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The massive growth in cellular traffic is causing carriers to scramble. Approaches include simply adding more capacity and making more efficient use of what already is available. One approach is to offload as much of the traffic as possible from scare and high price cellular spectrum to free and abundant Wi-Fi networks. Steve Timmerman, the Vice President of Marketing for Assia, tells IT Business Edge blogger Carl Weinschenk that the approach is evolving scenarios in which users are stationary to those in which they are walking through commercial districts.
Carl Weinschenk spoke to Steve timmerman, the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Aasia.
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Weinschenk:Why is cellular offload to Wi-Fi important?
Timmerman: There is a growing recognition that cellular networks aren’t equipped to handle the growth in data. It is clear that despite improvements in compression, smaller cell sites and more efficient use of spectrum there is no way to overcome physical limitations. The only practical alternative is to offload to a wireless network that is connected to a wired network. Wi-Fi is the obvious alternative due to its low cost — if not the fact that it’s free –pervasive presence and ability to transmit in high capacity.
Weinschenk:Is this going on today?
Timmerman: The first major initiative by carriers was to offload in dense pedestrian environments, such as AT&T Park, baseball stadiums, sports complexes, Times Square, those kinds of areas.
That has been in place for several years. The next major initiative carriers are working out now is to extend to other urban and commercial centers, highly trafficked pedestrian areas where there still is a need for offload. They will take advantage of local businesses that will employ dual SSIDs on wireless access points, which will give them the ability to accommodate their own business needs and offer a part of their bandwidth to pedestrians or customers transitioning through the coverage area.
That’s a way to leverage the capacity already being delivered to along the commercial strips. They are doing it efficiently and providing customer services as well as providing the networks for that particular business. That’s the next real initiative.
Weinschenk: What has to happen for this to suceed?
Timmerman: Some of the challenges are that as opposed to venues such as the AT&T Park and Times Square — where people are relatively stationary — in this case they are walking through an urban center and need to associate and re-associate to access points. [That involves dealing with multiple] SSIDs and authenticating the users via the established policies. Those policies determine things such as whether the data is always going over 3G or 4G or, perhaps, that the data maybe going over Wi-Fi and dropping to 3G or 4G where the Wi-Fi coverage is not
Another issue is how carriers provide infrastructure across urban or commercial strip to provide a superior customer experience.
Those are issues carriers are beginning to tackle now. Work under way includes how to extend from major urban concentration to a more distributed setting. The next step is to move to residential areas and use residential Wi-Fi access points that employ dual SSIDs — one for the home owner’s use and one for either folks walking down the street or to give neighbors some or additional capacity.
That last piece is not being pursued in a major way in this point. The first one, the venues, has been tackled. They are tackling urban centers now. The residential area is down the road a little bit.
Weinschenk: Is this high speed or low speed? Can Wi-Fi offload work for trains and cars, for instance?
Timmerman: I think initially the application is very low speed. The transition is not really feasible in driving or at fairly high speed, given the natural limited coverage of Wi-Fi. You can not associate and re-associate and have a good customer experience. The real focus is on pedestrian traffic through these areas at low speeds. That will also translate to the residential scenario as well. How to do that at high speed is another challenge. It’s beyond the horizon now.
Weinschenk: Does this use new technology, or tweaking of what exists and perhaps adding new software and other things on the edges?
Timmerman:I think it can be a combination of new gear and [tweaking existing gear]. APs that can accommodate dual SSIDs are available — perhaps not in low cost residential APs. Mid- to small and larger enterprise models can do dual SSIDs. The challenge is policy definition and enforcement. How does handset know where to send the data? Where does voice go? The challenge is defining policies through the carrier network or having it hard wired into the phone.
That’s an element of the technology that is being developed. The other element is the authentication. If I am walking through a commercial center, how will I be authenticated through all access points? Can I associate without having to log in to those networks? This can be done through the SIM card in smart phone. That is a way to authenticate to both networks. There are other ways to authenticate as well.
Weinschenk: How would you characterize the situation now? Is it happening?
Timmerman: I think it’s beginning to happen now. The drivers are clear for high demand for cellular data. There is a real urgency on the problem and there is a lot of focus is on how to get it done. The time is being spent working through all the elements. You need the proper infrastructure in place, including access points for dual SSIDs, and you must have the handsets with the technology and infrastructure to support this. They must be able to associate with the Wi-Fi network.
There must be policy and back office software to define and enforce those policies. Will see this in the next one to three years that this will become a major part of offload story.
The other element … part is how to make make sure you can backhaul it. One unique contribution Aassia assia makes to this piece. DSL dominates those wired connections. As we move to commercial strips, the SMBs may be served by DSL. Having high capacity and reliable DSL is fundamental to supporting that cellular offload strategy.
The piece folks don’t talk about is making sure Wi-Fi is connected to the network core. If is it fiber dedicated to Times Square, that solves that problem. But you cannot lay fiber to all businesses on Main Street, so you must make sure DSL is reliable, stable and very high capacity to really execute any cellular offload strategy. Often that is an ignored part of the cellular offload strategy.
Weinschenk: Several players can provide that, right?
Timmerman: It’could could be fiber, cable or DSL. So [for instance], if you served by a cable modem and have Wi-Fi built into the cable modem or a separate APap hanging onto that the performance of that cable connection is critical to cellular offload strategy as well.
Weinschenk: You sound confident this will happen.
Timmerman: More efficient use of spectrum, the opening of new TV spectrum — all of those are important and will help solve problem. But all together they are insufficient, so cellular off load is inevitable. We are working with several carriers. This problem is happening to every carrier. they all have the challenge now. They looking at how to put this together.
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Carl Weinschenk
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Carl Weinschenk
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