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Backhaul Overhaul for the Age of Mobile Data

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Webinar recording now available to view

Date: Wednesday, 23 March, 2011, 2pm GMT
Host: Keith Dyer, Editor, Mobile Europe
Presenters:
Julius Robson, former Chairman of the LTE/SAE Trial Initiative
Lance Hiley, VP Market Strategy, Cambridge Broadband Networks

Data is different. Voice based concepts like ‘busy hour’ and ‘Erlangs’ are no longer appropriate when it comes to designing backhaul networks for mobile broadband. In this webinar we drill down into some real traffic measurements from live voice and data centric networks. A model for data traffic is developed which can be used to predict traffic levels across the transport network. We consider the roll out and consumer adoption of LTE, and the evolving backhaul capacity requirements, from the last mile to the core.

Join Julius Robson, former Chairman of the LTE/SAE Trial Initiative and Lance Hiley, VP Market Strategy, Cambridge Broadband Networks for this webinar.

View webinar here

 

Airline market rebound spurs growth in mobile tickets as 1 in 7 boarding passes to be mobile by 2013, says research

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One in every seven bar coded boarding passes worldwide will be delivered to passengers’ mobile devices within 2 years, according to the latest forecasts from Juniper Research. This equates to 480 million mobile boarding passes which is treble the 160 million for last year, as mobile technology and especially smartphones are having a rapidly growing impact on the airline industry.

Following the recently improved industry outlook for airline passenger volumes, a new report from Juniper Research has identified significant market progress for mobile tickets from both vendors and crucially airlines.  Juniper says it has detected a marked upswing in corporate activity over the past year amongst vendors addressing this market. 

According to report author Howard Wilcox: “Of the 30 airlines including several flag carriers that we found offering mobile boarding passes, about half also offer mobile ticket booking and purchasing. For the frequent flyer, we believe that using your mobile for booking, passing through security and boarding is a winning offer that will be augmented by adding loyalty, seat selection and flight information all in the single application.”

Furthermore, Juniper’s new Mobile Ticketing for Transport Markets report also found that mobile ticketing also has growing potential across train travel and in suburban metro systems, which will be boosted by the momentum currently being seen in NFC.

Juniper’s new report contains detailed five year forecasting for all the key market parameters including users, transactions and values for airline, rail and metro/bus ticketing. Additionally the report highlights the conclusions from Juniper’s analysis of 23 vendors addressing the market, which culminates in a new Transport Mobile Ticketing vendor strategy positioning matrix.

Further key findings from the report include:

•        More than one in ten subscribers will use mobile tickets for air, rail or metro travel worldwide by 2015.

•        Poor user experience is an implementation risk – such as bar code reading issues.

Fon selects mopay as mobile payment method

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mopay, a global specialist payment solutions for online merchants, today announced worldwide cooperation with Fon, said to be the world’s largest WiFi network. By enabling mopay mobile payments, Fon will allow smart phone or tablet users who have limited (3G/4G) or no internet access to quickly purchase access pass to its WiFi network. Users can now connect at over three million Fon hotspots simply by providing their mobile phone number.

Fon is the largest WiFi community in the world, with over three million WiFi hotspots and over six million users. The idea behind Fon is to share a small part of your home internet access with fellow Fon members and in return get free access to other members’ WiFi when on the road. Non-members can also use Fon hotspots but have to purchase passes to gain access. In addition to offering standard payment methods such as credit card and PayPal, Fon chose mopay to include a mobile payment option.

Alex Puregger, COO, VP of Business Development of Fon said: “Today people want to watch videos and play games on their smart phones and tablets. WiFi offers the best user experience for that. At Fon, we give people more opportunities to connect to WiFi, and getting them connected seamlessly is key. While Fon access is free for sharing members, non-sharing members buy WiFi passes to connect. mopay helps us to make that payment process quick and easy. Already, nearly half of the people who buy access to Fon do so via mopay. We’re happy to partner with mopay to improve the user experience.”

Ingo Lippert, CEO of MindMatics AG, the operator of mopay, said: “Although well established in online gaming, mobile payments are still a rather new payment method to most industries. mopay is a major driver in tapping into novel areas of operation. Our partnership with Fon shows that, once you start to think outside the box, there are uncountable scenarios where mobile payments significantly improve the shopping experience.”

With mopay, smart phone and tablet users near Fon hotspots can buy a Fon Pass by providing a mobile phone number at login. The charge is billed directly to the respective phone account, no registration is required. Customers can choose between a 25-minute pass and a one-hour pass. Pricing begins at $1.50.

