5 Gbps terahertz radio last year. The defense, security and medical fields are super excited because this gives people the equivalent of X-Ray vision. Terahertz waves can be used to see through clothes, layers of paint, packages and even walls. The downside is, the wavelengths also have been discovered to destroy DNA. If you think the drama around the health risks of mobile phone or Wi-Fi radiation are large, just wait until someone proposes more terahertz radios.

However, because I’m a broadband nerd that has covered efforts to promote and create chips in the millimeter wave band (it’s right next door to the terahertz wavelength) I am excited about new uses for terahertz spectrum for possible wireless data. Any use would be difficult in most common scenarios given that oxygen, water and other atmospheric particles absorb the wavelengths. However, in the upper atmosphere where the signals wouldn’t degrade as quickly, terahertz radios might be useful for delivering signals from satellites to airplanes at faster speeds than are currently on offer.

So despite a lack of clear opportunities to use this spectrum today, I’m glad researchers have figured out a way to make the radios using conventional means. At least this opens a door to engineers playing with the airwaves to see what’s possible. And given how much we love our wireless data, we’re going to need as many possible options as we can find.

Image courtesy of Flickr user mugley.

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Article source: http://gigaom.com/2012/02/22/were-not-out-of-spectrum-lets-talk-terahertz/

WPA-2 Enterprise security for Passpoint-certified hotspots is important, but the seamless roaming to other Passpoint networks and simple connections will surely appeal to consumers and corporate types alike; especially as we all start to carry more wireless devices. Here’s how the Wi-Fi Alliance describes the first phase of the Passpoint initiative:

Wi-Fi hotspot access for in-network APs no longer requires an active selection or input from the subscriber. Passpoint uses a consistent interface and automated association process.

Devices can be automatically granted access to the network based on multiple credential types. Passpoint supports Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)–based authentication, widely used in cellular networks today, as well as username/password combinations and certificate credentials. No end-user intervention is required in order to establish a connection to a trusted network.

Using SIM cards for authentication is a superb option as it’s a proven solution for access to cellular networks around the world. Sure, there are still plenty of CDMA handsets out there without a SIM card, but Verizon and Sprint, for example, are moving towards LTE networks, which are GSM-based and do use a SIM.

Simple authentication and roaming will likely be welcomed by carriers who are trying to offload as much cellular traffic as possible to Wi-Fi networks; whether they’re networks run by the carriers or by third parties, such as Boingo. And the SIM approach offers a method to provide operator-specific controls for partner networks. Phase two of Passpoint, planned for 2013, will add streamlined account provisioning for Wi-Fi as well.

Ideally, the days of using splash screens or login apps for Wi-Fi access will diminish with Passpoint. And that’s key because not every connected device has a high-powered web browser or is challenged by input methods. Take Amazon’s Kindle, for example. Om is traveling right now and just lamented how difficult it is to get his e-reader connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot:

“Most airport lounges and public locations want you to sign-in through a browser page. On Kindle’s browser, that is like cleaning your nails with a butcher’s knife. I have tried and tried and failed. It is frustrating to say the least.”

Hang in there, Om. Help is on the way if you can hold out until later this year!

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ATT has already started exploring such offerings. In November it began offering a smartphone app called Call International that allows customers to make cheap overseas calls. Verizon partnered with its biggest OTT threat, Skype, in hopes of attracting more customers to its data plans (though the service oddly uses its CDMA circuit-switched voice network).

But in both those cases, operators put limits on how the services could be used so customers couldn’t simply move all of their voice minutes over to unlimited or big-bucket data plans. Kineto VP of marketing Steve Shaw said there is still plenty of opportunity for operators to test the boundaries of an OTT services without threatening their traditional voice revenues. In fact, operators have done it once before, he said in an email interview:

To some extent, it’s a little like the calling card phenomenon in the fixed line market 10+ years ago. At the time, it cost quite a bit to make international calls from a fixed line at home. “Over the top” calling cards providers offered a way for people to access their service (via the [plain old telephone service] line) to get cheaper international calls.

In response, the [Bell operating companies]/incumbents could have simply lowered their rates, but instead decided to offer their own calling card service.

People who are price-insensitive or not tech savvy will continue to pay full fare. But for those who are willing to jump through a couple hoops, an over-the-top VoIP app from their own operator may offer a nicely integrated solution with better prices.

By that logic, embracing OTT in half measures may be a way for operators to stave off pricing pressures from VoIP competitors. Rather than lower all of their rates, they just target the segments of their customer base that are jumping ship to lower-priced platforms.

