A Meeting of the Minds

Every good cause needs a strong adversary. And Dean Bubley has kept me on my toes the past few years with his UMA bashing. It’s nice to finally be on the same side of the fence with our support for VoLGA.

Dean wrote a lively (as expected) blog post about VoLGA to correspond with his whitepaper focusing on the pitfalls of CS Fallback as an alternative to VoLGA.

Dean first wrote about VoLGA when the VoLGA Forum launched, and he expressed his belief that the technology could work. Here’s to hoping others in the marketplace sit up and take notice.

Breathe Easy with Wi-Fi

“I use my nose to breathe, but when I am feeling aggressive or excited, I need to use my mouth to breathe as well. Wi-Fi is the mouth – it helps you breathe better.” So said SoftBank Mobile Corp.'s Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son (pictured below) in a keynote speech at the Mobile Asia Congress. (As quoted in Telecoms Europe.)

“Over 50% of our data traffic happens at home during peak hours, and smartphones have driven our data traffic up ten times,” he said. “We need Wi-Fi to serve that traffic and give our customers a rich media experience.”

And so he says LTE isn’t fast enough for SoftBank. Other highlights of his presentation, as per Telecoms Europe:

• Mobile data usage in Japan is already generating enough ARPUs to offset voice ARPU declines. But current HSPA connectivity isn’t enough bandwidth to serve existing usage, and migrating to LTE alone won’t help.


• Softbank intends to migrate to LTE, but it’s not good enough to support customers when they use mobile Internet at home.


• By 2024, he claims smartphone-like devices will hold 32TB of storage capacity.

Softbank is already selling a line of Wi-Fi enabled handsets, including the iPhone and owns a fixed broadband network that would supply the backhaul for home Wi-Fi users.

This past summer, ABI Research reported Wi-Fi in smartphones will grow from a 45% attach rate in 2009 to a 90% attach rate in 2014. In-Stat recently forecast the percent of handsets with embedded Wi-Fi will more than double during the next two years and said there were 121 models of cellular/Wi-Fi handsets introduced in the first half of 2009, almost as many as were introduced in all of 2008.

Clearly, there are lots of powerful Wi-Fi proponents. The question is, how will operators respond and stay ahead of the curve?

Dual Mode is “In”

Dual mode is one of the cool kids; part of the ‘in’ crowd. So says In-Stat in its research report, “Wi-Fi in Mobile Phones: Dual Mode Becomes the In Thing.”

Being driven in large part by the Apple iPhone (as we all know), Wi-Fi handset shipments increased by more than 50% from 2007-2008, and keeps climbing.

In-Stat’s research found the following:
• Wi-Fi/cellular handsets are driving hotspot usage. For example, AT&T recently announced that sixty percent of all AT&T Wi-Fi connections in the third quarter of 2009 were made from smart phones and other integrated devices, up from 49 percent in the second quarter.
• The potential for voice over Wi-Fi is gaining popularity, as cellular/Wi-Fi phones become more pervasive and consumer familiarity with VoIP increases.
• The percent of handsets with embedded Wi-Fi will more than double during the next two years.
• There were 121 models of cellular/Wi-Fi handsets introduced in the first half of 2009, almost as many as were introduced in all of 2008.

Victoria Fodale, In-Stat analyst, explained:

“Wi-Fi’s popularity as a compatible cellular technology is tied to its ability to improve the user experience and also help maintain the quality of the cellular network. A Wi-Fi-enabled cell phone allows for free access to data, and it improves performance.”

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so here, here and here. Read back through this blog; I’m sure you’ll find plenty more.

ATT working on making Wi-Fi a ‘more seamless experience’

As reported by Ed Gubbins from Telephony Online, AT&T’s John Stankey commented that the company is “starting down the path” of making Wi-Fi and licensed spectrum a “more seamless experience for customers.”

Sounds like UMA to me.

I think Mr. Stankey sees that Wi-Fi can be a quick (huge installed base) and low-cost (consumers already paid for Wi-Fi APs) way to increase capacity in the mobile network (by getting iPhones off macro) as well as improve coverage.

This would be a perfect complement to AT&T’s femtocell strategy as well.

More Femto Optimism

I’ve been buckled down recently and haven’t come up for much blog air. But this seemed like an important thing to highlight...

Promising news from Infonetics for those with a vested interest in the femtocell market. In an October FMC and femtocell report, the research firm says that combined, sales of FMC network element equipment and femtocell equipment are forecast to grow to $7.4 billion worldwide by 2013. The report also stated the number of 2G/3G femtocells is expected to increase five-fold from 2009 to 2010.

"So far, we have found no evidence of the economic downturn having a major impact on the pace of FMC rollouts, and it has had only a mild effect on the femtocell space,” said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure at Infonetics Research and co-author of the report. “In the first half of 2009, we saw unabated UMA rollouts at T-Mobile USA, Orange, and Rogers Wireless in Canada, with Turk Telekom joining the bandwagon more recently."

Co-author Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices at Infonetics, added: “As for the femtocell market…..We expect at least a dozen major operators to launch in 2010, giving this market a kick-start.”

