Monday, 22 February 2010

Femtocells update from Mobile World Congress 2010


Among a host of announcements, the leading silicon supplier for this segment, picoChip, was working hard to maintain its headstart as Qualcomm and others gear up to enter the market. It announced no fewer than six new customers, many coming from the Taiwanese ecosystem that is so vital to the mass adoption and price competitiveness of any emerging consumer product.

The new customers are Alpha Networks, Argela, Askey, C&S Micro, Contela and Zyxel, all of which will use the UK firm's PC302 picoXcell system-on-chip for HSPA(+). This is designed to reduce cost and time to market for vendors, and now has over 20 adopters, including Vodafone's femto supplier Alcatel-Lucent, and AT&T's, Cisco/ip.access.

Meanwhile, the femto players are looking ahead to LTE, where there are many indications from operators that tiny cells will play a big part in the strategy. The devices will be used from day one by some carriers - to offload data from the macrocell or to provide indoor coverage in high frequencies like 2.6GHz. They could also add capacity to deployments in low frequencies like 700MHz and even be used as a starting point for greenfield providers, which could then add macro networks later, explained Simon Saunders, chair of the Femto Forum.

Continuous Computing has been eyeing the femto market for several years from its heartlands in protocol stacks, core networking and traffic shaping. At MWC, it worked with picoChip and Cavium Networks to show the first complete LTE femtocell reference design. Available immediately, this includes the LTE modem, RF and packet processors, protocol software, intelligent router functionality and a complete Evolved Packet Core (EPC) simulator.

"The demand for LTE femtocells is unquestionable. We are already seeing operators asking for small cell access points to start testing in the second half of this year. Femtocells represent the key to avoiding the difficulties surrounding the first 3G deployments where roll-outs cost too much, took too long and did not meet user expectations," said Mike Dagenais, CEO of Continuous.

The reference design used a picoChip modem, mezzanine RF card and PHY software; Cavium's Octeon Plus multicore processor; and Continuous' Trillium LTE Layer 2/3 protocols, eNodeB reference application and EPC emulator.



Call it network congestion, capacity crunch or data overload - the complaints aired at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week were all about cellphone network operators trying to find ways of profitably handling an explosion in mobile data traffic.

Management of the data traffic has become a priority for the telecoms industry as mobile internet usage is booming but data revenues for the phone companies grow slowly at best.

Research firm Informa forecasts a 50 per cent rise in mobile data traffic in 2010 on the back of the increasing popularity of devices such as the Apple iPhone and netbooks, but only a 13 percent rise in data revenues.

This has put added pressure on the phone companies to find ways of using fixed line networks including the internet to take some of the strain off the airwaves.

"Offloading is crucial for us," France Telecom -owned Orange's global head of mobile Olaf Swantee told Reuters ahead of the conference.

"In many countries where we have a fixed network we try to offload directly," he said.

The problem is that offloading data from wireless network to local hotspots still costs money, and operators are searching left and right for solutions that will not raise their overall capital spending, industry executives said.

"To address the smartphone challenge they are investing again," said Rajeev Suri, chief executive of joint venture equipment maker Nokia Siemens, who added that it was uncertain whether this spending was additional to or instead of other investment plans.

More certain was Bruce Brda, head of rival Motorola's networks business. "Carriers have been very consistent - they do not increase capex," he told Reuters.

Nevertheless Motorola saw better than expected demand late last year for equipment as some operators strengthened their existing networks to cope with surging data traffic, Brda said.

"In early 2010 I am seeing the same trend. The indication is there is incremental spending."

Equipment vendors such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent were also demonstrating new technology LTE equipment in Barcelona, as a route toward handling the data rush.

Operators are expected to spend billions of euros converting their networks to the Long Term Evolution standard, which will enable fast mobile broadband access for services such as watching movies on mobile phones, although some critics say LTE would prove a stopgap solution if data traffic goes on growing.

"LTE will buy a carrier two to three years of relief, but then it runs out," Brda said.

And analysts say telecom operators' sales in mature markets are not growing fast enough to justify major investments, which may mean an increase in demand instead for other technologies such as Wi-Fi or femtocells.

Femtocells are localized phone network base stations sited in homes and offices where signal strength might otherwise be weak, taking users onto the phone company's network via their own broadband internet connections.

"The biggest problem is that everybody is expecting these huge amounts of data but nobody is willing to pay much extra for it," said Stephen Rayment, chief technology officer of Belair Networks, which provides Wi-Fi services.

"Operators started offering 'all you can eat' data and now that's coming back to bite them," he said.