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Such architectures speak to the growing complexity in cellular networks as more people use more devices on them. Plus, the very mobility of such devices makes building out a network even more of a challenge. Base stations are fixed devices with fixed characteristics. Turning them into something that can scale to deliver capacity on command isn’t easy. But NSN thinks it has found a way.

Called Flexi Zone, the network looks a bit like the distributed antenna systems (DAS) operators have deployed at sporting venues and in office buildings to spread the normally circular cell into indoor nooks and crannies. But Flexi Zone goes far beyond the mere redistribution of coverage. Instead it allows an operator to densely pack 100 cells’ worth of capacity into a confined area, while shaping the network’s coverage to the exact contours of the shopping mall or stadium it inhabits.

Flexi Zone’s many, many pieces

Flexi Zone is actually an amalgamation of several technologies, all of which have yet to be implemented in any mobile network on a large scale. Let’s tick them off one by one:

• Small Cells. Imagine femtocells and Wi-Fi access points having a big party where everyone is hopped up on speed, and you get the idea. Hetnet aims to create a multi-layered network, in which traditional macro-cellular towers provide a blanket of coverage, while underneath that umbrella hundreds of thousands of small cells in high-traffic areas do the heavy bandwidth lifting. NSN’s Flexi Zone, however, uses small cells for both coverage and capacity. Macro cells often can’t reach the indoor environments Flexi Zone is designed for, so the small cells pull double duty.
• Cloud RAN. Perhaps the most far-out concept in Flexi Zone’s architecture, NSN’s Liquid Radio concept would decouple the base station from the radio. We have written before about Intel and other vendors’ attempt to move the radio access network (RAN) into the cloud, where the processing resources and intelligence of the network can be pooled and then applied wherever they’re needed at any given moment. Flexi Zone would leave a limited amount of baseband capacity at each small cell to support normal capacity conditions. But when things get hairy, the cloud kicks in, taking over much of the computational load of a congested cell. This allows operators to scale their networks more efficiently by not having to overbuild each cell for peak traffic conditions.
• Mesh Networking. One of the biggest limitations of small cells is backhaul. A high-capacity LTE radio can’t be backhauled with string and twine, but connecting hundreds of thousands with fiber links is a daunting if not impossible task. So NSN is taking a page from the metro Wi-Fi’s book, using radios to backhaul other radios. High-capacity 802.11n links and even LTE will connect the closely spaced nodes together. To deploy a small cell, the operator just needs to find a wall power outlet.
• Self-Organizing Networks. When you have a hundred densely packed cells all running on the same frequencies, you have the potential for an interference mess, and operators can’t do the careful testing and tuning they perform on the macro network at the scale small cells require. NSN is using self-organizing network, or SON, technology to give each cell enough self-awareness to identify its neighbors and keep its own transmission power in check, thus avoiding chaos over the airwaves. This kind of network self-management is pretty nifty, but things get really exciting when the equation includes dynamic SON, which allows individual cells to grow and shrink as traffic patterns change.

Sounds neat, but why does this matter?

NSN said the benefits of the technology would be multi-fold. Flexi Zone not only provides a solution for indoor coverage – where most mobile data traffic is moving these days; it can also supply orders-of-magnitude more capacity than a macro cell over the same square footage. And because of the Cloud-RAN and mesh techniques, infrastructure costs drop. NSN concluded that operators can use Flexi Zone to cut in half the cost of delivering a bit of traffic.

Whether operators would pass those savings on to their customers in the form of cheaper data plans is another question, but more efficient network technologies are definitely key to propelling the mobile data revolution forward and offsetting the need for operators to secure more spectrum in the future. Because Flexi Zone makes extensive use of Wi-Fi, operators can also tap into free unlicensed spectrum and cheap Wi-Fi networking gear, adding gobs of capacity to their networks for little cash.

NSN’s Flexi Zone is definitely the most ambitious hetnet proposal we’ve seen coming out of Mobile World Congress so far, but it’s not the only one. Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio architecture already uses many of the same Cloud-RAN and small cell techniques as Flexi Zone and Liquid Radio, and at MWC the Franco-American vendor is adding Wi-Fi to the mix. At the event, InterDigital plans to show how Wi-Fi can be wedged into the white-spaces spectrum between TV broadcasts to add more oomph to mobile network connections.

Ericsson is buying its way into Wi-Fi. We broke the story of its purchase of metro Wi-Fi vendor BelAir last month, and on Tuesday Ericsson confirmed the deal. Next week in Barcelona we’ll probably hear the first details on how Ericsson will incorporate BelAir’s hybrid Wi-Fi/cellular technology into its portfolio. BelAir competitor Ruckus Wireless plans to unveil its first hybrid Wi-Fi/LTE small cell at show, using the same mesh-networking techniques as Flexi Zone to create dense capacity clusters for outdoor environments.

