IEEE standards impacting the future home

Interesting graphic from IEEE-SA depicting various IEEE standards impacting the home - via Steven Crowley on Twitter

Release 12 study item on Continuity of Data Sessions to Local Networks (CSN)

LIPA was defined as part of Release-10 that I have already blogged about. Imagine the situation where a user started accessing local network while camped on the Home eNode B (aka Femtocell) but then moved to the macro network but still wants to continue using the local network. Release 12 defines this feature and is called Continuity of Data Sessions to Local Networks (CSN). This study item was originally part of Release 11 but has now been moved to Rel-12.

From SP-100885:

Justification

Basic functionality for Local IP Access (LIPA) has been specified in Rel-10.

LIPA signifies the capability of a UE to obtain access to a local residential/enterprise IP network (subsequently called a local network) that is connected to one or more H(e)NBs.

The current study item investigates extending LIPA functionality to allow access to the local network when a UE is under coverage of the macro network and provide related mobility support.

LIPA allows a UE to work with devices in the local network – e.g. printers, video cameras, or a local web-server. If the local network offers services that enable exchange of digital content (e.g. UPnP) LIPA allows the UE to discover supporting devices and to be discovered.

Examples for services that become available by LIPA are:

·         The pictures stored in a UE’s digital camera may be uploaded to a local networked storage device or printed out at a local printer.

·         A portable audio player in the UE may fetch new content from a media centre available on the local network.

·         A UE may receive video streams from local surveillance cameras in the home.

·         A local web-server in a company’s intranet may be accessed by the UE.

·         Support of VPN.

LIPA does not require the local network to be connected to the Internet but achieves IP connectivity with the UE through one or more H(e)NBs of the mobile operator.

In Release 10  3GPP has only specified the support of LIPA when the UE accesses the local network via H(e)NB.

On the other hand an operator may, e.g. as a chargeable user service, wish to provide access to the local network also to a UE that is under coverage of the macro network. Access to the local network when a UE is under coverage of the macro network should be enabled in Rel-11.

In Rel-10 it had been required for a UE to be able to maintain IP connectivity to the local network when moving between H(e)NBs within the same local network.

However, access to the local network may be lost as a UE moves out of H(e)NB coverage into the macro network, even if other services (e.g. telephony, data services, SIPTO) survive a handover to the macro network and are continued. This may result in an unsatisfactory user experience.

The current study item will allow continuation of data sessions to the local network when the UE moves between H(e)NB and the macro network.

Therefore, in Rel-11, the 3GPP system requires additional functionality to allow

·         A UE to access the local network from the macro network

·         A UE to maintain continuity of data sessions to the local network when moving between a H(e)NB and the macro network

Objective:              to propose requirements and study feasibility for the following scenarios:

Provide a capability to the mobile operator to allow or restrict

­        Access to an enterprise/residential IP network when a UE is under coverage of the macro network, assuming that the IP address of the local IP network (e.g. residential/enterprise gateway) is available to the UE.

­        Continuity of data session(s) to an enterprise/residential IP network when a UE moves between a H(e)NB in an enterprise/residential environment and the macro network.

The support of Continuity of Data Sessions to Local Networks should be an operator option that may or may not be provided by individual PLMNs.

Service Aspects

The user should be able to decline access to the local network from the macro network. The user should also be able to decline continuity of data sessions to local networks when moving between H(e)NB and the macro network (e.g. in the case when data sessions to local networks is charged differently if accessed from macro coverage or via the H(e)NB).

A difference in QoS may be noticeable by the user when the local network is accessed from the macro network or via the H(e)NB.

ETSI INT IMS/EPC Interoperability Standardisation: Motivation, Roadmap & First Results

INT = IMS Network Testing. ETSI INT website here. More details below the presentation:

ETSI INT IMS/EPC INTEROPERABILITY STANDARDISATION

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This was presented by Giulio Maggiore, Telecom Italia, ETSI TC INT Chairman in the 2nd FOKUS FUSECO Forum 2011, Berlin 17-18 Nov. 2011

From the ETSI leaflet (note that this is quite old information but still on the ETSI website here):

IMS interoperability is a key issue for boosting IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) roll-out and more specifically network interconnection between operators. Only through thorough testing in practical scenarios can operators ensure operational excellence in a multi-vendor and multi-provider environment.


