The 3G4G Blog

Monday, 13 June 2011

Home eNode B (HeNB) Architecture options

I blogged last year about the different LTE Home eNodeB architecture options, their advantages and disadvantages. Then there was the Qualcomm white paper architecture that listed these options as well. Now there is a white paper from the Femto Forum that discusses these architecture options in detail and their advantages and disadvantages. The presentation is embedded below.

HeNB (LTE Femto) Network Architecture

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Sunday, 12 June 2011

In The Next 10 Years...

Verizon Wireless Promotional video...shown in the LTE World Summit 2011

Saturday, 11 June 2011

Smart Meters Data and Privacy

I have in the past discussed about Smart Grids and Smart meters in this post and have mentioned some of the privacy concerns. Each electrical device has its signature which could be exploited by some rogue elements to find out if there are any people in the household or itss empty. If its empty they could take advantage by breaking in the house, etc.

Last week I heard a presentation by Onzo in a Cambridge Wireless event about Smart meters (embedded below). This was the most detailed presentation I saw that explained how this data from the smart meters

If you browse the slides you will notice that the device signatures can be used to pinpoint the type of device and in most cases also the make and model of the device. It can even point out if a device is malfunctioning or about to breakdown. The customers can get a detailed summary of the main appliances in the house and how much electricity they consume and this would be without any physical intervention in the electrical circuit in the place.

I am sure that are many positive uses of this data and can be used by various governmental agencies to learn more about people behaviour, use it for monitoring crimes (think CSI) and many other advanced services that may not yet be imaginable but the privacy concerns and worries will remain.

The presentation below starts from slide 21 that shows the data part but feel free to view the previous slides.

The First 50 Billion Data Points

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Finally, I would like to mention that most of the information I have seen about Smart meters actually only include Electric meters. I find it difficult to foresee how we would have smart meters for Gas, Water and Sewage and how the data can be exploited in a positive way.

Thursday, 9 June 2011

Smart people, dumb objects, networked environments

Nice presentation explaining Internet of Things (IoT).Smart people, dumb objects, networked environments

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Wednesday, 8 June 2011

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.

Monday, 6 June 2011

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

Friday, 3 June 2011

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!