As I wrote last week, for a show focused on cellular networking, MWC is taking on a strong Wi-Fi tone this year. Not all operators have gotten Wi-Fi religion yet, but their vendors certainly have. By weaving Wi-Fi more intimately into the network fabric, NSN may gain some converts.

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Wi-Fi offload has been a big trend in the last two years as operators try to defuse the data demands of their customers by shunting packets over to in-home, corporate or campus Wi-Fi networks. However, cellular operators have also been reluctant to give up control and the potential revenue associated with sending traffic across their cellular networks. With BelAir, which makes Wi-Fi access points already in use for city-wide Wi-Fi networks for wireline cable providers Comcast and Cablevision, Ericsson can give operators control and more capacity.

BelAir also has IP related to its equipment that makes it less obtrusive and can also create a larger Wi-Fi mesh network that more closely resembles a carrier’s cellular network. On a BelAir network it’s possible to configure it so moving from one hot spot to another is seamless and doesn’t require another sign on. This is great for consumers, who can use Wi-Fi on trains for example, but it’s also great for operators, because they can track a subscriber through the Wi-Fi network. As Kevin pointed out three weeks ago:

From Ericsson’s perspective BelAir’s technology may be an easy way for it to break into metro Wi-Fi without cannibalizing its core product line. By slotting its own cellular radios into BelAir access points, it can sell operators both Wi-Fi and cellular upgrades in a single package.

This is a good deal for both Ericsson and BelAir, and a resounding success for the idea of Wi-Fi offload. It seems crazy that only four years ago Verizon wasn’t allowing Wi-Fi radios on its handsets.

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Ovum estimates operators lost $13.9 billion of potential SMS revenue in 2011 through subscribers using social messaging apps on their mobile phone, a loss in revenue that is both high margin and creates a virtuous cycle of use. When I sign up for a new social messaging service, I get my friends on it too, causing a loss in potential revenue that spreads virally. That’s how Viber, a social messaging service that was relatively unknown six months ago, can suddenly shoot up to consume 2 percent of mobile bandwidth six months later, according to data from Allot.

This morning I suggested that the challenge for carriers is finding a way to continue getting the same total dollars from subscribers while transitioning them to new services. Otherwise they might lose valuable dollars to IP-based voice and messaging services without making up the loss of voice and testing plan revenue. Ovum also pushes carriers to stop dithering and get on board with startups to offer their end users some sort of value that will keep some of that texting revenue in carrier pockets. Ovum suggests carriers focus on their ownership of the phone number:

“In addition, operators are in a position of strength because they control the entire messaging structure through their access to the user’s phone number and usage data. The established billing relationship is a great advantage, as is the fact that operators control to a great extent the services to which the user is exposed.”

I’m not 100 percent sure trying to pen users in using their phone number or creating extra hurdles to communications is the way to go, which seems to be an implication buried in Ovum’s idea. However, for widespread use, creating an easy on-ramp for less tech-savvy (or social) customers and allowing users to interconnect across services would be helpful and something that average consumers might pay for.

However, carriers who push too hard or erect too many barriers will likely see users resort, not just to giving up texting plans, but to a wholesale abandonment of their cell phone numbers. By using new services they can piece together their own IP-based communications using a device, some handy apps, and their mobile data plan.

My colleague Kevin Tofel does that right now, and while it takes a little effort today, there’s no reason a new service couldn’t come in and make it easier. By using a VoIP SIP provider and Google Voice, Kevin can receive phone calls and send texts over Wi-Fi or 3G networks at no per-minute cost, with his Galaxy Nexus. And he’s using a $30 a month data-only SIM card to do so, which eliminates all of the high-profit-margin revenues a carrier would normally earn through voice minutes and a texting plan.

Clearly, the non-techie population won’t take this route because it’s too complex for most people to bother. But if the carriers don’t begin to offer these types of services, or partner with those who do, they run the risk of third-party solutions that start to drain revenues from the network pipes.

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Such architectures speak to the growing complexity in cellular networks as more people use more devices on them. Plus, the very mobility of such devices makes building out a network even more of a challenge. Base stations are fixed devices with fixed characteristics. Turning them into something that can scale to deliver capacity on command isn’t easy. But NSN thinks it has found a way.

Called Flexi Zone, the network looks a bit like the distributed antenna systems (DAS) operators have deployed at sporting venues and in office buildings to spread the normally circular cell into indoor nooks and crannies. But Flexi Zone goes far beyond the mere redistribution of coverage. Instead it allows an operator to densely pack 100 cells’ worth of capacity into a confined area, while shaping the network’s coverage to the exact contours of the shopping mall or stadium it inhabits.

