An Ignoble Experiment

Continue reading this Editor's Corner online

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about several wireless-related features missing from Apple's new iPhone 5s and 5c. On the list was the iPhones' lack of support for high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi. However, it is worth mentioning that the new smartphones do include another particularly important Wi-Fi feature: Hotspot 2.0.

Ruckus Wireless pointed that out in a recent blog entry, in which the Wi-Fi gear provider predicted that support for 802.11u and Hotspot 2.0 "will likely prove to be the most significant new Wi-Fi feature in iOS 7."

As a quick refresher, Hotspot 2.0 is an interoperable Wi-Fi authentication and handoff technology that enables automatic, seamless roaming between Wi-Fi hotspots. The Wi-Fi Alliance offers a certification program for Hotspot 2.0 devices under its Passpoint brand. Devices that pass this certification testing can be referred to as "Passpoint devices." Because Passpoint certification is based on the Wi-Fi Alliance Hotspot 2.0 specification, one tends to see the terms "Passpoint" and "Hotspot 2.0" used interchangeably, though that is not technically accurate.

Anyway, the new iOS 7 operating system extends beyond Apple's iPhone 5s and 5c. According to Business Insider, iOS 7 will work on "iPhones that are iPhone 4 and later, Retina-display iPads, iPad 2, and the fifth-generation iPod touch."

Read more about: Apple, iPhone 5S, Next Generation Hotspot
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Today's Top News

1. Ericsson goes after enterprise, DAS market with Dot

By Sue Marek

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2. WBA, GSMA identify more hurdles to cellular/Wi-Fi roaming

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) is making a big play for the enterprise and campus environment with the introduction of its Radio Dot System, a miniature disk-shaped cellular radio that weighs only 300 grams and will be available commercially in late 2014.

Ericsson's Radio Dot weighs about 10 ounces (300g) and connects to a larger base station.

During a webcast, held in conjunction with the company's industry analyst meeting in Silicon Valley, Ericsson's Executive Vice President and head of Business Networks Johan Wiberg said that Dot will be able to connect to 2G, 3G and LTE networks and coordinate with the macrocell network. In addition, Dot will use the same software as the macrocell so that operators can improve network performance and provide seamless coverage and both indoors and outdoors. Wiberg added that although the first iteration of the Dot will not include Wi-Fi, the next version will.

Wiberg said that Dot fulfills a need for improved indoor coverage and noted that distributed antenna systems, while effective, are expensive. Likewise, he said that although picocells are cheaper than DAS, they are limited in terms of capacity and coverage.

Thomas Noren, head of product area radio and business unit networks at Ericsson, said that Dot will be spectrum frequency independent, will support self-optimizing networks and will have advanced LAN functionality. He added that if operators integrate their indoor and outdoor network, they can get better performance, which will help with the deployment of advanced services such as HD voice and VoLTE.

Noren added that operators can connect multiple Dots to each baseband unit. He noted that if operators connect 12 Dots to every macro base station, they could have up to 96 Dots with all possible ports and radios connected to one unit. "The system is so scalable. It will cover the vast majority of offices, airports, campuses and schools," Noren said.

But Ericsson certainly isn't the only company going after the enterprise market with small cells. SpiderCloud went on the defensive today, noting that the company already has deals with operators, including Vodafone.

As far as the DAS market, analysts noted that many DAS deployments are neutral host, meaning that they support multiple operators, a scenario that Ericsson did not address in its presentation.

Kris Rinne, SVP of network and product planning at AT&T (NYSE:T), also spoke during the webcast. Rinne provided a rundown of AT&T's requirements when it comes to small cells, but stopped short of saying that AT&T would use Ericsson's Dot product. However, she did say that the small cells are an integral part of the company's Project VIP and that by the end of 2015 AT&T plans to deploy 40,000 small cells to complement the macro network.

For more:
- see this press release

Read more about: SpiderCloud, Dot
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This week's sponsor is Telecom Council of Silicon Valley.

By Tammy Parker

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3. TD-LTE wins kudos for total cost of ownership from research firm

The Wireless Broadband Alliance said its ongoing collaboration with the GSMA to facilitate roaming between Wi-Fi and cellular networks has revealed that there are a couple of additional issues the industry needs to address: authentication signaling optimization and session continuity.

The issues became evident during Phase 2 of the two groups' core alignment activity to identify a set of best practices, said WBA in a blog entry.

The GSMA and WBA announced in March 2012 that they would collaborate on a framework to make roaming between mobile networks and Wi-Fi hotspots more seamless by this year. The first phase of their work resulted in creation of a Wi-Fi roaming whitepaper.

The groups said last year that roaming across cellular and Wi-Fi networks will be based upon the WBA's Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) program and the Wi-Fi Alliance's Hotspot 2.0-based Passpoint certification program.

According to WBA's blog, dual-mode devices will mostly use Wi-Fi based on U/SIM card authentication, which will be carried out seamlessly with no input required from the user. "However, it was recognized that under certain circumstances this may lead to a large amount of signaling traffic at some key network nodes," the association said.

In short, the groups' joint task force discovered "that the introduction of SIM-based seamless authentication to Wi-Fi can only be a benefit to the mobile network customer when accessing these networks," WBA said.

Regarding the second issue recognized by the task force, WBA said, "The requirement for seamless service continuity between 3GPP and Wi-Fi networks was identified as a priority for our members with a clear and unified vision from both operators and vendors needed regarding the adoption of session continuity."