Speaking at Mobile World Congress Professor Simon Saunders, chairman of the femtoforum - the official non-profit standards' body proclaimed "2010 is the breakthrough year for femtocell".

From a UK perspective he was able to confirm the backing of industry regular Ofcom while T-Mobile, Telefonica/O2, Vodafone and Orange have all signed up as members so far. Furthermore, deployment of femtocell solutions to compete with Sure Signal is now ready and in their hands.

"The technology is there and it is now a matter of timing for the operators," he told me. "I cannot give specific dates, but all UK operators should be looking at a 2010 roll-out."

So far 55 network operators are femtocell forum members around the world, and operator commitments have jumped 50 per in the last three months alone. On top of this 3GPP has formalised femtocell standards, and the body's next generation ('Release 9') will bring support for LTE and enhancements for UMTS. The WiMax Forum is also on board as is the FCC in the US while China and Japan have confirmed their support.

Alcatel-Lucent recently announced the availability of a “small cell” (femtocell) designed to address the needs of enterprise customers. And last month Vodafone renamed its femtocell device to Sure Signal, as well as dramatically reducing its cost from £160 down to £50.

Informa said that the Vodafone relaunch of its femtocell offering is “realising considerable success in the UK, spearheading the entrance of femtocell services in the European market.”

“Vodafone rebranded the femtocell service to make the proposition clearer to end users while differentiating from their competition by eliminating indoor coverage deadspots,” it added.

According to Informa there are currently 12 service commitments, including nine commercial launches and several ongoing trials, while completed trials are now progressing into deployment plans for several mobile operators. This contrasts with eight femtocell service commitments and six commercial launches in November 2009.

During the last three months it cited French mobile operator SFR, Portuguese operator OPTIMUS and Chinese operator China Unicom, all of which have commercially launched femtocell services. Meanwhile it says that both Japan’s KDDI and France’s free have also committed to the technology.

Pictures Source: Trusted Reviews

Thursday, 18 February 2010

LTE Conformance Testing Logs

I have added some LTE Conformance Testing Logs and Description on the 3G4G website at http://www.3g4g.co.uk/Lte/ConformanceTests/

Most of these initial tests have been submitted by Anite who has passed it using the LG dongle above.

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Self Organizing Networks and Enhancements

I have blogged about SON earlier here and here. The following is an update from the 3G Americas Whitepaper on Mobile Broadband:

SON concepts are included in the LTE (E-UTRAN) standards starting from the first release of the technology (Rel-8) and expand in scope with subsequent releases. A key goal of 3GPP standardization is the support of SON features in multi-vendor network environments. 3GPP has defined a set of LTE SON use cases and associated SON functions. The standardized SON features effectively track the expected LTE network evolution stages as a function of time. With the first commercial networks expected to launch in 2010, the initial focus of Rel-8 has been functionality associated with initial equipment installation and integration.

The scope of the first release of SON (Rel-8) includes the following 3GPP functions, covering different aspects of the eNodeB self-configuration use case:
• Automatic Inventory
• Automatic Software Download
• Automatic Neighbor Relations
• Automatic PCI Assignment

The next release of SON, as standardized in Rel-9, will provide SON functionality addressing more maturing networks. It includes the following additional use cases:
• Coverage & Capacity Optimization
• Mobility optimization
• RACH optimization
• Load balancing optimization

Other SON-related aspects that are being discussed in the framework of Rel-9 include improvement on the telecom management system to increase energy savings, a new OAM interface to control home eNodeBs, UE reporting functionality to minimize the amount of drive tests, studies on self testing and self-healing functions and minimization of drive testing. It should be clarified that SON-related functionality will continue to expand through the subsequent releases of the LTE standard.

The SON specifications have been built over the existing 3GPP network management architecture, reusing much functionality that existed prior to Rel-8. These management interfaces are being defined in a generic manner to leave room for innovation on different vendor implementations. More information on the SON capabilities in 3GPP can be found in 3G Americas’ December 2009 white paper, The Benefits of SON in LTE.

