IPv6! One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

3G Americas has published a whitepaper urging wireless service providers to start making a transition plan asap.

Anyone who has studied TCP/IP in their studies would know the basic problem with IPv4 is that the address is only 32 bits long and this allows a theoretical maximum of 2^32 addresses. Ofcourse practically the number would be far less because some of the address are either reserved or wasted due to the way the networks are designed (Subnets, etc).

To overcome this sometime in the beginning of 1990's IPv6 was formulated with 128 bit address. This would mean unique IP address to every street lamp is possible without us worrying about depletion of the addresses. Ofcourse the human nature is such that they dont change their behaviour untill forced to and this is the same reason IPv6 is not been used popularly.

When 3G was being standardised one of the main goals was also to use IPv6 exclusively but then everyone chickened out citing various problems and continuity of services.

Anyway, this new 3G Americas paper has laid down a plan and possible pitfalls that would be encountered when transitioning to IPv6. The following is a self explanatory summary for the report:

To transition to IPv6 or not? A critical question for many service providers is when to transition to IPv6. As pointed out earlier, IPv6 has several benefits which will result in a simpler, more powerful and more efficient network. The sooner a service provider achieves these benefits, the sooner it will be at a competitive advantage compared to service providers who delay transition. The risks of delaying the transition are the following:

 Managing a dwindling IPv4 address space will become increasingly expensive. Address
allocation requires careful planning; previously assigned address blocks may need to be
recovered, which is a complex process; and the management of additional devices such as
Network Address Translation (NAT) devices add to the cost.

 The service provider that delays transition to IPv6 may not be able to deliver the same
services as service providers that have made the transition to IPv6. The ability to support
always-on and peer-to-peer services is impaired when traffic has to traverse NAT devices.
For example, always-on services require that a user is always reachable and therefore
cannot share a pool of public addresses with other devices. This can be mitigated through
address and port translation, but also that has its limitations.

 At some point, a service provider who has not made the transition to IPv6 may become
unattractive as a roaming partner to service providers who have made the transition. The
same may be true in retail/wholesale relationships.

On the other hand, transitioning to IPv6 at an early stage also has certain risks. The transitioning process is complex. It requires a significant investment in planning and training. During the transition period, the service provider must run both IPv4 and IPv6 systems concurrently, which leads to an increase in operational expenses. Furthermore, there is a risk of service interruption, customer dissatisfaction and penalties. All service providers will need to go through this, but an early adopter may run into problems which later adopters could avoid.

In the end, we believe that service providers don’t have the option to delay IPv6 introduction. The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses will force a transition to IPv6, and as pointed out earlier, address exhaustion may become a reality within the next five years. From that point on, service providers will face an increase in operations cost, if not because of introduction of IPv6, then due to the complexity of running an IPv4-only network with a diminishing pool of addresses.

With careful planning, the risk of early adoption can be mitigated significantly.

Parlay, OSA, etc

Parlay (as opposed to Parley in 'Pirates of the Carribean') integrates telecom network capabilities with IT applications via a secure, measured, and billable interface. Parlay's open application programming interfaces (APIs) release developers from having to write code for specific networks and environments, reducing risks and costs, and allowing for innovative new services to be delivered via the telco network-operator channel. Enabled by Parlay's network-independent APIs, applications are generating new revenue streams for network operators, application service providers (ASPs), and independent software vendors (ISVs).

Today, where each service interacts individually with different network elements, ParlayAPIs can be useful.

These APIs will allow you to access same services regardless of whether you are using a Mobile phone or a fixed line phone or a PC thereby creating a Virtual Home Environment (VHE).

Many different organisations are part of the Parley group including 3GPP, ETSI, OMA, ITU to name a few.

Finally if you find this interesting then you may want to read "Parlay/OSA: From Standards to Reality".

More:

• The Parlay group
• ETSI 2006 workshop on Parlay OSA

If you have any further pointers explaining relationships between Parlay, OSA, SOA, JAIN, CORBA, TINA-C, IMS, NGN, VHE, etc. Please post a comment and let us know.

