In Case of Emergency (ICE) Information on the SIM card

During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, I heard from Adrian Scrase for the first time that 3GPP has specified how to put information on the SIM card for "In Case of Emergency" (ICE) events, i.e. to help first responders to identify someone and to contact their next of kin.

A great idea and now that it is specified it will hopefully become a worldwide accepted feature. It's not in current phones and SIM cards yet so it will take a couple of years for the feature to be added. Let's keep our fingers crossed a critical mass is reached so people actually enter information and first responders actually use the feature.

As somebody asked me over at Forum Oxford at how it will work in practice, I've had a look at the standards:

  • The user enters ICE information like names of persons, relation to these persons and phone numbers. For details see 3GPP TS 22.101, A28
  • During an emergency, the information can be retrieved by pressing '* * *'. That's specified in 3GPP TS 22.030, 6.8
  • The information is stored in a new file on the SIM card referred to as EF(ICE_DN) and the format is described in 3GPP TS 31.102

Carnival of the Mobilists (G20 Edition) at London Calling

Cotm-button
It's time for another Carnival of the Mobilists and this week's edition is hosted by Andrew Grill over at London Calling. As always, a great read and I fully agree with Andrew on the post of the week by Dennis Bournique where he explains that despite recent misinterpretations, the iPhone does not account for more than 50% of the US mobile data traffic.

So for the latest and greatest from the mobile blogosphere, head over and enjoy!

I’ll be Presenting at the Forum Oxford Future Technologies Conference

You might have noticed my earlier post on my upcoming Oxford University course on LTE Services I'll be doing together with Ajit Jaokar after Easter. In addition to that I am happy to announce that I've also been invited to speak at this year's Forum Oxford Future Technologies Conference on Friday, April 24, 2009.

My topic: Evolution of Mobile Networks. Impact and Possibilities for Future Services.

As I attended last year as a visitor myself, I fully agree with Tomi Ahonen that this is the "can't miss event" of the year and it's at a very moderate price as well. Most of last year's presentations were filmed and the event's web site has links to the individual presentations.

Here's the provisional agenda:

09:00 start (speakers shown in order of presentations)

* Professor William Webb, Head of Research and Development, Ofcom
Presentation: Wireless Communications: The Future Revisited
(I reviewed his book on the same topic here)

* Nick Allott, Chief Technical Officer, OMTP

* Graham Trickey, Senior Director, GSM Association (tbc)

* Phil Northam, Global Manager, Samsung Mobile Innovator
Presentation: 'War is Peace'.

* Martin Sauter, Wireless Consultant and Author, WirelessMoves
Presentation: Evolution of Mobile Networks. Impact and Possibilities for Future Services.

* Mark Curtis, CEO, Flirtomatic
Presentation: Dislocation of Expectation: the Challenges of a Mobile Start-up.

* Simon Cavill, Chief Technology Officer / Director of Strategy, Mi-Pay
Presentation: “Show me the Money!” – Why mobile money is this year's Next Big Thing.

* Professor Ed Candy, Chief Technology Officer, 3 Group

* Tony Fish, CEO, AMF Ventures
Presentation: My Digital Footprint.

* Helen Keegan, Specialist in Mobile Marketing, Advertising and Media, Beep Marketing
Presentation: Media and Marketing in a Mobile 2.0 world

* Agustin Calvo, CEO, Movidream, Spain
Presentation: A Mobile Marketing Evolution to Contextual Interactivity and VRM.

* Christine Maxwell, Chief Information Architect, MobileWorks 3D Inc.
Presentation: Use of the Arts in Designing the Mobile World

* Ramu Sunkara, CEO, Qik (tbc)
Presentation: The Revolution Will Be Live Streamed: Live Mobile Video for the Masses.

A great lineup I would say and I am also looking forward very much to the lively discussions between all attendees during the coffee and lunch breaks and to the always stimulating and controversial Q&A sessions after the presentations.

And some more links for those of you who'd like to find out more:

Hope to see you there!

Picocells in Action

Pico- and Femtocells have been a hotly debated topic at the Mobile World Congress this year and to my great pleasure I've been offered the opportunity to have a look at a real Picocell installation in a live network after returning home.

So one day, I was invited to visit an installation at a shopping mall, where a number of GSM picocells from IP.Access were deployed, as the surrounding macro network did not cover the interior of the mall very well. In essence, this means that the picocell was deployed as a coverage filler rather than to add capacity to the macro network.

It looks like the network operator using the picocells was not the only one having coverage problems, as I saw a number of repeater antennas throughout the building from other operators. Repeaters are another solution to get in-house coverage but I was told that while it sounds easy enough, they are rather tricky to deploy as permission is needed for the external antenna on the roof. Also, the coax cables running through the shopping center to the antennas inside are quite expensive and again a permission is required to lay the cables and install the antennas in the hallways.