SON technologies have been introduced in Rel-8/Rel-9 to help decrease the CAPEX and OPEX of the system. LTE-Advanced further enhances the SON with the following features:
  • Coverage and Capacity Optimization. Coverage and Capacity Optimization techniques are currently under study in 3GPP and will provide continuous coverage and optimal capacity of the network. The performance of the network can be obtained via key measurement data and adjustments can then be made to improve the network performance. For instance, call drop rates will give an initial indication of the areas within the network that have insufficient coverage and traffic counters can be used to identify capacity problems. Based on these measurements, the network can optimize the performance by trading off capacity and coverage.
  • Mobility Robustness Optimization. Mobility Robustness Optimization aims at reducing the number of hand over related radio link failures by optimally setting the hand over parameters. A secondary objective is to avoid the ping-pong effect or prolonged connection to a non-optimal cell.
  • Mobility Load Balancing. Related to Mobility Robustness is Mobility Load Balancing, which aims to optimize the cell reselection and handover parameters to deal with unequal traffic loads. The goal of the study is to achieve this while minimizing the number of handovers and redirections needed to achieve the load balancing.
  • RACH Optimization. To improve the access to the system, RACH Optimization has been proposed to optimize the system parameters based upon monitoring the network conditions, such as RACH load and the uplink interference. The goal is to minimize the access delays for all the UEs in the system and the RACH load.

In addition to the enhanced SON technologies described above, minimization of manual drive testing functionality is also currently under examination in 3GPP to enhance and minimize the effort for optimization of the LTE-Advance network. The main goal is to automate the collection of UE measurement data. In so doing, it will minimize the need for operators to rely on manual drive tests to optimize the network. In general, a UE that is experiencing issues, such as lack of coverage, traffic that is unevenly distributed or low user throughput, will automatically feed back measurement data to the network which may be used by the network as a foundation for network optimization.

SON related 3GPP references can be found on Martin Sauter's blog here.

Monday, 15 February 2010

New Technologies for Mobile Phone Theft prevention

Design Out Crime: Mobile Phone solutions from Design Council on Vimeo.


Three prototype solutions for preventing mobile phone theft have been unveiled.

The i-migo, the 'tie' solution and TouchSafe have been developed to counter crimes such as mobile phone identity fraud, which rose by over 70 per cent in 2009.

TouchSafe uses Near Field Communications (NFC) technology similar to that used by the Oyster Card and requires the handset's owner to carry a small card with them that they touch on the phone every time they make a purchase.

The 'tie' solution makes an association between a handset and theSIM chip so that other SIMs cannot be used on the handset should the mobile phone be stolen.

And the i-migo is a small device carried by the mobile phone's owner that sounds an alert and locks the handset should it be taken outside of a set range. Additionally, it automates the back-up of any data stored on the device.

The prototypes were inspired by a Home Office initiative to develop new ways of preventing mobile phone theft and will be shown off atMobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said: "As new technology creates new opportunities for the user it can also provide criminals with opportunities as well.

"I believe the solutions developed by this challenge have the potential to be as successful as previous innovations like Chip and Pin, which reduced fraud on lost or stolen cards to an all-time low, and would encourage industry to continue working with us and take them up," Campbell continued.

Sunday, 14 February 2010

LTE World Summit promising to be a grand event


The LTE World Summit which is in its 6th year is promising to be a much bigger event with more than 150 speakers and 80 exhibitors. There is also the first LTE Awards program which is something to look forward to.

A quick glance at the program shows that there will be a very interesting mix of people including operators, handset vendors, chipset manufacturers, analysts and ofcourse bloggers like myself. There will be so many things to cover that three days probably may not be enough and it will take couple of weeks to go through all the information and digest it.

You can have a look at the old and the latest brochure at http://www.3g4g.co.uk/Temp/

Friday, 12 February 2010

A quick Introduction to M2M Communications

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications is a healthy sector that' s expanding rapidly and generating significant revenues for mobile network operators (MNOs). Devices outnumber subscribers by an order of magnitude, but the term doesn' t do justice to the concept and the market it represents.

The following is from 3G Americas report on 3GPP standards and their evolution to 4G:

By leveraging connectivity, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication would enable machines to communicate directly with one another. In so doing, M2M communication has the potential to radically change the world around us and the way that we interact with machines.

In Rel-10, 3GPP is in the process of establishing requirements for 3GPP network system improvements that support Machine-Type Communications (MTC). The objective of this study is to identify 3GPP network enhancements required to support a large number of MTC devices in the network and to provide necessary network enablers for MTC communication service. Specifically, transport services for MTC as provided by the 3GPP system and the related optimizations are being considered as well as aspects needed to ensure that MTC devices and/or MTC servers and/or MTC applications do not cause network congestion or system overload. It is also important to enable network operators to offer MTC services at a low cost level, to match the expectations of mass market machine-type services and applications.

The 3GPP study on M2M communications has shown potential for M2M services beyond the current "premium M2M market segment." The example of applications for mass M2M services include machine type communications in smart power grid, smart metering, consumer products, health care, and so forth. The current mobile networks are optimally designed for Human-to-Human communications, but are less optimal for M2M applications.