UMTS in 900MHz is finally seing light

ARCEP announced yesterday that it has authorised Orange France and SFR to deploy UMTS technology in France in the 900MHz band. ARCEP also proposed that Bouygues Telecom should reuse the 900MHz band for 3G. According to the regulator, the mobile operator said that it would deploy UMTS in the 900MHz band by the end of 2009 and that it would request modification of its authorisation when it is necessary.


UK regulator Ofcom has already opened a consultation on the future of the 900MHz band, currently allocated to Vodafone and O2 for their 2G services, and has suggested that a technology-neutral auction might be in order for 2009.


So, why should we be happy with 900MHz UMTS as opposed to 2100MHz UMTS:

• The increased frequency reduces cell range, resulting in a more costly network rollout and makes achieving GSM like coverage (>90% population) very challenging. Additionally, with the rapid roll-out of HSDPA (an evolution bringing broadband like speed to UMTS) and its less robust, higher-order modulation scheme (16QAM), building penetration from macro deployments becomes an issue.
• W-CDMA (UMTS) in the 900MHz band achieves a 60 per cent reduction in the number of cell sites required to serve rural areas, and can deliver improved quality of service in urban areas by enhancing in-building penetration by 25 per cent.
• 900MHz is a good frequency for building penetration and decent range, and is used in rural areas where the small-cell-site advantage of 1800MHz is less applicable.
• Signal coverage of 2 – 4 times the coverage in the 2100MHz band, resulting in a reduced number of base stations required
• Improved indoor coverage in urban areas. A 2006 study showed a 25% improvement in in-building penetration
• Added potential for re-use of existing GSM base stations, antenna systems and feeders if deployed within existing GSM sites
• Lower power consumption, since the RF power amplifier (one of the largest electricity consumption item in a Node B) efficiency is much improved

How to sell report using the numbers game

Came across this press release by Research and Markets with title, "4Q07 Global 3G/4G Deployments & Subscribers Tracker ". In this it seems that they have indicated LTE as 4G. LTE standards has not yet been finalised and the technology is not in operation anywhere but this makes the report sound better. Good way of sexing up the report ;)

By the way, if you want to know the bottomline:

3G/4G subscribers (i.e., those subscribers to WCDMA/HSPA, EV-DO, TD-SCDMA, Mobile WiMAX, and LTE networks) grew 91% over the course of 2007, and we expect a 63% growth rate over the course of 2008, with subscribers expected to rise from 230 million in 2007, to 375 million in 2008.

2008 may finally be the year of Mobile TV

Mobile TV was one of the topics that held a lot of interest in MWC08. Some of my clients i discussed Mobile TV with wanted to wait for MWC to check which direction the wind is blowing. The news seem to be that most of the handset manufacturers seem to be looking at it now.

According to this report in Forbes magazine:

Many Chinese can already catch analog television signals on some handheld devices. The Chinese government, however, intends to use the Olympics to showcase the next wave of digital mobile TV, based on standards developed in China.

Huaqi, a Beijing manufacturer of handheld devices, is planning to build inexpensive, user-friendly portable media players and navigation devices. Four different models, priced around $300 apiece, will debut in June, says Guo Hongzhi, Huaqi's general manager of resource management. Outfitted with 4.3-inch screens, they will also be able to play music and video and will eventually incorporate global positioning satellite data and wi-fi.

Some of the nuts-and-bolts technology, however, is coming from elsewhere. Alon Ironi runs Siano Mobile Silicon, an Israeli firm that makes the specialty TV receiver chips that receive signals encoded using the unique Chinese standards. Siano's chips can receive both satellite and terrestrial signals--an unusual combination that will eventually make the network more affordable, Ironi predicts. For now, that's hardly a concern: The Chinese government plans to subsidize the mobile digital TV service for the first year to whet Chinese users' enthusiasm for the technology.

The Olympics promise to be a picture-perfect showcase for China's digital mobile TV service. Work on digital TV has been going on for several years. Public trials in 35 cities are slated to begin in April. By the time of the highly anticipated Aug. 8 opening day of the games, China plans to be broadcasting digital mobile television to 65 cities throughout the country.

The magnitude of the Chinese mobile market, the largest in the world, with more than 540 million subscribers, means that the summertime experiment could turn into big business.