Picocells on the other hand require no permission whatsoever and the installation is rather trivial: A phone line for DSL that serves as a backhaul link, a DSL modem and the picocell itself, that's all it takes. In the specific installation I was shown, an Ethernet switch was connected in addition as the DSL link was also used to connect the computers of the shop back to the mother ship. Quite a nice setup as the backhaul cost for the picocell is effectively zero that way.

I ran a couple of calls over the picocell and couldn't tell the difference in voice quality in the picocell compared from that in the macro network. Moving from the picocell to the macro network worked quite well as soon as I left the coverage area which was around 20 meters. I'd say there were only using a very low power output. In the opposite direction, however, the mobile lost coverage and had to perform a network search before the picocell was found. My test mobile revealed that the macro cell did not broadcast the parameters for reselecting into the picocell. Looks like it hasn't been configured correctly at the time I tried.

All in all, I was very impressed with the simplicity of the setup and not only the customers coming to the mall but also those that work there are probably quite happy to have the network there and are probably even unaware that their call is not handled by the macro network but is actually backhauled via a DSL IP connection.

Thanks for the visit, it was very insightful!

The Mobile Switching Center: Evolution From Pure Circuit to Full IP

If you have a couple of minutes, join me for a tour of the incredible evolution of the Mobile Switching Center for mobile voice calls from a circuit switched elephant to an IP based leopard. As much as possible, I've tried to use general terms and reduce the number of telecom acronyms to have a blog entry that is understandable to a wider audience. The purpose? To explain at the end why the circuit switched and the packet switched IP world should loose the fear from each other.

Only 10 years ago, the mobile world was a very different place. GPRS was only in the standardization phase and GSM networks were purely circuit switched voice networks. The core component was the Mobile Switching Center, the MSC. A single MSC was composed of several long aisles of cabinets which were full of circuit boards and cabling. Voice calls were circuit switched, 30 of them multiplexed over 2 MBit/s E1/T1 links and many of these links connected the MSC to other MSCs and with the GSM radio network. But if you had seen the earlier generation of voice switches that was definitely state of the art!

Fast forward to today: The MSC still exists and to the user it still behaves like it has 10 years ago. However, today's MSCs have not only completely changed the way they look but also how they work. The switching power of aisles of cabinets is now contained in a single cabinet and the physical circuit switching of 64 kbit/s channels has been virtualized into IP packets running through gigabit optical cables. In effect the MSC has become a powerful server that communicates with the outside world over IP and instead of connecting voice circuits physically in a switching matrix they are now virtually connected by routing IP packets from one IP address to another.

Since 3GPP Release 4, the MSC is logically and in many cases also physically separated into two different boxes with a standardized interface in between them:

The MSC-Server: This is the brain of the voice switching system if you want. When a mobile subscriber initiates a call, the mobile exchanges messages with the MSC-Server which then finds the destination party and signals the incoming call to it. If the destination is available the MSC-Server then establishes a voice connection between the two parties and the conversation can begin once the other side accepts the call. With the old MSC architecture, the Signaling System number 7 has been used for this purpose. Today, the MSC-Server is an IP based system and all messages between the MSC-Server and the radio access network pass an SS7 to IP gateway that exchanges the lower layer of the protocol stack so SS-7 messages can be transported over an IP connection. A mobile network usually contains many MSC-Servers at different physical locations and messages between them are directly transported over IP. Interested in how an MSC-Server looks like? Here's a cool 3D example.

The Media Gateway: The MSC-Server only sends messages through the system via IP links, it is not involved with actually setting up the speech path between two phones. This is the responsibility of the Media Gateway. The MSC-Server is connected to the Media Gateway via an IP connection and the protocol for establishing voice connections is called H.248 or Megaco (Media Gateway Control Protocol). Basically the MSC-Server uses these messages to tell the Media Gatway to connect a virtual or physical circuit coming in on one interface with a virtual or physical circuit on another. I call them virtual and physical because there are different kinds of interfaces. To the GSM radio network, a real physical circuit switched channel is used. Thousands of them are usually multiplexed into an optical link. IP is not used on this link. To the UMTS radio network, it's already a bit more virtual, as ATM (Asynchronuous Transfer Mode) links are used, usually again over an optical link. Also, no IP used here. To other Media Gateways in the network IP links are used and the protocol to transport the voice stream is called Real Time Transfer protocol (RTP). Interested how a Media Gateway looks like? Here's a cool 3D example.

Below I will use the term MSC system to describe the combination of MSC-Server and Media Gateway.

