Stefan Winter R&D Engineer s tefan.winter@restena.lu THE ADOPTION OF MOBILE SERVICES - study report

1. Stefan WinterR&D Engineer stefan.winter@restena.lu THE ADOPTION OF MOBILE SERVICES - study report

2. STUDY OVERVIEW • Study looks 5 – 10 years ahead on the topic of mobility • Mobility Infrastructures • Mobile Services • Enabling factors • The sub-topics all provide • Overview of current state • Likely developments in the area • Implications on NRENs / R&E • Available at http://www.terena.org/aspire

3. INFRASTRUCTURES:CAMPUS • Wireless connectivity on campus: status quo • Of paramount importance • Often delivered with WiFi • eduroam has very large footprint, other roaming consortia negligible • Likely developments • Expectations for “always connected” on the rise • Location loses importance, e.g. • “Home” or “Other site” ? • Campus IP address ? • Suggestions • Deploy eduroam at all WiFi locations • No separate network name for home vs. roaming

4. INFRASTRUCTURES:OFF-CAMPUS • Technologies, status quo • 3G: predominant; good availability but significant drawbacks in speed, latency and pricing when abroad • Digital divide: countries with lower (GPRS, EDGE) and higher (LTE) properties exist • Offerings for academic sector exist, but fragmented • Likely developments • LTE on the rise • Offers better opportunities for integration with R&E networks than 3G – GEANT MCFA underway • Users will likely want to switch between campus and off-campus connectivity without noticing • eduroam might provide service foroff-campus, not a natural winner though

5. INFRASTRUCTURES:DEDICATED SPECTRUM • 3G and LTE markets are difficult • dominated by commercial providers • Operators own all available spectrum • Any business agreement makes NREN 2nd tier provider behind the commercial one; dependent on their pricing • To position NRENs as true, independent operator: • Dedicated spectrum (and supporting handsets) • Own infrastructure • university buildings are important asset • NRENs have IP backbone • Own service – strictly limited to members of R&E • Enables roaming between NRENs without dictation of prices from commercial operators

6. SERVICES:STATUS QUO • Educational resources not (necessarily) in hands of educational institution • Content is available from various places iTunes U, YouTube EDU, Khan Academy… • Commodity services as well Gmail, Google Calendar, … • Mobile offerings extension of web services (browser-centric) • Access to content is not usually agnostic of (network) location or presented identity • VPNs, access via specific IP address ranges, … • No federated login (e.g. use Gmail identity for resource access)

7. SERVICES:LIKELY DEVELOPMENTS • Specialised applications/front-ends for mobile devices • size-constrained • bandwidth-constrained • Requirement for seamless session continuation • Inclusion of environmental parameters into services • Location-awareness • Sensor availability • Commercial digital identities will gain importance (and marginalise academic ones?) • NRENs and constituency need to cooperate with the commercial world – no ivory tower!

8. ENABLING MOBILITY • Infrastructure-wise, ivory tower attitude is hard-wired into many NRENs • No/limited carrying of commercial traffic • No/limited sharing of resources (WiFi Access Points, …) • Much possible synergy is being wasted that way • Service-wise, relation between commercial and academic services is often seen more like “competition” than “symbiotic” • Commercial providers could be incentivised to provide value-added services to academic community • Academic services could use third-party add-ons

9. ENABLING MOBILITY:RECOMMENDATIONS • Make infrastructure and services easy to use • Irrespective of physical location • Irrespective of connectivity properties • Consider “virtual” mobility • E.g. provide quick and easy access to video-conferencing • Stop piecemeal approach; move towards holistic offering across entire sector • Every institution should offer all mobility services • Not only on technical level (e.g. remove administrative hurdles when students move between universities)

10. SUMMARY • Mobility support exists, many concepts are being used, trialed, or at least sketched • Consistent rollout to every stakeholder is important – but not yet reality • Community needs to work together to provide a consistent pan-European service offering • Regarding technologies (Europe-wide off-campus IP connectivity for predictable and affordable prices) • Regarding services (Make own services available to all authorised users across Europe; allow own users to make use of third-party services) • Regarding regulation and administration (remove hurdles, reconsider NRENs’ strict statutes – keeping in mind the “closed network” status)

11. Questions? Answers! (*) (*) possibly 