IMS comprises a set of specifications designed to enable network operators to implement IP-based networks that can carry services for both fixed and mobile customers simultaneously.


IMS was developed originally in the mobile world (specifically in the specifications created by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP), and was adopted for fixed networks by ETSI’s TISPAN Technical Committee (Telecoms & Internet Converged Services & Protocols for Advanced Networks).


However this promise of advanced communications over the next generation network will only be delivered if those same networks can interconnect.


ETSI’s Technical Committee INT: IMS Network Testing


ETSI is bridging the existing gap between 3GPP IMS Core Network standards and the initial industry IMS implementations through the organization of IMS interoperability events in connection with ETSI’s Centre for Testing & Interoperability (CTI) and Plugtests™ interoperability testing service.


Our Technical Committee for IMS Network Testing (TC INT) is actively establishing close contact with a number of industry fora and organizations dealing with IMS interoperability, including 3GPP, GSMA, MSF (Multi Service Forum), IMS Forum and the ITU-T. TC INT develops IMS test specification according to conformance, network integration and interoperability testing methodologies. Other ongoing work includes development of tests for Supplementary Services based on regulatory requirements and IMS tests with legacy networks (e.g. SIP-I).


ETSI has already held two IMS interoperability events. The first examined interconnection aspects of 3GPP IMS Release 6, including such issues as basic call on the Mw interface. The second event had a wider scope that included the testing of 3GPP IMS Release 7 interworking, roaming, border control, and integration of application servers executing selected Multimedia Telephony supplementary services.


Future ETSI activities and events will go even deeper towards bridging 3GPP IMS standards and industry implementations. These will include the organization of further IMS interoperability events designed to boost the roll-out and take-off of IMS services and operators’ network interconnections.

AT&T on Distributed Antenna System (DAS)

From the 4th LTE North America Conference, 8 - 9 November 2011, Dallas, Texas, USA

More about DAS on Wikipedia here.

AT&T comparing In-Building Solutions

Gemalto presentation on Soft SIM

Will a Soft SIM Change Everything?

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How Mobile Broadband users use their data allowance

Interesting picture of what MBB users use their data allowance on. Interesting to see that Social Networking is far popular in the North America whereas Real-time entertainment is much more popular in APAC. It is understandable that the downstream Real-time entertainment would contain of VOD services like Youtube and Hulu but not sure what Upstream would consist of. 

US Trends and Updates on Mobile Broadband, VoIP and Mobile Service Status

Presentations From the 2nd FOKUS FUSECO Forum 2011, Berlin 17-18 Nov. 2011

Mobile Service Status and Trends in the US

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Mobile Broadband and VoIP in the US: Trends and Updates

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Proximity-based Services (ProSe) - New Study Item in 3GPP Rel-12

There is a new Rel-12 WI "Study on Proximity-based Services" with Qualcomm being the main proponent of this. This was earlier known as D2D (Device-to-device). From the 3GPP SP-110638:

Justification: Proximity-based applications and services represent a recent and enormous socio-technological trend. The principle of these applications is to discover instances of the applications running in devices that are within proximity of each other, and ultimately also exchange application-related data. In parallel, there is interest in proximity-based discovery and communications in the public safety community.


Current 3GPP specification are only partially suited for such needs, since all such traffic and signalling would have to be routed in the network, thus impacting their performance and adding un-necessary load in the network. These current limitations are also an obstacle to the creation of even more advanced proximity-based applications.


In this context, 3GPP technology, has the opportunity to become the platform of choice to enable proximity-based discovery and communication between devices, and promote a vast array of future and more advanced proximity-based applications.