SIP

Speaking of the RTP protocol for sending a voice stream through an IP network. It's probably not a coincidence that the same protocol is also used by SIP, which is the protocol used for most of the voice over IP solutions that are in use today. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol and if the MSC System is enhanced to understand this protocol, it could also accept and forward voice calls to SIP lines. That's not done in practice today as far as I know but let's keep that in mind for the future.

IP based GSM and UMTS access

Today, the links in most wireless networks to the radio network for the call establishment signaling and the voice calls are not based on IP. However, there are now 3GPP standard enhancements to offer an IP alternative for these interfaces as well for both GSM and UMTS. As a consequence it is likely that over time, network operators will convert these links to IP, too. This could be part of a radio network backhaul convergence, where all data from base stations that support several radio technologies (e.g. GSM, UMTS and LTE) use the same IP based backhaul link instead of several different ones based on different lower layer standards as is mostly still the case today. In short, there is also a trend to replace the current circuit switched based radio network links with IP based connections.

Interconnection between different networks

To allow calls between different networks in the same country and between different countries, MSC-Servers and Media Gateways of different network operators are interconnected. Today, these interconnections are also still based on E-1 circuit switched interfaces and SS-7 signaling. However, as we go forward network operators will start replacing these legacy interfaces with IP links which saves the SS-7 to IP message converters mentioned above reduces cost as E-1 circuit links are much more expensive than using an IP interconnect.

VOLGA (Voice over LTE over Generic Access)

A special case is the LTE radio network. As it is fully IP based system it has no connection to the MSC system today. As reported recently, the VOLGA forum is about to change that as discussed here. Effectively, VOLGA introduces a gateway between the LTE network and the MSC system. To the MSC system, the gateway looks like a GSM BSC or a UMTS RNC. This way, no code has to be changed on the MSC system and the link can either be based on circuit switched or IP technology.

To the LTE network the VOLGA gateway just looks like an IP server and the communication between it and mobile devices flows transparently through the LTE core and radio networks. An already standardized interface is used to announce handovers to the gateway, so the LTE network can inform the VOLGA gateway and the MSC system that an ongoing session is to be handed over to a GSM cell. To the MSC Server, the handover is no different from a GSM/UMTS to GSM handover.

Circuit to Circuit, IP to IP

So when looking at this evolution from a slightly different angle one could say that the MSC looks like to each world what it would like to see. For the circuit switched world, the split MSC-Server and Media Gateway still looks like a circuit switched box. For the IP world, however, the MSC-Server and Media Gateway are just IP based devices which send and receive IP packets. For the voice stream, RTP is used, a protocol well known in the IP world. The call establishment signaling also uses IP packets but the protocol used is originally from the circuit switched world. It doesn't change the principle that it's now IP based but protocols like M3UA, SCCP, TCAP, MAP, etc. are not yet in the toolkit of IP engineers. But fear not, Wireshark and other well known IP tracing tools understand these protocols so they are as easy to trace and analyze as any other IP based protocol. The beauty of the approach is that old and new, circuit and IP can be mixed and matched for each voice call as required.

As we go into the future, more and more links connecting the MSC system will be converted from legacy circuit switched to IP and physical circuits are put into virtual circuits, embedded into RTP IP packets. At some point, some MSCs in the wireless network will only use IP based links between different servers, to the radio access network and even servers in another mobile network. This might still be a couple of years away but the standards are all in place and the changes are well underway.

So from my point of view there is still a lot of life left in the MSC architecture and it will serve us well into the future, possibly even in LTE networks unless a miracle happens and alternatives such as the IMS based system suddenly emerge from hibernation.

Shrinking Base Stations

New-bts
The picture on the left is an interesting example of how the latest generations of GSM and UMTS base stations are replacing legacy equipment in the field. Previously there were two base stations at the same place (one for GSM and one for UMTS) taking up most of the space of the gray plateau. The small base station now in place is about 1/5 to 1/6 the size of the two original cabinets and includes GSM and UMTS elements plus the equipment necessary for the microwave backhaul.

The refresh cycle is also interesting. I would estimate that the original GSM base station was in place for around 6 years and the UMTS base station for around 3 years. With the original GSM base station probably having been end of live, I guess it was a smart move to replace both at the same time. What I also noticed was that for two of the three radio sectors, the original two antennas, one for GSM and one for UMTS, were replaced by a common antenna including remote electrical tilt (RETA) for later fine tuning.

And finally, compare the size of this GSM and UMTS base station to much bigger VDSL cabinets, which are deployed with the same or even higher density as wireless base stations these days (I estimate their distance to be about 500m). Interesting to contemplate about the synergies and deployment costs.

DVB-T On Mobiles: Cheap, But What Is The Added Value?

Recently, a friend of mine showed me his new mobile, which came with an integrated DVB-T TV tuner. No, not DVB-H (handheld), but DVB-T, the standard TV set digital standard. The TV stream is crisp and sharp, very nice to look at but the rest left some doubts.