The task force identified two major session continuity solutions available in the industry: service layer continuity and IP layer continuity. According to a related white paper, the task force has presented a set of recommendations to bodies such as the Wi-Fi Alliance and 3GPP, as well as GSMA and WBA, on actions for further development related to session continuity.

"The GSMA and WBA will continue to work collaboratively in order to help further develop Wi-Fi Roaming with the aim of increasing the quality of user experience," WBA said in its blog.

For more:
- see this WBA blog entry

Read more about: GSMA, Wireless Broadband Alliance
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By Tammy Parker

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4. AT&T, Cisco showing the way to SDN and NFV

Low spectrum costs and improving economies of scale mean a standalone TD-LTE network actually has 13 percent lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than the FDD flavor of LTE, according to ABI Research.

Unpaired spectrum used for TD-LTE has traditionally been viewed as less attractive than FDD spectrum and therefore sold for 44 percent less, ABI said.

Further, significant TD-LTE contract awards in China, the United States, Russia and Japan have slashed the cost of equipment, helping TD-LTE gear reach cost parity with LTE-FDD gear. Leading the charge is China Mobile's recent announcement that it would spend $3.3 billion on rolling out 207,000 TD-LTE base stations.

In addition, U.S. operator Sprint (NYSE:S) CFO Joe Euteneuer said during an investor conference earlier this month that Sprint expects to deploy TD-LTE technology across 5,500 Clearwire cell sites by the end of the year using Clearwire's 2.5 GHz spectrum and will continue to roll that technology out across the nation next year.

Globally, there are 60 TD-LTE deployments, of which 21 have commercially launched, according to ABI. Notable TD-LTE commercial services are being ramped up by Japan's SoftBank, India's Airtel and Australia's Optus, ABI said.

TD-LTE offers significant deployment flexibility. The technology "can be deployed as a complete network solution, as a hybrid FDD/TDD LTE network, a backhaul solution, or a network extension for a WiMAX network," the research firm said.

Further, TD-LTE also offers impressive savings in backhaul. ABI said the technology can provide a 33 percent savings over point-to-point microwave solutions and a 43 percent savings over fiber.

In ABI's competitive assessment of TD-LTE suppliers, Huawei topped the firm's "Innovation vs. Implementation" ranking, followed by NSN and Ericsson. "Huawei's success in securing over 36 deployment contracts, strong IP holdings and R&D investment" benefitted the vendor, ABI said.

For more:
- see this ABI release

Read more about: LTE TDD
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By Tammy Parker

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5. Verizon adds voice to fixed LTE offering

Wireless operators and vendors are lining up to virtualize the network via software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). The latest examples of this trend arrived this week with separate announcements from carrier AT&T (NYSE:T) and vendor Cisco Systems.

AT&T announced its Supplier Domain Program 2.0, whose goal "is to ensure that each investment accelerates our move towards an advanced all-IP broadband, all-wireless, and all-cloud infrastructure," said Tim Harden, president of AT&T supply chain.

The carrier expects its revamped architecture will accelerate time-to-market for technologically advanced products and services. Integrated through AT&T's wide-area network (WAN) and using NFV and SDN, the architecture is expected to simplify and scale AT&T's network by separating hardware and software functionality, separating network control plane and forwarding planes, and improving functionality management in the software layer.

"We eventually see this extending to the RAN, but that is not our initial focus. The initial focus is mostly in the core and metro network," an AT&T spokesperson told FierceBroadbandWireless.

"AT&T operates as an integrated carrier end to end. Therefore, the customer will be able to interact with our network in an all-IP environment for their wired as well as wireless requirements," the spokesperson said.

AT&T's announcement is a shot across the bow for network gear suppliers and potential suppliers, who now know that they must include support for SDN and NFV in their wares.

The operator said some of its new network focus will require new providers with different skills and capabilities in addition to the current providers it has. The operator intends to begin selecting vendors and awarding business late this year and through 2014. The company said it is not revising its previously announced capital expenditure guidance for 2014-15, but over the next five years AT&T expects virtualization will bring down capex.

In related news, Cisco introduced its Network Convergence System (NCS), which it says is "a network fabric family designed to serve as the foundation of a massively scalable, smarter and more adaptable Internet." The system's programmability and virtualization capabilities are designed to enable service providers to accelerate their transition to SDN and NFV.

"All of the benefits and advantages on why customers wanted a fabric in their data center, the next logical step is to extend those to the WAN--a WAN fabric that is capable of virtualizing with a platform, with southbound and northbound APIs that allows programmability of the network," said Ray Mota, founder of ACG Research, who was quoted by Network World.

NCS consists of three platforms--NCS 6000, NCS 4000 and NCS 2000--which can be managed as a single integrated system. Cisco's NCS is expected to compete against Juniper Networks' PTX and Alcatel-Lucent's (NYSE:ALU) 7950 XRS routers.

"When deployed as part of the Cisco One Service Provider Architecture, which embraces and extends SDN/NFV, the Cisco NCS family can help network operators reduce total cost of ownership by 45 percent while consuming 60 percent less power," the company said.

KDDI, Telstra and BSkyB (Sky) are deploying Cisco's NCS. "This network evolution will help us to continue to have Australia's largest and most reliable IP and 3G/4G wireless network," which can "manage the hyper-growth in video, the continued adoption of smart phones and the industry shift to cloud-based services," commented Mike Wright, Telstra's executive director of networks.

For more:
- see this AT&T release
- see this BillingWorld article
- see this Light Reading article
- see this Cisco release
- see this Network World article

Read more about: BSS, Supplier Domain Program 2.0
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By Tammy Parker

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