A study item on M2M communications (3GPP TR 22.868) was completed in 2007; however, no subsequent normative specification has been published. For Rel-10 and beyond, 3GPP intends to take the results on network improvements from the study item forward into a specification phase and address the architectural impacts and security aspects to support MTC scenarios and applications. As such, 3GPP has defined a work item on Network Improvements for Machine-Type Communication (NIMTC). The following goals and objectives are described in the work item:

The goal of this work item is to:
• Provide network operators with lower operational costs when offering machine-type communication services
• Reduce the impact and effort of handling large machine-type communication groups
• Optimize network operations to minimize impact on device battery power usage
• Stimulate new machine-type communication applications by enabling operators to offer services tailored to machine-type communication requirements

The objectives of this work item include:
• Identify and specify general requirements for machine-type communications
• Identify service aspects where network improvements (compared to the current H2H oriented services) are needed to cater for the specific nature of machine-type communications
• Specify machine-type communication requirements for these service aspects where network improvements are needed for machine-type communication
• Address system architecture impacts to support machine-type communication scenarios and applications

A RAN study item to investigate the air interface enhancements for the benefit of M2M communication has also been recently approved. The study will be initiated in early 2010.

Further Reading:

M2M will become really big


It seems kind of odd to call a prediction that an industry segment will reach $18.9 billion an understatement, but in this case it may be so.


This week, Juniper Research pegged the mobile and embedded M2M industry at that amount worldwide by 2014. The press release says that consumer and commercial telematics – vehicle-bound M2M -- will represent more than a third of the total.

Nineteen billion dollars is a lot of money. But even that pot of gold pales in comparison to the promise of M2M. M2M covers smart grid, telematics and a mind-boggling number of other consumer and business services and applications. Indeed, the specter of M2M -- thousands of gadgets talking to millions of widgets -- is one of the reasons that Internet Protocol version 6 is being pushed so hard in some quarters.

Another example of the potential size of the market comes from Berg Insight. The firm says the European M2M module market will grow from 2.3 million last year to 22 million in 2014. Systems under surveillance – alarm systems and tracking devices watched from a monitoring center – will grow from 10 million to 34 million during the same period. The site goes into some detail on the composition of the market.



M2M provides a deeper look into smart meters, the element of the smart grid industry that has been around the longest. The story quotes ABI Research numbers that 76 million smart meters were deployed worldwide by the end of last year. That number will jump to 212 million by 2014. Lux Research, the story says, predicts that the value of the smart grid market overall will grow from $4.5 billion now to $15.8 billion in 2015. The advanced metering infrastructure and smart meters will represent more than $5 billion of that.

The only thing that is certain is that growth will be significant. The dangers of making precise predictions are evident in the recent findings: Juniper says that the mobile and embedded M2M market will reach $18.9 billion by 2014, while Lux says the smart grid market alone will finish 2015 only $3.1 billion short of that figure. One thing that these firms would agree on, however, is that this is a giant opportunity.

You can also read Juniper Research's paper, 'M2M ~ Rise of the Machines' here.

Thursday, 11 February 2010

UICC and USIM in 3GPP Release 8 and Release 9


In good old days of GSM, SIM was physical card with GSM "application" (GSM 11.11)

In the brave new world of 3G+, UICC is the physical card with basic logical functionality (based on 3GPP TS 31.101) and USIM is 3G application on a UICC (3GPP TS 31.102). The UICC can contain multiple applications like the SIM (for GSM), USIM and ISIM (for IMS). There is an interesting Telenor presentation on current and future of UICC which may be worth the read. See references below.

UICC was originally known as "UMTS IC card". The incorporation of the ETSI UMTS activities into the more global perspective of 3GPP required a change of this name. As a result this was changed to "Universal Integrated Circuit Card". Similarly USIM (UMTS Subscriber Identity Module) changed to Universal Subscriber Identity Module.

The following is from the 3G Americas Whitepaper on Mobile Broadband:

UICC (3GPP TS 31.101) remains the trusted operator anchor in the user domain for LTE/SAE, leading to evolved applications and security on the UICC. With the completion of Rel-8 features, the UICC now plays significant roles within the network.

Some of the Rel-8 achievements from standards (ETSI, 3GPP) are in the following areas:

USIM (TS 31.102)
With Rel-8, all USIM features have been updated to support LTE and new features to better support non-3GPP access systems, mobility management, and emergency situations have been adopted.