This would also be a boon for mobile TV around the world. Despite success in countries like Japan, Korea and Italy, which began broadcasting mobile digital TV as early as 2005, the technology has yet to take off worldwide.

There are many problems at present with adoption of Mobile TV. First is the high prices and poor quality:

There is a fast-growing army of ex-mobile TV users in the U.S. and Europe’s major mobile markets. Disgruntled by the high prices, and dissatisfied by the poor quality and reliability of the service, consumers are turning their back on the service in their droves. So much so, in fact, that the number of ex-mobile TV users now outnumber more than two to one mobile TV users in Germany, Spain, France and Italy.

This is the key finding of a survey conducted by M:Metrics, the results of which are published today. By comparing mobile TV usage patterns in January 2007 with those during November 2007 in the UK, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the U.S. — more than 34,000 mobile users were surveyed in total — M:Metrics found the size of the mobile TV audience had increased by 36 percent. The bad news for mobile operators, however, is that the number of former mobile TV users had grown by a whopping 68 percent.

The second most popular reason for mobile TV disillusionment among M:Metrics’ survey respondents was poor quality and reliability, cited by an average of around 25 percent of ex-mobile TV users across the countries surveyed (ranging from 22 percent in the U.S. up to 30 percent in the U.S.).

The others are more due to technological limitations which will be overcome with time:

Receiver chips must be energy-efficient to preserve battery life--an important consideration in any mobile device. At the same time, they must be sensitive enough to transform even weak TV signals into clear images and function in sheltered places, like garages, and at moderate speeds, such as on trains or in fast-moving cars.

And then the standards:

Clashing standards have slowed adoption. Like many cellular technologies, mobile TV standards differ by region, forming an alphabet soup of acronyms: wireless technology company Qualcomm's MediaFLO in the U.S., DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds) in Europe, T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcast) in Korea, and ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial) in Japan and Brazil. The standards are largely incompatible.

And ofcourse the business models:

That fragmentation extends to business models. There are "free to air" services, which, like basic TV channels, can be picked up by any device with the right chip or receiver--no service provider necessary. Particularly popular in Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Asia, these channels generally offer the same programs a home TV would show for free. Then there's the paid model, predominant in the U.S., in which mobile carriers provide premium TV shows to subscribers for a fee.

According to Ericsson's Mobile TV Research Study:

Mobile TV use is set to surge due to strong consumer demand, with the service ranked as the number one application users want on their phone, according to a consumer behaviour study conducted by Ericsson and the #1 international news broadcaster, CNN.

The results show more than a third (34%) of respondents ranking TV as the most in-demand application and almost half (44%) of the respondents poised to adopt mobile TV in the next two years.

Key findings also revealed that photo and video messaging look to be set for wide-scale adoption as consumer pricing and functionality improves. 57% of respondents use photo technology to send and receive images on a monthly basis, making it the most popular activity. This trend is mirrored by popularity of CNN International's user-generated content service iReport, which launched in 2006. The service garnered 50,000 submissions, including mobile phone footage and images, from 189 countries worldwide in its first twelve months, driving the worldwide trend for 'citizen journalism' and giving audiences a deeper connection to network news.

According to the report, nearly one in four (24%) current mobile TV users watch daily with around half (52%) tuning in on a weekly basis. At 77%, news leads genre viewing patterns, followed by scheduled television at 48%.

And ABI Research's report:

mobile TV services expand over the next five years, ABI Research sees the total number of subscribers growing to 462 million, driven in large part by the expansion of 3G networks, and flat-rate plans for mobile video. The build-out of mobile video delivery networks and an increase in the amount of available content will also contribute to the market’s growth.

ABI Research sees the Asia-Pacific region as the overall leader in the adoption of mobile video services. The number of subscribers to mobile video services in Asia-Pacific will grow from 24 million in 2007 to more than 260 million by 2012. High levels of penetration will occur in both Japan and South Korea, each a leading market in mobile video services, while China and India will both contribute significantly to the overall total due to very large subscriber populations, even though the overall penetration of video services will remain much lower than in more technologically advanced countries.

