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Mobile Broadband Working Group Open Internet Advisory Committee

Mobile Broadband Working Group Open Internet Advisory Committee. Jennifer Rexford Princeton University http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jrex. Mobile Broadband Working Group. Harvey Anderson, Mozilla Brad Burnham, Union Square Ventures Alissa Cooper, Center for Democracy & Technology

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Mobile Broadband Working Group Open Internet Advisory Committee

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  1. Mobile Broadband Working GroupOpen Internet Advisory Committee Jennifer Rexford Princeton University http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jrex

  2. Mobile Broadband Working Group • Harvey Anderson, Mozilla • Brad Burnham, Union Square Ventures • Alissa Cooper, Center for Democracy & Technology • Jessica Gonzalez, National Hispanic Media Coalition • Charles Kalmanek, AT&T • Matthew Larsen, Vistabeam • Dennis Roberson, IIT and representing T-Mobile • Marcus Weldon, Alcatel-Lucent

  3. Mobile Broadband • Mobile broadband • Increasingly crucial part of Internet access • Yet, still at an early stage of development • Open Internet Order • Network practice transparency • Certain “no blocking” requirements • Wider latitude for differentiated service • Working group • Review state of mobile broadband • Assess how Open Internet principles are working

  4. Our Initial Approach • Discuss several case studies • Focus on concrete, real-life scenarios • Capture the relevant facts, issues, and viewpoints • Identify trade-offs, principles, and areas needing study • Not articulating specific policy recommendations • Three specific examples • AT&T limiting the FaceTime application • Mobile apps overloading signaling resources • Carriers limiting use of Google Wallet

  5. AT&T and FaceTime • Apple FaceTime • High-quality video chat service on iPhone/iPad/Mac • Originally available only over WiFi on iPhone and iPad • Phone call upgraded to FaceTime by tapping a button • FaceTime over 3G networks • Jun’12: Apple announced FaceTime over 3G in iOS 6 • … though carrier restrictions may apply • Aug’12: AT&T limits 3G FaceTime to MobileShare users • … with data cap shared across multiple devices • Other mobile providers • Sprint and Verizon confirm that FT works on all plans

  6. Arguments in the AT&T/FT Debate • Some advocates and press denounce the decision • AT&T is violating FCC’s Open Internet Order • AT&T is blocking an application competing with its own voice or video telephony services • Reasonable network management practices do not include favoring one data plan over another • Suspicion that Apple is cooperating with the scheme • AT&T responds in a blog posting • AT&T’s policy regarding FaceTime is fully transparent • AT&T does not have a competitive video chat app • FCC rules don’t regulate availability of preloaded apps • All users can continue to run FaceTime over WiFi

  7. AT&T/FaceTime Issues • Pre-loaded application, tightly integrated with OS • Available to all users of popular phone w/o downloading • Accessed via the core calling functions of the device • Symmetric bandwidth usage • Access network capacity is asymmetric • Single FaceTime user consumes 33-50% of sector uplink • Limited adaptation to congestion • Many multimedia apps reduce rate during congestion • … but, FT doesn’t seem to adapt as much as other apps • Staged deployment to understand the effects • Initially limit number of users accessing an app

  8. Apps With High Signaling Traffic • Signaling channel • Keeps track of mobile devices and their locations • Notifies network when a device wants to send traffic • Overloaded signaling channel • Prevents new requests from reaching the network • Can become congested before the network bandwidth • Unique issue in cellular networks • Due to Radio Resource Control function • … and the shared, constrained resources

  9. Chatty Applications • Periodic transfers • Keep-alive messages (e.g., push services, NATs) • Polling (i.e., has something happened?) • Ad updates • Measuring user behavior • Skewed usage of signaling resources • Up to 30% resource usage for <2% traffic volume • In some cases, 90% signaling usage by one application • Also drains the battery on the phone • Machine-to-machine traffic could make this worse

  10. Managing Signaling Load is Hard • End device • Strong incentives, and (some) app-level knowledge • But, incomplete control over application behavior • Application developer • Complete knowledge of own application, but not others • But, limited knowledge of the network state • Network • Sees all traffic and controls resource scheduling • But, incomplete knowledge of applications, or ability to infer app before harm has been caused

  11. Signaling Management Challenges • Application-specific management • Adjusting timers for periodic polling • Piggybacking of requests on data traffic • Application-level signaling control • Huge number of applications • Average lifetime of 30 days and revenue of $700 • E.g., AT&T has worked with ~100 app developers to better optimize their applications • Complex optimizations • Cross-application and cross-device • Joint management of bandwidth and signaling load

  12. Going Forward… • Network management is challenging • Large mix of rapidly evolving applications • Growing number of mobile devices • Limited bandwidth and signaling capacity • The technical details matter • Capabilities of today’s equipment • Best-common practices for network management • Perhaps enlist help from other groups • To capture the relevant technical context • E.g., Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group • Review ongoing standards work (e.g., 3GPP)

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