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Abstract
Mobile networks are now dominated by data. If we rewind back to a decade ago, smartphones and application stores were unheard of. Twitter and Facebook were not in existence and YouTube wasnt as popular. Culturally, consumers are valuing the need to be socially connected in the present day Internet. YouTube may seem like a trivial video platform, but do not undermine the amount of trafc it is capable of generating. There are over 3 billion hours of video that are watched each month on YouTube. The traditional cellular network cannot cope with the increase in data and signaling trafc that is generated and thus is driving carriers in the direction of ofoad. The Phase 1 approach was centered on immediately relieving congestion on the network by encouraging ofoad to any available Wi-Fi hotspot. In this second part of the ve part ofoad series, we draw attention to Direct Internet Ofoad. The concept of Direct Internet Ofoad is nothing new, but has taken a slight shift considering Wi-Fis popularity. The reality of data trafc being ofoaded to a lower-cost network is achievable. And the exibility to integrate them into mainstream network design offers transformative opportunities for carriers without losing sight of the commitment to make the user experience secure and controlled. Direct Internet Ofoad is another way of responding to the evolving smartphone data usage patterns. Most often, those sessions demonstrate frequent high burst throughput demanding low latency. Ofoad, when executed correctly, can enable better user experience. The classic confusion and misconceived idea of the ofoad environment should be corrected for the very reasons of innovation- changing the business models and driving it the right way to offer it to their customers.
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Contents
Overview 01
Direct Internet Offload Who are the Stakeholders? Harnessing the Power of Behavior
02
Jumpstart Direct Internet Offload Carrier Wi-Fi Build-out Partnering Wi-Fi Aggregators Experience Ofoad the Greenpacket Way Ofoad and Quality of Service
06
12
Conclusion
13
14
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Overview - 01
Overview
Mobile broadband represents the fastest-growing revenue stream for carriers. The value of the mobile services market is forecast to expand to $976 billion by 2016, with the majority of growth stemming from mobile broadband services. But the numbers do not add up and far from exhibiting a linear relationship between data trafc growth and data revenues. From a recent report by Infonetics1, the forecasts for mobile broadband subscribers will grow from 15% of the total mobile subscriber base in 2011 to nearly 40% in 2016. And by that, it means there is a window of opportunity that carriers should tap into. The speed of video, data and applications appearing and bombarding the networks will eventually level out, but before carriers arrive at that inection point, it is critical to nd ways to satisfy their customers now. Services are becoming more varied and fragmented, that subscribers need not rely on traditionally guarded services that carriers used to provide. The emergence of over-the-top (OTT) gives subscriber other means to be socially inter-connected. On top of that, subscriber behavior is now more real-time and driven by content and content is quickly clogging up the pipelines without the boundaries of a xed location, but all over. As devices become smarter and more sophisticated, understanding exactly how consumers are using their smartphone is proving to be more challenging than previous generations of handsets. Carriers must now move faster and re-dene the meaning of experience, moving away from the conservative practices. The connected world presents its own set of challenges, ranging across issues of network management, experience management, privacy and security threats. Despite these challenges, access to mobiles and the Internet is truly beginning to unlock the power of wireless technology to unite 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and LTE networks. Carriers are aware that in order to offer sustainable network and differentiation they need to leverage on ofoad methods to enable service innovation and help reduce capital and operating expenses through the convergence of 3G-Wi-Fi wherever possible.
1Source : Infonetics Research,
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Service Provider Objective Increase capacity and coverage Optimize core assets Improve customer experience Expand revenue opportunity
Source : Analysis Mason and Arbitron Mobile, 2012* *n=1007; some respondents may have had cellular or Wi-Fi enabled but did not use the connectivity within the observation period. Figure 1 : Smartphone usage split for cellular and Wi-Fi
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Almost all smartphones today are Wi-Fi-capable. A study conducted by Analysis Mason in 2011 concluded, 75% of the smartphone sampled panel used Wi-Fi, with 82% of the panel used cellular data. It is observed, most panelists (64%) used both networks but a number of consumers (18%) did not use cellular data at all. The reasons are not entirely clear, perhaps some use smartphone mainly for the sake of having a sophisticated device, or some use it sparingly with a non-data contract or on a prepaid basis, relying on Wi-Fi (or in some cases nothing at all) for data connectivity. What does the study outcome indicate? From the gures gathered, it seems that users welcome the use of Wi-Fi whenever available. The slight difference of users using cellular data likely preferred the ease of use although slightly more costly or possibly due to the perceived lack of security. A recent Forrester2 survey found that 93% of companies consider customer experience a strategic priority with over 75% with plans in place to achieve that goal. Is your network ready to support and engage your customers; the hyper connected, on-the-go mobile users, or the occasional user? With the right knowledge, tools and conditions, carriers can now source key data, from multiple dimensions, in real time, to help them reach more informed conclusions.
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Wi-Fi
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Wi-Fi helps to mitigate trafc growth that would otherwise overload the cellular network in busy areas, leading to reduced quality of experience. However, if the Wi-Fi connection is not controlled by the operator, then there is a risk of disintermediation carriers have less of an incentive to carry non-revenue generating trafc destined for the Internet. Why subsidize it through expensive core network platform that is already operating at its maximum capacity - if the device is accessing content from external networks. Since carriers are interested to use Wi-Fi to help manage overcrowding, it makes sense to ofoad onto their own Wi-Fi hotspots wherever possible. Depending on the strategy and business needs of the carrier, carrier Wi-Fi deployment can take several phases and may require some investments to bring in additional Wi-Fi gateways and aggregators to manage the interfacing towards the carriers core network.