“South Korea and Japan will continue to lead worldwide, while some countries in Western Europe will also continue to see strong growth,” notes Wolf. “North America will also see some strong uptake as more services become available in 2008 with the launch of AT&T’s MediaFLO service, the continued expansion of Verizon Wireless’ MediaFLO subscriber base, and the growth of on-demand mobile video services.”

Finally:

Panasonic announced that it has begun shipment of its P905iTV mobile phones to NTT DoCoMo, Inc.

Combining the design concept of Panasonic large-screen flat-panel TV ’VIERA’ and its high-quality picture technologies, the P905iTV is a sliding handset featuring "One-segment" mobile TV. Adopting frame conversion technology from 15 frames to 30 frames per second enables users to enjoy smooth, vivid and high quality "One-Segment" mobile TV together on a 3.5 inch Full Wide VGA large screen.

The handset employs Panasonic’s original high-resolution technologies, "Mobile PEAKS PROCESSORTM" and "Mobile Double Contrast AI" that achieves a high contrast ratio of 4000:1, enabling users to enjoy vivid and high resolution "One-Segment" mobile TV and motion pictures.

Using "LCD Artificial Intelligence" which adjusts the brightness of a display automatically and advanced system LSI based on "UniPhier" for mobile phone, the P905iTV leverages eye-friendly pictures and electric power saving, letting users enjoy long-time ’One-Segment’ mobile TV viewing and music playing.

Introduction to TTCN-3

This one is from Arvind's blog:


TTCN-3 core language is nothing more than simple text with well-defined syntax and semantics. The syntax is defined using Backus-Naur Form. What this means is that any text editor can be used to write TTCN-3 test cases. Such test cases are quite different in dynamic behaviour from C or Pascal. Still, it is quite easy for programmers well-versed with procedural languages to get used to TTCN-3 easily. There are many similarities - keywords, data types, variables, control statements, functions, operators, operator precedence, just to name a few.


The language is structured in a way that allows high level of flexibility. Test system definition is modular. In fact, an important unit of a test suite is a module which would contain one or more test cases or the control part of a test suite. Concurrency of operation is possible because components can execute in parallel. Of course, execution is serialized at the level of hardware unless the multi-processors are involved. Parameterization is possible just as it was possible in TTCN-2. Concepts of PICS and PIXIT still apply because they are fundamental to any conformance testing.

More Information is available at:

• Arvinds Blog
• TTCN-3 in a nutshell - University of Ottawa
• Links to TTCN-3 Tutorials, etc - University of Ottawa
• TTCN-3 Core Language - ITU
• ETSI's TTCN3 Homepage
• TTCN-3 User Conference Archieves

Finally, you may be wondering why I am discussing TTCN-3 on this blog. This is because those of us who work in testing side will know very well that most of the test scripts are written in TTCN. At present TTCN-2 is used and there is only one big player for that which is Telelogic. This is because they have some patents which restricts competetion. To bypass this, ETSI pioneered TTCN-3 which is open source and anybody can create a compiler for TTCN-3.

As a result, TTCN-3 is being widely adopted for testing now. Its already being used for WiMAX, IMS and SIP testing. In future it would be used for LTE as well.

Do we really need Femtocells?

This article in Telecom Magazine got me thinking. Do we really need more wireless equipment in our house that will increase the electronic smog or would we rather change the service provider?

Forty-three percent of respondents surveyed by 2Wire said they would rather switch cellular carriers to get better in-home coverage, lending credence to the growing movement for either femtocells or fixed-mobile convergence with dual-mode devices as a way to improve home reception. The survey, conducted by Quality Resource Associates, of San Jose, California, questioned over 600 mobile and broadband users to gauge their thoughts on fixed-mobile convergence.

“When 43 percent of people who respond say that they would consider switching to a new cell phone service provider that could promise perfect in-home coverage, that’s a very strong statement,” Brunato said.

Other findings in the report include …

• ­35 percent of respondents would cancel their fixed line phone service and only use the cell phone if home coverage was as good as fixed line.
• ­65 percent are interested in switching to a provider with in-home cellular Web browsing and cellular e-mail at speeds as fast as high-speed Internet
• ­40 percent would consider purchasing a Wi-Fi enabled cell phone if they could make free phone calls with it inside their home
• ­37 percent would accept an additional piece of equipment if it delivered voice quality as good as the fixed line service

Read the complete article here.