You can read the report highlights on Infonetics.com.

Bringing U-Verse to the iPhone

Here's an issue I’ve been puzzling over for some time.

U-Verse, AT&T’s slick new IP TV service, is available in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, I’m too far from the distribution point to get it at my house. But many of my neighbors have and love it.

And like in many suburban neighborhoods, iPhones are sprouting up like crazy.

So, I have often puzzled: why can’t one watch U-Verse TV on one's iPhone?

This is the one mobile TV service that makes sense to me. Not random programming at random times, and not 'video shorts;' actual content I select, available to me, when I want.

Let’s look at the problems and what the answers might be.

First, if there ever was a phone for watching TV, it’s the iPhone. It’s got a great screen with brilliant colors, and the landscape display with 16:9 aspect ratio is ideal for HD TV.

Next, if there ever was a service provider to deliver on the ‘three screen’ vision, it’s AT&T. They are the sole quad-play provider in my neighborhood, delivering voice, broadband, mobile and now TV via U-Verse. And it’s not just any TV. It’s a full streaming IP TV service.

AT&T is particularly proud of its ‘whole house’ DVR, where a single box can stream video to different TVs throughout the home. Surely with this advanced capability, it would be possible to stream the shows stored on the DVR to a ‘third screen’ (e.g. an iPhone).

So what’s the hold up?

I don’t work for Apple or AT&T, so I have no inside knowledge. But clearly the iPhone is capable of displaying a TV service. So perhaps the problem is getting the service to the iPhone. I refer to a paragraph in this article on Digital Trends:

“AT&T does say that, due to network congestion concerns, it does not want television signals traversing its cellular network to iPhones…”

Given the trouble AT&T has had with network congestion, this makes a lot of sense. But this is a paid TV service, not YouTube. There is distinct value in bringing the three screen vision to life for AT&T subscribers.

So what if the U-Verse service was delivered to the iPhone over Wi-Fi?

The U-Verse controller has built-in Wi-Fi, so by definition, homes with U-Verse are homes with Wi-Fi. Plus, using Wi-Fi would keep the TV congestion off the 3G network. Finally, people are likely to watch TV when they are stationary (at least in the US), so that covers places like the home, office and hotspots.

It’s probably more complicated that simply ‘streaming U-Verse over Wi-Fi.’ So what are some of the likely requirements for AT&T to deliver the U-Verse service over Wi-Fi?

• User authentication. Just setting a ‘user name/password’ over the Wi-Fi network doesn’t provide enough authentication for a service as valuable as streaming TV. An ideal solution would validate the user based on the SIM credentials of the iPhone against AT&T’s database of U-Verse subscribers to ensure that members of a specific U-Verse household are actually the ones accessing the service.
• Security. Delivering U-Verse over Wi-Fi means delivering it over the public Internet. Therefore, a true security solution must be employed.
• Location. Undoubtedly there are would be location restrictions on where a user could actually watch their U-Verse service, probably within the US. Thus the service must be able to accurately identify the iPhone’s location (not too hard).

Well, as you might have guessed, there is already a 3GPP approved specification for solving this problem. The GAN specification was designed by mobile operators specifically to address the problems associated with delivering services over the public internet.

The 3GPP GAN standard provides:

• SIM-based user authentication over Wi-Fi. A GAN client in the iPhone would use the iPhone’s SIM credentials to authenticate the device against AT&T’s HLR and establish a secure connection over the Internet (nice transition …).

• IPSec VPN secure tunnel. GAN transports voice and packet (U-Verse) services between the iPhone and the AT&T network encapsulated in an IPSec VPN to ensure a secure connection.

• Operator managed location access. With the iPhone, there are many ways to access and monitor the location, via cellular, Wi-Fi and GPS. When establishing the GAN connection, the operator (AT&T) is presented with all the data needed to decide to enable (or reject) service based on the current location of the handset.

There are so many datapoints, it’s absolutely a no-brainer for AT&T to add GAN to the iPhone.

There is no doubt that other operators with iPhones and their own streaming IP TV service (actually nearly any incumbent mobile/video provider) would benefit as well. If we get started now, maybe we can have it in time for Christmas.

PS - I blatantly copied an image and imitated prose from Dr. Suess's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." This is one of my family's favorite Christmas books. I can identify with it because I often find that "...my puzzler is sore..." too.

Mobile VoIP Client Drives Vonage Stock

Vonage, a pioneer in the fixed line VoIP market, recently announced it was developing a downloadable client for the iPhone. Reuters reports the stock is up 35%. (CORRECTION: On Aug 17th, Vonage closed at $0.38, on Aug 27th, it closed at $1.99, it's up more than 500%).

There is growing interest in downloadable VoIP clients for mobile phones. Skype, the undisputed VoIP leader, developed a client for the iPhone which has been downloaded more than 4 million times.

Unfortunately, mobile operators typically have not been able to respond in kind. Therefore, high-value customers are putting these mobile VoIP clients on Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones and bypassing high international calling rates, and/or using the clients to bypass roaming rates when traveling abroad.