Does everyone want net neutrality? Survey finds subscribers open to priority delivery for premium content

Eyal Hilzenrat, Vice President of Product & Marketing at Flash Networks.

The post is by Eyal Hilzenrat, Vice President of Product & Marketing at Flash Networks.

For some in the industry network neutrality has been the ‘Holy Grail’ for a long time, with subscribers wanting equal access to all content and applications without favouring particular websites. However, with the increase in network congestion and with companies like Netflix complaining that operators are responsible for poor network performance while streaming content from their site, I began to wonder if subscribers might be open to the concept of priority delivery for the faster delivery of premium mobile content.

We sent a team to the LTE World Summit to poll mobile operators and subscribers and find out if they were open to premium services.

T-Mobile’s VoLTE service rolls out nationwide following Seattle launch

It’s déjà vu as the whiff of a scandal fills India’s 4G airwaves

Founding director Packet One, GTI Steering Committee: “2014 has being a defining year for TD-LTE.”

Pen San Tang, founding director of Packet One and on the GTI Steering Committee

Could the TD-LTE eco-system match or even outpace that of FDD? Pen San Tang, founding director of Packet One and on the GTI Steering Committee, certainly think so. To hear more from Tang come to hear him speak in the TD-LTE track on Day One of the 9th annual LTE Asia conference, taking place on the 23rd-25th September 2014 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. 

How is P1 progressing with the launch of LTE-based services?

P1 is in the midst of completing a strategic investment agreement and joint collaboration between Malaysia’s leading broadband player, Telekom Malaysia Berhad and its existing stakeholders; founder Green Packet Berhad and South Korea’s SK Telecom for the rollout of LTE. The transaction is anticipated to be completed by Q3, and the teams have come together to do extensive planning.

What is your strategy to move from WiMAX to TD-LTE?

P1’s WiMAX network will continue to provide broadband services to customers as a parallel LTE network is built out. Once WiMAX customers have migrated out over a number of years, P1 expects to use the 2.3Ghz spectrum as an additional capacity band to meet the growing data demands of customers. However, the use of the spectrum would be subject to local regulatory approval.

Dish looks to stockpile more 4G airwaves

Gigaom

Dish Network(s dish) is already sitting on a nest egg of 4G frequencies, but this week it told U.S. regulators it wants to acquire more. In a meeting with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, the satellite TV provider said it would participate in two upcoming spectrum auctions, according to an FCC filing.

The first of those auctions is called the Advanced Wireless Services-3 (AWS-3) auction, scheduled for this November. It will be the FCC’s attempt to create a shared commercial-government band. But the big prize is the 600 MHz airwaves going on the block in 2015 as part of the FCC’s enormously complex and controversial incentive auction.

Source: Shutterstock / fotographic1980

The wireless industry views the low frequency 600 MHz band as a kind of spectrum diamond mine. Lower bands allow signals to propagate better; they can travel miles further than higher bands and punch through…

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Tesco Mobile to offer 4G to PAYG customer for free

Recstarz

Tesco Mobile has announced that all customers, including PAYG users, will now be offered 4G speeds at no extra cost.

With Tesco Mobile using O2’s network, the supermarket is to open its 4G doors to all pay as you go customers to for the first time starting today, July 24.

The network’s pay monthly users have enjoyed 4G speeds – where available – at no additional charge for some time.

“The world we live in is becoming ever more fast-paced and data hungry,” Simon Groves, Chief Marketing Officer for Tesco Mobile said in making the announcement.

“No one likes being made to wait around and we see no reason why our pay as you go customers shouldn’t have access to the same speeds as pay monthly ones; which is why we now offer 4G to all our customers at prices that are accessible to everyone.”

Although there are a number…

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Prepare Today for Tomorrow’s Security Attack: How Automated Threat Response Strategies Increase Protection & Decrease Risk

Dwayne Ruffin, Chief Market Development Executive at CSG Invotas

This post is by Dwayne Ruffin, Chief Market Development Executive at CSG Invotas.

One of my colleagues likes to say that cybersecurity starts at the top.  That is to say, security is not just a challenge for IT teams alone. A cyber attack is an attack on an organisation’s reputation, its relationship with consumers, and its revenue. We all know that consumer trust builds over time but can be wiped out in an instant and take a lifetime to rebuild.

Let’s face it, high-profile data breaches make front page news regularly these days, and the more we read about cyber attacks, the more we recognise the responsibility organisations have to protect the customer data in their systems.

But that protection is far easier said than done. The popularity of 4G LTE technology has greatly expanded the opportunities for cyber attacks and the need for improved security strategies across the board—a need further complicated by the exponential extension of the digital ecosystem through increased mobile device use. More and more payment information and other sensitive data are shared with organisations of all kinds, which leaves more and more points of contact at risk and in need of defence.

Aircel Launched 4G Services In Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Odisha

MOBILE MASTER

Aircel launched its 4G services which will be offered across four circles namely, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Odisha. With this launch, Aircel will now offer services under all the three existing technologies of 2G, 3G and 4G LTE bringing it at par with global telecommunication offerings.

Aircel holds 20MHz of spectrum in the 4G LTE 2300 MHz band across eight circles – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam and North East and Jammu and Kashmir. With the launch of 4G LTE services, Aircel is well placed to continue meeting the ever increasing data demand of its customers.