Objective: The objective is to study use cases and identify potential requirements for an operator network controlled discovery and communications between devices that are in proximity, under continuous network control, and are under a 3GPP network coverage, for:
1. Commercial/social use
2. Network offloading
3. Public Safety
4. Integration of current infrastructure services, to assure the consistency of the user experience including reachability and mobility aspects
Additionally, the study item will study use cases and identify potential requirements for
5. Public Safety, in case of absence of EUTRAN coverage (subject to regional regulation and operator policy, and limited to specific public-safety designated frequency bands and terminals)


Use cases and service requirements will be studied including network operator control, authentication, authorization, accounting and regulatory aspects.


The study does not apply to GERAN or UTRAN.

In the past I have mentioned about Qualcomm's proprietary Flashlinq technology that seems to contain lots of similarities. There is also this AllJoyn technology that Qualcomm has been showing off since MWC. Here is a video of that:

There is a lot of potential of this proximity marketing technology mostly for marketing purposes and games. In the end it would depend of the Apps, services and charging based around this. There is also a big possibility for TV and VoD services where you start watching something on your device but then transfer it onto a TV or just a bigger screen.

A Golden Next-Gen Hetrogeneous Device

From the 4th LTE North America Conference, 8 - 9 November 2011, Dallas, Texas, USA
Presented by Joe Lawrence, Vice President, CDMA Development Group (CDG)

UE Antenna Sizes on different frequencies

The biggest problem with Antennas for mobiles and now the tablets have been how to arrange antennas for MIMO since the wavelength needs to be λ/4. The picture gives an idea how the antenna size changes with different frequencies. Higher frequencies are better for having multiple antennas as their length and the distance between then decreases.

From a presentation by Shirook M. Ali, RIM in the 4th LTE North America Conference, 8 - 9 November
2011, Dallas, Texas, USA.

Dilbert Humour: '8G' instead of '4G'

Source: Dilbert

See Also: Dilbert Humour: So why is it called 4G?

Mobile standards & synchronization - Interesting presentation from Ericsson

Mobile standards & synchronization: 3GPP, etc.

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Mobile Video is more than 50% of the data traffic

With the popularity of video streaming, its no surprise that video is already more than 50% of the data traffic flowing through the network.

Reducing CSFB Timing with RRC R9 Optimisations

While in the initial testing CSFB timing used to be between 6-8 seconds, most Rel-8 phones can complete the CSFB procedure between 4-4.5 seconds. Unfortunately this is still a lot in terms of signalling. To reduce this in Rel-9 there is a simple optimisation that has been done.

In the RRC Connection Release message, there is a possibility to add UTRAN/GERAN System Information messages. In the picture above, I have only shown UTRA System Information but a similar picture can be drawn for GERAN.

Once all the Mandatory SIB's are sent to the UE then it can immediately camp on without the need to read any other additional system info. This will reduce the CSFB time between 1-2 seconds.

The lesser the CSFB time, the better the Quality of end user experience

Nice Pie Chart on different Android Devices

Click to enlarge

I guess Pie charts like these can convey more information then writing about the percentages of devices sold. Maybe we should use them more often to represent information.

Source: From a presentation by Deutsche Bank in the 4th LTE North America Conference, 8 - 9 November 2011, Dallas, Texas, USA

Quick update on LTE Release 11 Work and Study Items

LTE Release 11 Work and Study Items

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Nice work by Nomor. Available to download from here.

Dilbert Humour: Smartphone Interface Rage

Source: Dilbert

LTE Capacity Analysis

From the 4th LTE North America Conference, 8 - 9 November 2011, Dallas, Texas, USA
Presented by Bill Ingram, Cricket Communications, November 8, 2011

Smart Metering for Dummies

Smart Metering for Dummies LOGICA

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De-risking the Broadband Business Model

Outlook 2012: De-risking the Broadband Business Model

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From the Outlook 2012 (#io2012) on Nov. 24th 2011

Secure Wi-Fi for Large Scale Events and Arenas

Interesting presentation from Logica on Secure WiFi. The resolution of this presentation is low for security reasons as well, I guess.

Secure Wi-Fi for Large Scale Events and Arenas

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To download this presentation and other presentation from the recent event, click here.