Flexi Zone’s many, many pieces

Flexi Zone is actually an amalgamation of several technologies, all of which have yet to be implemented in any mobile network on a large scale. Let’s tick them off one by one:

• Small Cells. Imagine femtocells and Wi-Fi access points having a big party where everyone is hopped up on speed, and you get the idea. Hetnet aims to create a multi-layered network, in which traditional macro-cellular towers provide a blanket of coverage, while underneath that umbrella hundreds of thousands of small cells in high-traffic areas do the heavy bandwidth lifting. NSN’s Flexi Zone, however, uses small cells for both coverage and capacity. Macro cells often can’t reach the indoor environments Flexi Zone is designed for, so the small cells pull double duty.
• Cloud RAN. Perhaps the most far-out concept in Flexi Zone’s architecture, NSN’s Liquid Radio concept would decouple the base station from the radio. We have written before about Intel and other vendors’ attempt to move the radio access network (RAN) into the cloud, where the processing resources and intelligence of the network can be pooled and then applied wherever they’re needed at any given moment. Flexi Zone would leave a limited amount of baseband capacity at each small cell to support normal capacity conditions. But when things get hairy, the cloud kicks in, taking over much of the computational load of a congested cell. This allows operators to scale their networks more efficiently by not having to overbuild each cell for peak traffic conditions.
• Mesh Networking. One of the biggest limitations of small cells is backhaul. A high-capacity LTE radio can’t be backhauled with string and twine, but connecting hundreds of thousands with fiber links is a daunting if not impossible task. So NSN is taking a page from the metro Wi-Fi’s book, using radios to backhaul other radios. High-capacity 802.11n links and even LTE will connect the closely spaced nodes together. To deploy a small cell, the operator just needs to find a wall power outlet.
• Self-Organizing Networks. When you have a hundred densely packed cells all running on the same frequencies, you have the potential for an interference mess, and operators can’t do the careful testing and tuning they perform on the macro network at the scale small cells require. NSN is using self-organizing network, or SON, technology to give each cell enough self-awareness to identify its neighbors and keep its own transmission power in check, thus avoiding chaos over the airwaves. This kind of network self-management is pretty nifty, but things get really exciting when the equation includes dynamic SON, which allows individual cells to grow and shrink as traffic patterns change.

Sounds neat, but why does this matter?

NSN said the benefits of the technology would be multi-fold. Flexi Zone not only provides a solution for indoor coverage – where most mobile data traffic is moving these days; it can also supply orders-of-magnitude more capacity than a macro cell over the same square footage. And because of the Cloud-RAN and mesh techniques, infrastructure costs drop. NSN concluded that operators can use Flexi Zone to cut in half the cost of delivering a bit of traffic.

Whether operators would pass those savings on to their customers in the form of cheaper data plans is another question, but more efficient network technologies are definitely key to propelling the mobile data revolution forward and offsetting the need for operators to secure more spectrum in the future. Because Flexi Zone makes extensive use of Wi-Fi, operators can also tap into free unlicensed spectrum and cheap Wi-Fi networking gear, adding gobs of capacity to their networks for little cash.

NSN’s Flexi Zone is definitely the most ambitious hetnet proposal we’ve seen coming out of Mobile World Congress so far, but it’s not the only one. Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio architecture already uses many of the same Cloud-RAN and small cell techniques as Flexi Zone and Liquid Radio, and at MWC the Franco-American vendor is adding Wi-Fi to the mix. At the event, InterDigital plans to show how Wi-Fi can be wedged into the white-spaces spectrum between TV broadcasts to add more oomph to mobile network connections.

Ericsson is buying its way into Wi-Fi. We broke the story of its purchase of metro Wi-Fi vendor BelAir last month, and on Tuesday Ericsson confirmed the deal. Next week in Barcelona we’ll probably hear the first details on how Ericsson will incorporate BelAir’s hybrid Wi-Fi/cellular technology into its portfolio. BelAir competitor Ruckus Wireless plans to unveil its first hybrid Wi-Fi/LTE small cell at show, using the same mesh-networking techniques as Flexi Zone to create dense capacity clusters for outdoor environments.

As I wrote last week, for a show focused on cellular networking, MWC is taking on a strong Wi-Fi tone this year. Not all operators have gotten Wi-Fi religion yet, but their vendors certainly have. By weaving Wi-Fi more intimately into the network fabric, NSN may gain some converts.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• LTE-Advanced: what it is and isn’t
• The future of Wi-Fi in the enterprise

Article source: http://gigaom.com/broadband/like-cloud-operators-nsn-is-now-all-about-fabrics/