Aircel’s enterprise customers will experience a 4G LTE high-speed network to receive dedicated internet and secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) services whereas its Home customers will experience various infotainment services on high-speed broadband that will help connect any wifi device to support services such as faster internet access, Smart TVs…

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In China, more people now access the internet from a mobile device than a PC

Interview: EVP BSS and ESS Applications, PTCL – “BSS/OSS has to be agile, lean, nimble, customizable, adaptable, configurable, and plug and play.”

Ahsan Aziz Khan, EVP BSS and ESS Applications, PTCL

What is the real importance of BSS/OSS to operators in a world of LTE data? In this interview we get the views of Ahsan Aziz Khan, EVP BSS and ESS Applications, PTCL, who is speaking on the subject of BSS/OSS on Day One of the LTE Asia conference, taking place on the 23rd-25th September 2014 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore —and taking part in the Operator Mindshare in the morning of Day Two.

What kind of business model changes do you expect with LTE?

The promise of LTE is high-speed data and even voice over data (VoLTE). There is a tremendous growth already happening in the use of data and more is expected over the coming days as LTE adoption increases. According to research, video will generate the most traffic in the future. As we already know and have observed, there is not much revenue growth for Telcos vis-à-vis the growth in data usage and the demand for bandwidth. This essentially means Telcos need to find new ways of earning money and monetizing data.

Lots of changes are already happening on various fronts related to our industry that can be summed as a SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) stack and the growing demand of digital services in the form of IoT and M2M. These changes are also affecting customer behavior and expectations.

A new eco-system of technologies and services is evolving. The situation is demanding a serious change of thoughts for the Telcos in terms of business model. These new business models are all about embracing digital services and partnerships with OTT players and other industry verticals. Telcos have to transform everything from soup to nuts, be it the network, be it the IT, be it the organization structure, or be it the business processes. They also have to react quickly otherwise you get the ‘boiling frog’ phenomena, which has started to happen.

Interview: Engineer, Sri Lanka Telecom: “I see fewer engineering challenges and more commercial and financial challenges.”

Anuradha Udunuwara, Engineer, Sri Lanka Telecom

Anuradha Udunuwara, Engineer, Sri Lanka Telecom is speaking on Day One of the 9th annual LTE Asia conference, taking place on the 23rd-25th September 2014 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Click here to download a brochure for the event.

In this Q&A Udunuwara tells us about the challenges facing Sri Lanka Telecom’s network, and what the most important technologies to look at for enhancing the network.

What are the major network-related engineering challenges you expect to face over the next 12 months?

In terms of challenges, I see fewer engineering challenges and more commercial and financial challenges. While technology and engineering enables us to overcome most of the challenges, the real challenge for operators will be how to minimize CAPEX/OPEX/TCO and increase revenue/profits. That requires innovation, common sense, changing plans and taking risks.

On the network side, what’s important is supporting the increased bandwidth requirements and optimizing packet transport techniques. Major challenges will arise in supporting migrations from legacy [Circuit/TDM (Time Division Multiplexing)] to next generation [Packet/IP (Internet Protocol)/Ethernet]. On the financial side the challenge will be how to best make future-proof investments.

How are you using analytics on your networks to gain more subscriber knowledge?

Network analytics are important in order to gain knowledge about the behaviour of the traffic in the network. If you correctly translate this knowledge, you can gain a good understanding of how the subscriber/user/consumer/customer applications behave, and eventually, how the individuals behave. This knowledge helps operators to perform the required network and service optimizations, introduce or change products to suit that behaviour, and finally to take informed investment decisions. We are working on these lines and would like to focus more on this area in the future.

WiFi Offload/Roaming Part 3: Diameter and LTE Interworking Is Crucial

Jim Machi, vice president of product management for Dialogic

In my last blog I discussed the architectures needed to roam between WiFi and 3G/4G networks. In order to enable interoperability between the different architectures, a mediation and interworking platform is required to support the different scenarios in which RADIUS, Diameter and SS7 are used.

As discussed in my prior blogs, RADIUS is critical for interworking with WiFi networks. Authentication and authorization of roaming subscribers is performed through RADIUS messages over an inter-operator interface between the visited network provider and home service provider. The interface can be implemented directly between two operators or through an intermediary, like an IPX or WRIX provider. The interworking functionality can be placed within either the visited or home operator’s networks, an IPX/WRIX provider or all three locations.

Wi-Fi Offload/Roaming Part 2: Wi-Fi, 3G/4G Roaming and Interworking Architectures

Jim Machi, vice president of product management for Dialogic

By Jim Machi, vice president of product management for Dialogic, where he is responsible for driving the overall roadmap and product strategy.

In my last blog, I discussed Wi-Fi roaming and the WRIX. The WRIX, an IPX-like exchange for Wi-Fi roaming, is broken into three levels that cover the various interactions needed between operators to support roaming.

First is the WRIX-i, or interconnect, which specifies the interface between the visited network provider (VNP) and the home service provider (HSP). WRIX-i requires use of RADIUS authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) procedures and some specific attributes associated with access and accounting services. The WRIX-d is for data clearing and wholesale accounting. Lastly, the WRIX-I is for financial clearing and wholesale billing.

The WRIX specifications provide a high degree of interoperability between Wi-Fi operators, but real-world implementation has some obstacles. For example, it may still require RADIUS-to-RADIUS mediation and the need for interworking functionality with other signaling protocols to correct incompatibilities between operator networks. This is because one implementation of RADIUS may not exactly match another implementation of RADIUS. Plus, in order to accommodate roaming over a diverse set of user devices and network implementations, Wi-Fi and 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) network architectures will need to provide interworking between different protocols used for AAA, as well as mediate between variations of the same protocol.