3GPP LTE Security Aspects

Regular readers may have realised that Security is one of my favourite topics. Having worked on Security extensively in UMTS and now in LTE, I am always keen to have a complete understanding of the Security aspects of UMTS / LTE.Here is a presentation from a 3GPP workshop held in Bangalore in May 2011.
3GPP LTESecurity Aspects

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This and other Security related presentations are available on 3G4G website.

Billing based on QoS and QoE

With Spectrum coming at a price the operators are keen to make as much money as possible out of the data packages being provided to the consumers. The operators want to stop users using over the top (OTT) services like Skype thereby losing potential revenue. They also want the users to stop using services that are offered by the operator thereby maximising their revenue.

A valid argument put forward by the operators is that 90% of the bandwidth is used by just 10% of the users. This gives them the reason to look at the packets and restrict the rogue users.

As a result they are now turning to deep packet inspection (DPI) to make sure that the users are not using the services they are being restricted to use. AllOt is one such company offering this service.

The following presentation is from the LTE World Summit:

They also have some interesting Videos on the net that have been embedded below. They give a good idea on the services being offered to the operators.

Finally, a term QoS and QoE always causes confusion. Here is a simple explanation via Dan Warren on twitter:

QoS = call gets established and I can hear what is being said, everything else is QoE

Carrier Aggregation with a difference

Click on picture to enlarge

Another one from the LTE World Summit. This is from a presentation by Ariela Zeira of Interdigital.

What is being proposed is that Carrier Aggregation can use both the licensed as well as unlicensed bands but the signalling should only happen in the licensed band to keep the operator in control.

Note that this is only proposed for Small Cells / Femtocells.

The only concern that I have with this approach is that this may cause interference with the other devices using the same band (especially ISM band). So the WiFi may not work while the LTE device is aggregating this ISM band and the same goes for bluetooth.

Comments welcome!

Why are Femtocells and Small Cells hitting big time right now?

Ubiquisys at Femtocells Asia 2011 | Ubiquisys Femtocell Technology

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Making LTE Greener & Energy-Efficient to Enable Cost-Reduction in the Network

Interesting presentation from the LTE World Summit 2011.

Making LTE Greener & Energy-Efficient to Enable Cost-Reduction in the Network

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Related blog posts:

ZTE shows off its green credentials

3GPP Green activities / Energy Saving initiatives

Videos from Ericsson Business Innovation Forum 2011

Most of the videos from the Ericsson Innovation Forum 2011 are available on Youtube. Click on the links to watch the video:

Håkan Eriksson, SVP, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Ericsson in Silicon Valley

Douglas Gilstrap, SVP, Chief Strategist, Ericsson

Vision of the Networked Society and our strategy to get there

Paul Saffo, Managing Director, Foresight at Discern Analytics and Consulting Associate Professor at Stanford University

Creators, turbulence and the continuing digital revolution

Magnus Mandersson, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Services, Ericsson

What will cities and urban life be like in the Networked Society

Erik Kruse, Networked Society Lab, Ericsson

How smart is your city? Networked Society City Index

Lior Netzer, Vice President, Mobile Network Strategy, Akamai

The cloud can make anyone an entrepreneur

Dhiraj Kumar, Mobile Strategist, Facebook

It’s all about people

Wayne Ward, Vice President of Emerging Solutions, Sprint Nextel

Does a cow need to be connected? Connecting things and machine-to-machine

Håkan Eriksson, SVP, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Ericsson in Silicon Valley

The survival of the fittest – the network of the next decade

Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA

Operator 3.0

Chris Russo, Deputy Fire Chief, Hull, Massachusetts and Executive Vice President and founder of Elerts

Eyes on the scene – mobile emergency alert system that turn witnesses into assets for first responders

Philip Marthinsen, Producer and partner at House of Radon

Finding an audience in a digital age - PressPausePlay a film about hope, fear and digital culture

Jan Uddenfeldt, Chief Technology Officer, Sony Ericsson

Openness changes the game

Martin Körling, Head of Services & Software Research, Ericsson

HTML5 & beyond: Future of apps platforms

Arun Bhikshesvaran, Vice President, Strategy & Market Development, Ericsson North America

Learning from the US - rolling out mobile broadband and LTE

Brian Higgins, Executive Director, LTE Ecosystem Development, Verizon Wireless

The driving force behind mobile broadband and LTE uptake in the US

Michael Björn, Head of Research, Ericsson ConsumerLab

Smart devices make people dependent on cloud services

Mario Morales, Program Vice President, Enabling Technologies Group, IDC

Smart technology in Silicon Valley

Brian Wilcove, General Partner, Sofinnova Ventures

Why Silicon Valley and its investment climate fosters innovation

Summary

Complete agenda of the event here.

Dual Radio Solution for Voice in LTE

I did mention in the Twitter conversations post from LTE World Summit 2011 that there are now certain analysts and players in the market who think that it should be possible to have two radios. Here is a slide from ZTE that shows that they are thinking in this direction as well.

Click on the pic to enlarge.

Tri-SIM phones have been available for quite a while but now there are Quad-Sim Shanzhai phones that are available in China. I am sure there is a market for these kind of phones.

With the battery life and the mobile technology improving, these are no longer the concerns when talking about dual radio possibility in the devices. Another common argument is that there may be additional interference due to multiple radios simultaneously receiving/transmitting. I am sure these can be managed without much problem.

Another problem mentioned is we may need multiple SIM cards but the SIM cards used is actually a UICC. There can be multiple SIM applications and IMSI's on it. The network may need some very minor modifications but they should be able to manage this with no problems. In the good old days, we used to have mobiles with built in Fax. The mobile number used to be different from the Fax number. It was a similar kind of problem but managed without problem.

So there may still be time to keep LTE simple by standardising the dual-radio solution rather than having CSFB, VoLTE, SRVCC, VoLGA, etc.

Any thoughts?

Global survey of the Status of LTE Ecosystem - May 2011

Lte world summit_survey_may2011

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HTML5 and Devices presentation from Mobilism 2011

Couple of presentations embedded below from Mobilism 2011.

Mobilism is the first conference that focuses exclusively on web design and development for mobile devices. 'Mobilism 2011' took place on 12th and 13th May in Amsterdam.

Devices, designs and enabling behaviours - Mobilism 2011

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After HTML5 Mobilism 2011

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For more details and to view all the presentations from the conference, visit the official Coverage page here.

Infographic: What is a Residential Femtocell?

Click on the picture to see a larger version.