I asked him why he bought a DVB-T capable mobile and he said that he actually didn't. He bought the phone because it was cheap and had big keys for SMS and he only figured out it could do DVB-T once he discovered the extractable antenna. Great!

But then, what's the value of DVB-T on a mobile phone? Without content adapted for mobile consumption and without a built in possibility to get further information with a single click or to succumb to that instant urge to buy something it's quite limited.

The value is also quite limited for the broadcaster and for the content owner because they can't deliver additional information, they can't create additional revenue and they don't even know somebody watched it.

No, that's definitely not the final word on mobile TV broadcasting.

German Cable Operator Now Looking for Wireless Assets

Over the weekend I read an article whereby a German cable network operator is now looking actively for cooperating with a wireless network operator to offer a fixed / wireless access package and combined services. That’s good news for connected home services I am advocating as the next great thing for network operators after fixed line voice telephony, as this is further proof that network operators on both ends of the table are looking into how the connected home can be enriched with remote access.

Interestingly enough, the cable operator in question, Kabel Deutschland, was rumored to be a takeover candidate itself for Vodafone Germany just recently to bolster its fixed line assets beyond the DSL business it already has with Arcor, soon to be renamed into Vodafone. Looks like there is a lot of movement in the market these days.

Prices for Voice Minutes and GPRS Very Different in Africa vs. India

As you might have noticed, I've been doing some research into GSM voice + mobile Internet in Africa lately. When comparing the results to prices in India, however, I was quite surprised.

Compared to the average price for a voice minute in Africa of around 10-15 Euro cents today, Indian carriers sell their voice minutes for around 2-3 Euro cents (taxes and recharge fees included, see an example of Airtel here and of BSNL here). Also, GPRS is much cheaper.

Assuming that the cost of running the networks in both regions is similar (just an assumption, please prove me wrong), I can't quite explain the difference. It's not missing competition, most African countries have 3 or 4 GSM networks today. It's not missing profitability either. EBITA of African and Indian wireless carriers are quite o.k. (see fore example the results of Airtel for 2008). Any ideas?

Focus Africa: Mobile Internet

There are quite a number of initiatives these days that aim at bringing the Internet to developing countries. From my point of view the ones which I think will have to most success are those using the infrastructure that is already there, the GSM networks. Satellites with local distribution over Wi-Fi might be an option in the future, too, but I think that will still too expensive and would only be available near the satellite downlink. Initiatives like OLPC and meshed networking might change that but I don't see that in the short- or mid-term. GSM networks in the other hand are already there today so I did some research into how available and affordable the mobile Internet is in Africa today.

There are about 300 million GSM subscribers in Africa today and a sizable portion of those phones should be capable of running the OperaMini browser. In the monthly analysis of the state of the mobile web for September 2008, Opera has a focus on Africa with some interesting numbers:

Out of the 65 TB of compressed data consumed by 19 million users in September 2008, 5 TB was consumed from Africa. That would be around 8% of worldwide traffic, or about 1.5 million users. Note that this is only a rough assumption as it's based on an average and doesn't take things into account such as higher or lower use compared to the average for various reasons. But the number itself is already quite impressive even though this means that currently less than 1% of African GSM subscribers would use OperaMini.

So where is GPRS or EDGE available in Africa and how affordable is it? I've checked in the countries in which I also checked for voice rates for the previous post in this series:

  • Kenya – Safaricom: They have EDGE in their network and even 3G is available in some places. I couldn't find prices per kb but they do offer a 3G USB dongle and the price per MB if you buy the smalles bundle (300 MB) is 10 Euros or about 3 euro cents per MB. However, USB dongles and 10 Euro recharges are probably only for a select view. Also, I didn't see any promotion on their web pages for mobile Internet use on the phone yet.
  • Côte d'Ivoire – MTN: They are promoting a EDGE USB dongle and unlimited monthly access is 15 Euros.
  • Uganda – MTN: Around 1 euro per megabyte, billed per kb. According to this report, Opera Mini seems to be involved with MTN's mobile Internet offer.
  • Egypt – Vodafone: They run a mobile Internet promotion with OperaMini. Daily access to the Vodafone mobile portal and 3 MB off portal (with OperaMini that's a lot) is 14 euro cents. According to this report, the offer has triggered 400.000 OperaMini downloads in just a month. Impressive! I am looking forward to the Opera Mini statistics with a focus on Africa to see what kind of longer term impact this has made.

Summary: While the mobile Internet seems to have arrived in many countries in Africa, prices are still quite expensive, especially for the region. But it's likely that things will probably change in the not too distant future and the Vodafone Egypt example is hopefully a trendsetter.

Are you using the mobile Internet in Africa or would you like to share your views? If so leave a coment below.