Wi-fi - Why Not?

This summer’s World Cup saw operators at home and aboard facing increased demand to provide reliable wireless access for fans looking to watch the games on their smartphones – whether it be by the stadium or tucked under their office desk. This highlights a much larger issue: the potential of a capacity crunch generated by increased demand for mobile TV.

Mobile TV is not a new initiative; it has been hailed as the ‘next big thing’ on more than one occasion. However, the release of the iPad and other tablet devices has led to a rapid increase of people watching TV on their mobile device, according to a report released by Nielsen. The number of people watching TV on a mobile phone totaled 13.4m in Q4 2009, 20 per cent up on the previous quarter, and 52.2 per cent higher than the same period 12 months ago.

Innovative services
Ericsson reported in March 2010 that data traffic had overtaken voice traffic for the first time in the mobile industry’s 25-year history. Consumers are hungry for innovative services on their mobile handsets, and operators are looking for a means to capitalise on them. Mobile broadband has been a huge phenomenon globally, but has failed to generate revenues equal to exponential data growth, resulting in operators abandoning all-you-can-eat data plans. Mobile TV offers operators a premium subscription service, capable of generating huge amounts of revenue that cannot be ignored.

UK Tier 1 operators are beginning to acknowledge the risk of network deterioration that may occur due to increased subscriptions to mobile TV. In June 2010, UK operators O2, Orange and Vodafone teamed up to test a TV broadcast service which would enable consumers to view television channels on their handsets. The operators announced they will launch a three-month trial of integrated mobile broadcast (IMB) technology in west London and Slough.

IMB was selected as the chosen broadcast medium, as it enables operators to keep traffic off 3G networks and free up spectrum for users deploying tradition voice, SMS and broadband services. IMB is said to enable operators to maximize on 3G investments, by harnessing under-used spectrum to deploy Mobile TV.

In order to be able to broadcast over IMB, however, operators must invest in costly transmitters that must be added to base stations. Moreover, new handsets need to be developed that have integrated IMB chips. This is a costly and complex undertaking.

There’s another problem here too. With fierce competition in the mobile retail market, loyalty to operators is scarce, and there is heightened competition among top brands. As operators look to compete with data-intensive devices such as the iPhone 4, many are locking subscribers in with 24-month contracts as part of the service bundle, further exacerbating the time lag between the commercial availability of IMB-ready handsets and their adoption by consumers.

The wi-fi opportunity
But there is another way. The majority of commercially-available smartphones are already wi-fi-enabled, and operators have begun to recognise the opportunities wi-fi offers. In May 2010, AT&T in the US announced the launch of an AT&T wi-fi ‘hotzone’ in New York City's Times Square, providing free coverage there for AT&T customers who use wi-fi-enabled smartphones. In May, Deutsche Telekom also announced wi-fi offload plans, as part of its strategy to alleviate capacity on its 3G networks.

While wi-fi works for offloading YouTube videos and other web-based traffic to the internet, it is not sufficient to support this new form of mobile TV. The mobile phone needs to authenticate, preferably with the existing SIM credentials, to the mobile core network over an untrusted wi-fi network. Once authenticated and authorised, the smartphone can access all the revenue-generating services housed in the core network – including voice, SMS, and mobile TV – via wi-fi.

This new approach makes wi-fi ‘smarter’, and enhances its benefits to mobile operators – conveniently based on the existing 3GPP Generic Access Network (GAN) standard. With a ‘Smart’ wi-fi approach, all mobile services are securely delivered to the smartphone over the wi-fi connection. Operators achieve complete network offload, as all voice, data and internet traffic, and not just internet/web services, can be routed over wi-fi. So subscribers get improved coverage and ‘five bars’ of service from the existing wi-fi access points in their homes or offices. 

Mobile operators have changed their views on wi-fi in order to stay ahead in a competitive market. Operators can embrace a Smart wi-fi solution in order to deploy premium subscription services, such as mobile TV, without putting too much strain on the macro network, and causing a capacity crunch.

Jeff Brown is president and CEO of Kineto Wireless