700MHz for WiMAX: Everything is fair in Love and War

WiMAX was designed for the ISM Band and other bands that were freely available worldwide but suddenly they have realised that they can get a big time break if they can be rolled out in the 700MHz spectrum being auctioned in US.

The Forum, which in the past has assiduously stuck to its guns that it was developing specifications for accepted international spectrum like 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5 GHz, has done an about-face and announced that 700 MHz is a key signpost on its technology road map.

“The market interest has grown considerably recently to the point where the board has decided to give it some high priority and made the announcement today (at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona) that we’re going to be working hard on the technical specifications for the band,” said Tim Hewitt, chairman of the Forum’s regulatory working group.

While the Forum has publicly maintained a low profile about 700 MHz, it “has been keeping an eye on 700 megs for quite some time,” Hewitt said. “There’s a nine-step process we have to go through (and) for some time we’ve been doing this background work on these nine points.”

The next step in the accelerated process is to announce specifications to support both TDD and FDD certification profiles, which, in itself is a bit of focus shift because TDD has previously dominated the organization’s work.

“That was the very strong drive from the market; they wanted these TDD systems,” Hewitt said.

Now the market, both in the U.S. and overseas, wants the combination of FDD and TDD to work with 700 MHz spectrum that’s just becoming available, especially as the FCC auctions off U.S. spectrum being abandoned by broadcasters moving to all-digital delivery.

“There’s an equally important and quite exciting thing under way in the world because the ITU at the recent radio conference identified what we know as the digital dividend spectrum, the UHF spectrum that will become available in many countries when television goes digital,” Hewitt said. “That’s spectrum near 700 MHz.”

The Forum is also looking at WiMAX from a slightly different perspective. while previous efforts included fixed or portable WiMAX based on IEEE 802.16d standards, the profile work within 700 MHz will be strictly 802.16e and especially mobile.

One of the important reasons for going for TDD-FDD combinations I think is due to both LTE and UMB which are its competing technologies support TDD-FDD combination with a possibility of handover between them.

Bidding for regional licenses in the FCC's 700 Mhz auction passed the $19.3 billion mark Tuesday and before the auction concludes total bidding seems likely to hit $20 billion -- double the $10 billion amount that was universally cited as a successful figure before the auction began. And, the total has been reached without significant contribution from the D Block, which was designed to be available for a combination commercial/public safety nationwide network. While bidding for the D Block has dried up, desire for a public safety net definitely hasn't.

See figure above for D Block, etc.

"We now know that only the D Block may not sell in this auction," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) said in a statement. "The construction of a nationwide, next-generation, interoperable broadband network for public safety is a crucial policy objective, and the need for such a network has not diminished."

As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Dingell has pushed aggressively for a nationwide public safety network. With valuable D Block spectrum expected to still be available after the auction concludes, the FCC is expected to re-bid at least some of the spectrum using new rules.

Bidding for the C Block has stalled for days, and speculation has grown that Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless placed the leading $4.74 billion bid for the spectrum in the secret auction. Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which had campaigned aggressively to create the spectrum block for interchangeable devices and services, is the likely second bidder for the C Block band.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said recently that he hoped a bidder would emerge for the D Block to improve public safety responses. "If no one steps forward, the commission will have to reevaluate," he told reporters.

Say no to "Dumb Pipes"

Mobile operators must focus on providing services, not just pipes, to ensure they continue to keep pulling a profit, leaders in the industry said.

At a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Vodafone's chief executive Arun Sarin said big pipes - the term used to describe high-capacity networks - were not the right area to focus on to achieve growth in the market.

"We must not allow ourselves to become big pipes and let someone else do the services," said Sarin. "Communications is our core business - we have to provide these services," he said.

Speaking of services, he added: "If we get this right, the upside will be enormous. If we don't, it will still be enormous - just for someone else," he said.

His view was echoed by the head of Cisco, John Chambers: "If all we do is provide transport, it won't be very lucrative... If we allow markets to become dumb pipes, there'll be no profit."