Ericsson announces new mobile broadband modules

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Ericsson has announced the introduction of two new HSPA mobile broadband modules designed, it says, to allow consumers to enjoy seamlessly connected handheld gaming devices, media players, personal navigation devices and tablets that utilize high speed mobile broadband. 

The Ericsson C5621gw and H5321gw modules are said to be thinner, 40 percent smaller and three times faster than previous generations of modules. This enables a wider variety of connected devices on the market and a richer user experience – for example, faster downloading of a high definition movie to a tablet.

Mats Norin, vice president, Mobile Broadband Modules for Ericsson, said,”Ericsson’s vision is that all devices that can be connected, will be connected. Connecting any handheld device through high speed mobile broadband will be as straightforward as using your mobile phone – wherever you are, at any time.”

Ericsson says it is helping developers enable universal device connectivity and the company has been working with US wireless carrier AT&T to make this happen. The AT&T 3G Access Program is designed to offer next generation consumer electronics and machine-to-machine device manufacturers high-performance 3G modules at a lower cost. In January 2011, Ericsson became the first company chosen to contribute an HSPA Evolution module to the 3G Access Program. The newly introduced C5621gw HSPA module will also be included in the program.

“With Ericsson’s new module, equipment makers, including those producing tablets, will have another critical tool necessary to create streamlined designs for mobile broadband connectivity at an affordable cost,” said Glenn Lurie, president, emerging devices, resale and partnerships, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Our 3G Access Program continues to grow, helping build a stronger embedded device ecosystem.”

For users, the experience and performance of a device with an embedded module is superior to one connected by a dongle, says Ericsson. With embedded technologies, antennas and system performance said to be are improved – providing higher quality of service and lowered power consumption. Consumers will be able to enjoy longer battery life, and the modules enable users to experience fast data download speeds of up to 21Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5.76Mbps.

Designed to be embedded into any consumer electronic device, the H5321gw module will be available to customers within the global consumer electronics industry in September. The C5621gw, enabling a reduced power consumption of 30 percent, will be available to customers in October. Both modules are based on ST-Ericsson’s Thor (TM) M5730 modem, which works both on WCDMA/HSPA+ and GSM/EDGE networks.

Femto Forum addresses apps market with femtocell API specification and evolved management standard

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The Femto Forum, an independent industry and operator association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide, today announced important progress in the development of femtocell-powered mobile applications.

The body has published an industry-wide agreed set of API specifications that enable advanced mobile applications based on femtocell technology. The first applications have already been built based on these specifications by the Forum’s vendor members for operator customers. Additionally, the Femto Forum says it has worked with the Broadband Forum to update the standard for femtocell management to ensure customer equipment can be remotely updated to support advanced applications.

The API specifications are now available to the femtocell community and the Forum is keen to see other bodies implement the completed specifications into the dominant industry standard APIs. The specifications are for network-based APIs, which will allow operators to drive the development of femtocell-powered open access, enterprise and consumer applications. The API provides femtocell awareness information so developers can incorporate enhanced presence, context and location-sensitive features into new and existing apps, and can also take advantage of the lower cost and faster data connections enabled by femtocells.

In parallel to the work, the Femto Forum has worked with the Broadband Forum to update its TR-196 Femto Access Point Service Data Model, a global femtocell management standard, to enable support for femtocell applications. This will allow mobile operators to use their standard management systems to remotely provision and configure advanced femtocell applications on their customers’ equipment as well as issue repairs and updates.

“With residential, enterprise and outdoor femtocell deployments rapidly growing across the globe, there is a major opportunity for operators to start offering unique new applications. Already in Japan, we are seeing mobile operators offering commercial, revenue-generating applications that send an SMS to parents when children arrive home from school. The number of potential applications enabled by this new and exciting API is literally endless,” said Andy Germano, The Femto Forum’s Vice-Chairman and head of the Services Special Interest Group. “However, for operators to take this opportunity seriously they need a simple means of managing the applications they offer. The new femtocell management standard is the key to delivering this capability.”

“Standards are the lifeblood that enable operators to have confidence in a new technology. The Broadband Forum’s original femtocell standard enabled mobile operators to manage their new rollouts using equipment from a variety of vendors. With this extension to the standard operators can also manage advanced femtocell applications thereby enabling a new breed of exciting services in the home, enterprise and beyond,” said Robin Mersh, The Broadband Forum’s Chief Executive Officer.

Ofcom prepares for 4G mobile auction

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Ofcom has today announced plans for the largest ever single auction of additional spectrum for mobile services in the UK, equivalent to three quarters of the mobile spectrum in use today and 80% more than the 3G auction which took place in 2000.

