Wi-Fi May Just be the Glue to Hold AT&T, T-Mobile Networks Together

Dan Jones of LightReading, a tough critic of the mobile operator landscape, taped this brief video at CTIA 2011 in which he discusses how T-Mobile and AT&T can tie together their networks in the early days of the merger.

He says the combination of assets - AT&T's vast network of public wi-fi hotspots and T-Mobile's Wi-Fi Calling service - can be brought together ahead of the hardware for the 3G and eventually LTE networks: "Think of Wi-Fi as the glue that will hold it all together before we get to fourth generation services."

Watch the video below. What do you think about Dan's prediction?

Why SMS is critical for LTE datacards

There’s a good post on the Voice over LTE blog about the critical need to support SMS with LTE datacards and netbooks. While we often think of SMS as a consumer service, in reality, it was originally developed as an operational control channel for the mobile network to communicate with devices in the field.

The lack of a traditional SMS channel in LTE will hamper LTE datacards and netbooks. According to the post, there are many, many operator systems which rely on SMS to provide customer care, management and provisioning messages to the datacards, and the lack of SMS support in LTE is a serious issue.

Look for VoLGA to step up and meet this need.

Mi-Fi

Having spent a week in Germany hearing about the need for speed and ubiquitous connectivity via LTE, I was intrigued by the headline “Will your mobile phone become a Wi-Fi hotspot?”

Several presentations during the LTE Conference focused on potentially billions of Internet connected devices (GSMA prediction was 50 billion), presumably enabled by low-cost, high speed mobile (LTE) access. The question, or problem, with this scenario is a natural need to separate a subscription from access. I might want my refrigerator on the Internet, but I don’t want to put a SIM in it or have it tied to my mobile service provider.

This is the beauty of Wi-Fi. I pay for a subscription, in the form of DSL service (and presumable LTE in the future), and any device with Wi-Fi/IP connectivity can use it.

Skip ahead to Mi-Fi, a new technology concept pioneered by chip-maker Atheros. The idea is that your mobile phone uses mobile data service (HSPA, LTE) on the WAN, and the Wi-Fi radio on the phone can set up a localized HotSpot. Now Wi-Fi enabled devices within proximity of your phone can get access to the Internet via the mobile broadband subscription.

Very clever.

China Mobile: Voice over LTE... via UMA/GAN?

As covered by Michelle Donegan at Unstrung, China Mobile is prepping their network for LTE, and voice will be an important element.

Bill Huang, general manager of China Mobile Research Institute, said that the company is well prepared to move to LTE, and stressed the importance of supporting voice. Mr. Haung went on to say that one option for Voice over LTE was the UMA/GAN protocol.

“We could carry voice over UMA” said Mr. Huang. “We will have an LTE network that supports voice…”. To clarify, what Mr. Huang is referring to is not the traditional ‘home zone’ UMA deployment involving Wi-Fi or femtocells.

The 3GPP UMA/GAN (Generic Access Network) standard provides a generic method for extending 2G and 3G circuit (and packet) services over any broadband access network. Until now, the standard had been used to enable mobile operators to extend their services over fixed broadband networks (DSL, cable,…). However, now with a high-speed, low latency *mobile* broadband network, GAN can be used to extend existing mobile services (like telephony) over LTE.

Clearly for the mobile operator, this is a very low-risk, low-cost method of bringing their voice services (and revenues) to their LTE network deployments.

UMA+LTE: It's all good

Recently there has been a flurry of activity around the next generation Radio Access Network (RAN) technology known at LTE. LTE is the ‘all IP’ access network for mobile service providers. With very high throughput (>100mbps) and very low latency (targeting 5msec), LTE is designed to a be a true wireless broadband access network.

With that in mind, people have started questioning UMA’s role in an LTE environment. While there are a lot issues still in flux (including LTE itself), and much work still to be done, what is clear is that the core drivers behind UMA in a 2G or 3G environment still apply in LTE.

Some people simplistically view UMA as redundant in an LTE environment because they both ‘deliver services over an IP access network.’ This view completely misses the value of UMA in a Home Zone 2.0 (femtocell or dual-mode handset) service deployment.

Operator deploying Home Zone 2.0 services in a 2G or 3G network are doing so for three reasons:

• Create service zone unique from the macro network with the goal of offering differentiated services/billing based on location.
• Offload the macro RAN, especially for very high speed, media rich audio and video application.
• Improve the performance, coverage and throughput rate for mobile data services when indoors/in the home zone.

These same service drivers apply directly, and in some cases are even more relevant, to an LTE RAN:

• Create a unique service zone (still a competitive advantage)
• Offload the macro RAN (definitely for the projected data rates)
• Improve coverage/performance (certainly if LTE is at 2 gHz or higher)

As the market evolves, UMA will continue to evolve as well. Just as UMA started as a 2G technology and evolved to support the 3G/Iu interfaces, UMA will continue to evolve into key solution in an LTE-enabled network.