Services - and how they are delivered - have been a hot topic at MWC this year. While new devices have drawn attention, the news is often more to do with the operating system, be it Android or Windows Mobile, or the web services than the new technology in the handset.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son warned operators they risked becoming “dumb pipes,” if they did not move swiftly to control mobile content, reports TotalTelecom. Speaking on Wednesday at the MWC, Son said his primary plan when Softbank bought Vodafone Japan in 2006 was to drive the development of the mobile web, saying voice will “eventually become a utility.”

Son said that 2008 will see network speed and device capability hitting a point that will enable the mobile web to take off. In Japan, 90 percent of all handsets shipped are mobile-TV capable, while mobile phones now have faster CPUs that speed up browsing and bigger and better quality displays that allow the web to be viewed “properly.” Son noted that 3G was actually not good enough in terms of speed, and that with it, “you just end up with people getting upset.” HSDPA, however, was fast enough.

Just as the carriers' fear of becoming a dumb pipe is one elephant the industry can't seem to push out of the room, it's worth noting that mentions of the Apple iPhone declined significantly at this year's show. Panelists talked about the rise in popularity of touch screens, the importance of user interfaces and the big push to bring the desktop Internet experience to the mobile platform. However, they rarely mentioned the handset that has done so much to evangelize these three trends. After an entire year barraged by iPhone news, the attendees didn't need to hear it.

One high profile carrier speaker never gave a "dumb pipe" warning. Instead, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega detailed the myriad options that AT&T subscribers have for mobile content services after quickly rushing through a few slides with iPhone usage statistics.

De la Vega didn't give a dumb pipe warning during his keynote address because iPhone users have already turned AT&T's EDGE network into one. The iPhone's applications are managed by Apple and other Internet service providers. AT&T just needs to keep the network up and running.

So maybe Coleridge's quote doesn't apply here. Maybe the fearsome "dumb pipe" metaphor really is as tired as it sounds. Maybe the carriers' folly is already evident here at Mobile World Congress: No one addressed the power that Apple has wrestled from carriers the world over. The carriers' folly was in trying to resurrect the specter of one elephant in the room, while ignoring the presence of another.

Bluetooth Piggybacks WiFi

The popular wireless technology known as Bluetooth could get a lot faster next year by taking advantage of Wi-Fi technology already built into many gadgets.

Linking Bluetooth and Wi-Fi may make it easier and faster to transfer large amounts of music between computers and cell phones, or send pictures from a camera phone to a printer, or video from a camcorder to a TV.

Michael Foley, director of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, said the first devices with the technology could be on the market in the middle of next year. The industry group behind Bluetooth, which has more than 10,000 member companies, plans to announce Monday that it is pursuing the technology and will make it available next year.

A fast transfer channel for Bluetooth using a different radio technology, ultra-wideband, was announced in 2006, but delays in getting it to work prompted the Bluetooth group to look at Wi-Fi too, Foley said.

Some products, like laptops, already combine Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functions, but they work off separate chips. Most likely, manufacturers will use single chips still under development that combine Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities.

"It does appear that the first products ... are going to be Bluetooth-Wi-Fi, and our members want to take advantage of that," Foley said, adding that all the major makers of Bluetooth chips are participating in the project.
The combination devices will use the regular low-power Bluetooth radios to recognize each other and establish connections. If they need to transfer a large file, they will be able to turn on their Wi-Fi radios, then turn them off to save power after finishing the transfer, Foley said.

The new technology doesn't have a name, and it isn't clear how consumers will be able to tell it apart from Bluetooth-UWB devices, which the industry group still supports.

"This in no way ... changes our vision of using ultra-wideband technology for high speed when that technology is ready," Foley said.

While it started out as a specific radio technology, Bluetooth is turning into an umbrella standard for a variety of different radio technologies. Apart from the high-speed flavors, the SIG has incorporated an ultra-low-power wireless technology developed by Nokia Corp. and previously known as Wibree. Products like watches and pedometers that use that technology are also expected to hit the market next year.

You can also read the Interview of Bluetooth/WiFi Union here.

Personally I think when the UWB platform is fully available, it can support WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 and then there would be some additional software upgrade for moving between them. Ofcourse the host and the controller both will have to support this new protocol.