HSDPA multiflow data transmission

From RP-111375:

HSPA based mobile internet offerings are becoming very popular and data usage is increasing rapidly. As a result, HSPA has begun to be deployed on more than one transmit antenna and/or on more than one carrier. As an example, the single cell downlink MIMO (MIMO-Physical layer) feature was introduced in Release 7. This feature allowed a NodeB to transmit two transport blocks to a single UE from the same cell on a pair of transmit antennas thus improving data rates at high geometries and providing a beamforming advantage to the UE in low geometry conditions. Subsequently, in Release-8 and Release-9, the dual cell HSDPA (DC-HSDPA) and dual band DC-HSDPA features were introduced. Both these features allow the NodeB to serve one or more users by simultaneous operation of HSDPA on two different carrier frequencies in two geographically overlapping cells, thus improving the user experience across the entire cell coverage area.

When a UE falls into the softer or soft handover coverage region of two cells on the same carrier frequency, the link from the serving HS-DSCH cell is capacity or coverage limited and the non-serving cell in its active set has available resources, it would be beneficial to schedule packets to this UE also from the non-serving cell and thereby improve this particular user’s experience.

From 4G Americas whitepaper:

One family of such schemes parses the incoming data for the user into multiple (restricted to two cells in the study) data streams or flows, each of which is transmitted from a different cell [8] Concurrent transmission of data from the two cells may either be permitted or the UE may be restricted to receiving data from only one cell during a given TTI. The former type of scheme is designated an aggregation scheme while the latter is termed a switching scheme. The aggregation scheme can be seen as subsuming the switching scheme at the network when scheduling to the user is restricted to the cell with better channel quality.

Figure 14 illustrates the basic multi-flow concept with both cells operating on the same carrier frequency F1.

3GPP studied different multipoint transmission options for HSDPA and documented the findings and performance gains in TR25.872 providing feasibility and performance justification for the specification work.

For more details also see:
http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/html-info/FeatureOrStudyItemFile-530034.htm

See also old blog post on Multipoint HSDPA/HSPA here.

Do we need Fiber?

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From a presentation by Acreo, available here.

Interoperability between LTE FDD/TDD network

In countries where FDD and TDD are both in use, it would be interesting to see Dual-mode LTE terminals that would support both TDD and FDD and it should be possible to do a reselection as well has handovers from one mode to another.

It should be noted that the Structure of TDD and FDD frames are different as shown above.

If you are wondering why we need both FDD and TDD modes in the same geographical location, its because of Spectrum being available as well as with TDD allows possibility of different UL/DL data rates which generally means more efficient use of spectrum.

Shared Data plans anyone?

Shared plans are common in business tariffs but for some reason operators are reluctant to offer them on personal plans. With multiple devices becoming a common place, I would rather prefer to have a single plan that can be used across multiple devices rather than paying for a plan for each device.

From operator point of view, I think they would get a higher loyalty rate if they allow this as it means that if you want to change an operator, you would have to change SIM from multiple devices and some of these devices may be locked to an operator or may not work on other operators, etc.

An Infonetics Research report is embedded below:

2011 Infonetics Research - The new requirements of shared data plans

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Femtocells and Interference Management

Also see earlier post on Ultra SON here.

Overcapacity or Capacity Crunch?

A Qualcomm presentation from not too long back:

How to meet data demand?

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And another report from the UMTS Forum that is suggesting that the data traffic will grow 67 times from 2010 to 2020, summary embedded below:

Summary of report: Mobile traffic forecasts 2010-2020

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Then I came across this interesting discussion on Twitter and a blog post by Dean Bubley in Disruptive Wireless blog.

Overcapacity has been summarised in few words as: Overcooked forecasts + WiFi offload + optimisation + LTE + more spectrum + caps/tiers + well-designed apps

In the blog post Dean's mentioned about the falling data usage that has been reported by O2. I would strongly recommend reading it.

From the network point of view, I think overcapacity is better for the time being as we are prepared for the short term future. In the long run, new devices and innovative apps may suddenly start driving up the data demand again and hopefully by that time we have sorted out some more of the capacity crunch issues.

What do you think?