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Depending on the business model of paid versus free Wi-Fi service to be offered to their subscribers, carriers can exercise due diligence to better understand when and where intermediary cross-over Wi-Fi will become real revenue potential. By then, carriers can recoup the investment by pricing Wi-Fi access in gradations. Of course, such initiatives require some experimentation, but some forward looking carriers like Verizon and AT&T are already taking the lead.
To benet from ofoad, carriers must have the right conditions to differentiate between a user-driven ofoad and carrier-driven ofoad. In Greenpackets device-client solution, it ensures subscriber is securely authenticated to the Wi-Fi network via EAP802.1x authentication methods to deliver a positive effect on the subscriber as the authentication is automatic, transparent, seamless and secure, without changing the way the subscribers interact with their device in the ofoad environment. Also, it works with any WPA or WPA2 enabled access point, making it a readily available solution. Whether building-out Wi-Fi completely on their own or partnering ISPs or Wi-Fi aggregators to share network resources, carriers are seeing it to pragmatic practice to have Wi-Fi in their mix of services. It makes sense to take a proactive approach, as they hold the key to the billing relationship to their customers. Table 2 below summarizes the Wi-Fi experience from a user interaction with their device.
Table 2 : Changing Expectations of Wi-Fi Experience
Wi-Fi Experience Previously User unaware of network conditions and changes Manual congurations that are confusing Static policy Interrupted experience when connecting and disconnecting Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi Experience Now Intuitive and informative notications with Wi-Fi directory Automated selection and easy to congure Dynamic policy Seamless experience during and after switching
Wi-Fi Experience Tomorrow Global Wi-Fi access Instant-on Advanced policy management and QoS aware Full mobility and roaming
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Given that EAP802.1X authentication is supported and enabled in most native devices, it is good governance to maintain the subscriber relationship in the Wi-Fi environment, wherever possible. Its quite obvious for the reasons of data cost control and availability of higher bandwidth, becomes attractive to the subscribers. For the carriers, its motivation is largely to ease congestion and ensure ofoad execution is ideally over carrier-owned Wi-Fi so that the treatment of fundamental carrier core network integration is made easier to the Authorization, Authentication & Accounting (AAA) server which is primarily responsible for managing the subscriber relationship to the carrier network such as access rights, service provisioning, user prole and accounting interface. Other attributes that are important to user experience includes the automation of network selection and switching protocols and to a certain extent QoS control. Carriers wanting to take ofoad to another level can likely focus on the ability to promote carrier subscribed content and extend policy control. This discussion is beyond the breadth of this paper, but will be featured in the subsequent Phase 3 of this Ofoad series. More progressive carriers will attempt to make better use of technologies such as access network discovery and selection function (ANDSF) and policy control to better determine where and when to connect. Also, to integrate better the common provisioning of service, billing and roaming to be much easier between the carrier network and Wi-Fi. Further to 3GPP specications, more ambitious techniques like Selective IP Trafc Ofoad (SIPTO) and IP Flow Mobility (IFOM) are introduced and sees more of its role played out in future mobile broadband networks.
Carriers in search of added value proposition in Wi-Fi are increasingly aware of the necessity of quality of service (QoS) management. As carriers continue to seek ways to reduce OPEX, boost ARPU and improve the customer experience, on-device self-service problem resolution has the potential to allow carriers to differentiate their services from those of the competitors. Greenpackets device-client is more than just an enabler of ofoad and connectivity management. It builds on the user experience by supporting partially QoS measures such as crowd-sourcing feedback to provide a clearer view of the performance of the Wi-Fi access points (AP), prior to ofoad. Simply enforcing xed rules and device policies to aid ofoad may seem like a simple and effective method, but could it risk making the user experience worse than before? The approach that Greenpacket uses is more dynamic by periodically taking samples of the current connected access points and its related device information to be reported to a central Reporting Server that can be hosted in the carriers network and integrated with the Analytic Server. The information collected is further scrutinized and feedback to the core network for improved ofoad policy denition. By doing so, the device-client connects to the best Wi-Fi based on current environment, location, time of day and Wi-Fi AP status.
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Conclusion - 13
Conclusion
Carriers are restricted by the amount of spectrum resources and are challenged economically to deliver the high performance services. Undoubtedly, mobile data is clogging up networks globally; interesting statistics from Cisco predicts - global data trafc is projected to rise over 18 fold between 2011 and 2016, growing at a CAGR of 78% to reach 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016. But it cant be said of similar revenue growth. There are a number of innovative concepts in both RAN and core network ofoad. In this paper, we discussed how a simple device-client solution ts into Wi-Fi and its role through Direct Internet Ofoad can help address congestion. Interestingly enough, operators that have implemented data ofoading strategies generally do not suffer from negative implications, instead gain to benet from it. The associated stigma to ofoading is mainly exacerbated by the carriers themselves, who refuse to have anything to do with their networks perceived as congested by their customers. Congestion is real. To the consumers, it is not about how the service providers deliver those services, via the latest access technology but why the experience is better? LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi whichever works. Wi-Fi used to be individually installed, unmanaged and doesnt drive behavior. It was an un-inspiring proposition in sporadic coverage that brought in zero value. How can carriers turn around a technology in pursuit of results? Simply change the way in which it operates and inspire engagement. It is only logical that new services will require new approaches to network design. Innovation usually starts out only to be dismissed before it gets widespread, just as Wi-Fi exemplies this. Today, Wi-Fi is so pervasive, that it draws consumers in search of it. By combining the strengths of Wi-Fi and translating it into the carriers network design, the approach of Direct Internet Ofoad is capable of helping carriers pursuit of managing better experiences. The need for a broader view of ofoad is necessary to promote further formal standards development and best practices to emerge from actual deployments.
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