This spectrum is essential to meet the UK’s rapid increase in mobile traffic, fuelled by the growth of smartphones and mobile broadband data services such as video streaming, email, messenger services, mapping services and social networking sites. All of these services depend on spectrum – the airwaves that carry information between customers’ mobile handsets and the internet.

The new spectrum will provide much needed capacity for the fourth generation (4G) of mobile technology, set to deliver significantly faster mobile broadband services – approaching today’s ADSL home broadband speeds.

Ofcom Chief Executive, Ed Richards, said: “The auction is not only critical to the future of the UK mobile telecommunications market but it is also of significant importance to the wider economy. It will support a wide range of data services that are fast becoming essential features of the modern world.

“Our role as the independent regulator is to award this spectrum in a way that secures the best use of the spectrum for the benefit of citizens and consumers in the UK. That is why we are proposing to design the auction in a way that not only encourages investment but also promotes competition and delivers wide coverage of services.”

Under measures being proposed by Ofcom, the auction will include a combination of safeguards and coverage conditions to promote competition and significantly widen the coverage of mobile broadband to 95% of the UK population.  

The auction will be for two spectrum bands – 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz. The lower frequency 800 MHz band is part of the digital dividend, which is being freed-up as the UK switches from analogue to digital TV. This spectrum is ideal for widespread mobile coverage. The 2.6 GHz band is at a higher frequency, and is ideal for delivering the capacity needed to deliver higher speeds. These two bands add up to 250 MHz of additional mobile spectrum.

The combination of low and high frequency spectrum available in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands creates the potential for next generation mobile broadband services to be widely available across the UK, while at the same time having the capacity to cope with significant demand, even in urban centres.

In December 2010, Ofcom was asked by the Government to assess how this new spectrum is likely to affect future competition in the mobile market.

Ofcom considers that there are risks to future competition if bidders are free to acquire any amount of spectrum in an open auction. This is because access to new spectrum is scarce but essential for providing the higher speed data services demanded by consumers, such as web browsing and video streaming. The combination of these two factors – scarcity and demand – could create incentives for bidders to bid strategically and reduce the amount of spectrum available to other bidders.

The UK mobile market is made up of four national wholesale operators, who sell mobile services to retailers, as well as directly to their own retail customers. Ofcom believes that competition at the national wholesale level is essential to future competition and maximising consumer and citizen benefits. In addition, there would be a significant risk to national wholesale competition if there were fewer than four national wholesale competitors with credible spectrum portfolios for providing higher quality data services.

To guard against this risk, Ofcom proposes introducing limits both on the minimum and maximum amounts of spectrum bidders can win. These are called auction ‘floors’ and ‘caps’.

The least restrictive way to ensure at least four national competitors is through the use of spectrum floors in the auction. This involves disregarding any auction outcomes in which four companies do not win the minimum amount of spectrum necessary to provide higher quality data services. This can involve different combinations of spectrum, each of which could be sufficient to ensure a credible competitor. 

Ofcom proposes that this minimum amount should be one of the following five combinations:

  a.. 2×5 MHz of sub 1 GHz spectrum and 2×20 MHz or more of 2.6 GHz; or
  b.. 2×5 MHz of sub 1 GHz spectrum and 2×15 MHz or more of 1800 MHz; or
  c.. 2×10 MHz of sub 1 GHz spectrum and 2×15 MHz or more of 2.6 GHz; or
  d.. 2×10 MHz of sub 1 GHz spectrum plus 2×10 MHz or more of 1800 MHz; or
  e.. 2×15 MHz or more of sub 1 GHz spectrum.
Safeguard caps to guard against longer term risks to competition

Ofcom also proposes to put in place safeguard caps to guard against longer term risks to competition from any one licensee holding a disproportionate amount of spectrum. Two safeguard caps are proposed:

  a.. A sub 1GHz safeguard cap of 2×27.5 MHz, which will mean that no one competitor can obtain more than this amount of sub 1 GHz spectrum.
  b.. An overall spectrum holdings cap of 2×105 MHz, which will mean that no one competitor can obtain more than this amount of spectrum overall.
Securing wide availability of next generation mobile broadband

Ofcom proposes to include a coverage obligation in one licence for the 800 MHz spectrum. The obligation would require the licensee to provide a mobile broadband service covering 95% of the UK population. It is expected that bidders will factor in the cost of achieving this obligation when making bids for the licence. This should result in coverage for future mobile broadband services that approaches today’s 2G coverage. The date for meeting these obligations would be the end of 2017.

Statistics on current 2G and 3G coverage demonstrate that coverage varies between areas of the UK, with coverage in more rural areas generally being less comprehensive than in urban areas. This is particularly significant for 3G coverage.

One way of ensuring more uniformity of coverage for 4G services in future would be to supplement the main coverage obligation described above with a requirement to cover a certain proportion of the population in particular areas – for example in certain rural areas. Stakeholders are being encouraged to give their views on the feasibility and appropriateness of this.

Ofcom says it wants the benefits of 4G services to be available as soon as possible and we are therefore aiming to start the auction in the first quarter of 2012, subject to this consultation.

Tekelec unveils intelligent machine-to-machine service enablement solution

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Tekelec, a broadband solutions provider, today introduced a new machine-to-machine (M2M) service enablement solution for mobile service providers to deliver advanced M2M services. Tekelec’s solution combines multiple network functions to give service providers new abilities to scale M2M deployments, prioritize and manage devices and applications and analyze M2M service performance.

“The M2M market is entering a new phase of rapid growth in broadband services as wireless sensors and chips become embedded in millions of machines that we use everyday — whether it’s our electricity meters, our cars, or our home appliances,” said Susie Kim Riley, chief marketing officer, Tekelec. “Tekelec’s intelligent M2M service enablement solution recognizes the distinct challenges and opportunities for service providers to manage billions of machines, introduce innovative service and pricing plans and differentiate their offerings by quality of service.”

Tekelec’s intelligent M2M service enablement solution is the first to integrate a sophisticated subscriber and device data management system to provision and manage profile, location, and usage information for millions of devices in real time. The system also ensures device security, identity and address management, and has open application interfaces to enable web services.

It also provides policy management to allow service providers to apply different qualities of service to different machines and implement flexible service plans based on transactions, connections, time of day, location, applications, or data usage.

Tekelec’s Diameter Signaling Router also scales the M2M network’s policy, charging, authentication and mobility management information and enable roaming and service portability, while the Performance Intelligence Center analyzes M2M services and network performance to identify trends, diagnose problems, ensure service level agreements and optimize device and service performance.

Messaging services also provide alerts and notifications based on real-time events and secure message storage and forwarding, and the solution enables operators to provide end-to-end M2M services and profitably manage an M2M ecosystem with variable traffic volatility, transaction volumes, connection frequencies and quality of service requirements.

“Beyond traditional connection revenues, service providers can also generate M2M revenues by providing end-to-end solutions for key applications such as smart homes, smart cars, or smart cities,” said Kitty Weldon, principal analyst, Current Analysis. “They can offer tiered services for different device types with unique classes of service, bundle multiple devices in a single subscription, and collect and analyze data that can be useful to enterprise customers. Tekelec’s M2M service enablement solution provides the intelligent controls to accelerate these new business models.”

Synchronica explains NeuStar acquisition, heads for European markets

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Synchronica, the company that bought Colibria’s mobile IM business last year and earlier this year picked up NeuStar’s next generation messaging business for a song, wants to target European operators with an all-round, RCS-compliant messaging and social networking platform.

Although the company has had success in emerging markets, where smartphone penetration is lower and operators have more of a hold of the mobile services environment, the messaging platform provider’s CEO Carsten Brinkschulte said that the time had now come for European operators to offer advanced messaging services. He also said that the low price Synchronica paid for NeuStar’s assets was not a comment on the value of the assets themselves, but instead a result of NeuStar wanting to make sure it sold to a company that could maintain its carrier relationships.

Brinkschulte said that Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway 6 product, integrated with NeuStar’s NGM platform, would allow operators to offer advanced messaging services that bring multiple IM, social media and networking iD’s into a connected and presence-enabled address book.

“We have announced we are moving into Rich Communications Suite and unified messaging services with our Mobile Gateway 6 product. This is a pre-RCS solution that enables us to bring the additional connectivity of social networking and email, which links to the RCS concept.

“Our engineering team is now working on the next version of product that will deliver on RCS in the future. It’s a product that matches the roadmap of the carriers.

“Many operators we see in Europe and parts of Asia are implementing IMS networks and one key aspect is the network address book and RCS functionality.
I know there has been a little disillusion with RCS because it has not happened. It is one of these things that was initially over-hyped, but eventually it will be deployed and will be successful.”

Brinkschulte said that NeuStar customers such as TIM, SFR, Vodafone, Turkcell, 3, and Beeline-Vimpelcom were all European carriers that Synchronica is new to and to whom the company would bring its “vision for NeuStar’s platform and merger into the MG6 platform.”

So with the device manufacturers and OS providers offering cloud-based services direct to consumers, what is the operator advantage in offering RCS and pre-RCS type services?

“Operators have one unfair advantage,” Brinkschulte said, “and that’s in the billing relationship, which gives them the ability to control and differentiate the price of services.”

One example is a customer of Synchronica that is zero-rating access to its own IM service, while charging for data used while consumers access other services. This is a very strong “churn inhibitor” Brinkschulte said, as it leads to the creation of iD’s in the mobile operator’s own domain. In other words, users will be moved to set up an operator messaging account to get a “free” service, and then don’t want to lose access to that account by churning.

So the obvious question is, if the connected address book and RCS-type services offer such a clear opportunity for carriers, and by implication Synchronica, why was NeuStar willing to let its assets in this area go for so little?

“The valuation of the assets takes into account why they sold the business to Synchronica. Our position is in messaging and not just the silo of IM. NeuStar did not have these other aspects and had too narrow a focus. So it was at the point of deciding either to branch out or to focus back on its core business,” Brinkschulte said.

“They scanned the market and found Synchronica as being one of the strategic partners available for maintaining the NeuStar’s operator relationships and giving those customers a roadmap.

“The value of the assets is not that important, actually. What was important for NueStar was to move forward with a credible successor because operator relations are incredibly important to it.”

 

O2 sees 50% capacity increase from 900MHz 3G

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O2 sees 50% capacity increase from 900MHz 3G

O2 has said that it expects to achieve a 50% increase in network capacity and 30% faster download speeds by reusing 900MHz spectrum for 3G in London.

The operator said it is the first carrier to have used the 900MHz band for 3G services. It announced today that it had switched on the new network layer in London, with the spectrum already carrying 3G services in Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester. Other cities are set to follow in the coming months, the operator said.

O2 said that customer experience testing has shown that, on average, O2 customers on 3G900 compatible devices are now receiving data 30% faster than before the new spectrum was allocated for 3G use. Network capacity in the areas where 3G900 has been rolled out has also increased by 50%, the operator said.

Nigel Purdy, Chief Technology Officer for Telefónica O2 UK, said, “This 3G900 switch-on is the latest in a series of network enhancements for O2, and is a first for the UK and Telefónica. We’ve acted quickly to bring the benefits of 3G over 900MHz spectrum to our customers and we’re thrilled with the results. Quite simply, on O2’s network, more customers can use more data, and experience it quicker.”

O2 said that test company Siroda has released results of a survey of UK mobile networks, comparing the data speeds of five UK operators. The tests, conducted over a 60-day period across 169 static test locations, measured mobile data connection speed at peak periods throughout the day.

According to O2 the tests show that, between October 2010 and January 2011, O2 offered the “best” data experience in 12 out of 13 cities. On average, web page access on the O2 network was delivered in 1.4 seconds, over three times quicker than the slowest operator. Data performance was measured by testing the time to access a webpage and the speed of downloading a typical music file. Tests were conducted between 8am and 9pm Monday to Sunday. Cities covered included London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield.

Mobile Europe has approached Siroda to ask if we can access the original data.

Ofcom gave the go ahead for spectrum refarming in January. It had said previously that refarming 3G at 900Mhz would mean that “the extent of the improved quality of coverage is relatively small”.

Monitise to develop mobile banking app for BlackBerry platform

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Monitise, a global mobile money solutions provider, has announced it is developing a new banking app for UK BlackBerry smartphone users.
 

The mobile banking app, which will be launched this summer, will deliver a  look, feel and user experience specifically tailored for BlackBerry smartphones. The app functionality is being developed via Globe, Monitise’s technology platform which allows financial institutions, service providers, payment companies and processors to create a wide array of Mobile Money services in both developed and emerging markets.  The inherent security in the BlackBerry wireless platform is said to make it a natural fit for mobile banking and payments applications.
 
The new mobile money client services app in development for the BlackBerry platform, is a key part of Monitise’s global growth strategy to deliver mobile money services more quickly, to an ever-increasing number of customers.
 
 Welcoming the partnership Monitise Chief Executive Alastair Lukies said: “Entering new partnerships is fundamental to our strategic focus on strengthening the global footprint of our mobile money business. The ecosystem for mobile money is evolving fast with key players across mobile, financial institutions, retail, transport, social media and advertising increasingly migrating towards a richer array of services that create enhanced value for consumers.
 
“The new app we’re developing for the BlackBerry platform will be an exciting enhancement to the mobile banking experience for BlackBerry smartphone users.  Banks who deploy the app will be able to deepen relationships with their customers who use BlackBerry smartphones by offering better, faster, smoother control of their money through their handset. We look forward to working closely with RIM to deliver these services and announcing further updates.”

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