The USIM is mandatory for the authentication and secure access to EPC even for non-3GPP access systems. 3GPP has approved some important features in the USIM to enable efficient network selection mechanisms. With the addition of CDMA2000 and HRPD access technologies into the PLMN, the USIM PLMN lists now enable roaming selection among CDMA, UMTS, and LTE access systems.

Taking advantage of its high security, USIM now stores mobility management parameters for SAE/LTE. Critical information like location information or EPS security context is to be stored in USIM rather than the device.

USIM in LTE networks is not just a matter of digital security but also physical safety. The USIM now stores the ICE (In Case of Emergency) user information, which is now standardized. This feature allows first responders (police, firefighters, and emergency medical staff) to retrieve medical information such as blood type, allergies, and emergency contacts, even if the subscriber lies unconscious.

3GPP has also approved the storage of the eCall parameters in USIM. When activated, the eCall system establishes a voice connection with the emergency services and sends critical data including time, location, and vehicle identification, to speed up response times by emergency services. ECalls can be generated manually by vehicle occupants or automatically by in-vehicle sensors.

TOOLKIT FEATURES IMPROVEMENT (TS 31.111)
New toolkit features have been added in Rel-8 for the support of NFC, M2M, OMA-DS, DM and to enhance coverage information.

The contactless interface has now been completely integrated with the UICC to enable NFC use cases where UICC applications proactively trigger contactless interfaces.

Toolkit features have been updated for terminals with limited capabilities (e.g. datacard or M2M wireless modules). These features will be notably beneficial in the M2M market where terminals often lack a screen or a keyboard.

UICC applications will now be able to trigger OMA-DM and DS sessions to enable easier device support and data synchronization operations, as well as interact in DVB networks.

Toolkit features have been enriched to help operators in their network deployments, particularly with LTE. A toolkit event has been added to inform a UICC application of a network rejection, such as a registration attempt failure. This feature will provide important information to operators about network coverage. Additionally, a UICC proactive command now allows the reporting of the signal strength measurement from an LTE base station.

CONTACT MANAGER
Rel-8 defined a multimedia phone book (3GPP TS 31.220) for the USIM based on OMA-DS and its corresponding JavaCard API (3GPP TS 31.221).

REMOTE MANAGEMENT EVOLUTION (TS 31.115 AND TS 31.116)
With IP sessions becoming prominent, an additional capability to multiplex the remote application and file management over a single CAT_TP link in a BIP session has been completed. Remote sessions to update the UICC now benefit from additional flexibility and security with the latest addition of the AES algorithm rather than a simple DES algorithm.

CONFIDENTIAL APPLICATION MANAGEMENT IN UICC FOR THIRD PARTIES
The security model in the UICC has been improved to allow the hosting of confidential (e.g. third party) applications. This enhancement was necessary to support new business models arising in the marketplace, with third party MVNOs, M-Payment and Mobile TV applications. These new features notably enable UICC memory rental, remote secure management of this memory and its content by the third party vendor, and support new business models supported by the Trusted Service Manager concept.

SECURE CHANNEL BETWEEN THE UICC AND TERMINAL
A secure channel solution has been specified that enables a trusted and secure communication between the UICC and the terminal. The secure channel is also available between two applications residing respectively on the UICC and on the terminal. The secure channel is applicable to both ISO and USB interfaces.

RELEASE 9 ENHANCEMENTS: UICC: ENABLING M2M AND FEMTOCELLS
The role of femtocell USIM is increasing in provisioning information for Home eNodeB, the 3GPP name for femtocell. USIMs inside handsets provide a simple and automatic access to femtocells based on operator and user-controlled Closed Subscriber Group list.

Work is ongoing in 3GPP for the discovery of surrounding femtocells using toolkit commands. Contrarily to macro base stations deployed by network operators, a femtocell location is out of the control of the operator since a subscriber can purchase a Home eNodeB and plug it anywhere at any time. A solution based on USIM toolkit feature will allow the operator to identify the femtocells serving a given subscriber. Operators will be able to adapt their services based on the femtocells available.

The upcoming releases will develop and capitalize on the IP layer for UICC remote application management (RAM) over HTTP or HTTPS. The network can also send a push message to UICC to initiate a communication using TCP protocol.

Additional guidance is also expected from the future releases with regards to the M2M dedicated form factor for the UICC that is currently under discussion to accommodate environments with temperature or mechanical constraints surpassing those currently specified by the 3GPP standard.

Some work is also expected to complete the picture of a full IP UICC integrated in IP-enabled terminal with the migration of services over EEM/USB and the capability for the UICC to register on multicast based services (such as mobile TV).

Further Reading: