Towards Fixed-Mobile Convergence

1. Towards Fixed-Mobile Convergence Mike Hook: mike.hook@roke.co.uk

2. Overview • Roke Manor Research • FMC • Motivations for FMC • Progress in Standardisation • Terminals • Infrastructure • Next steps The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)

3. Roke Manor Research • RMR is a Siemens UK R&D operating business • Siemens is in the top 4 for R&D investment - €5.3bn in 2003 • RMR undertakes R&D in fixed and mobile communications, sensors and information technology • Active in standardisation relating to FMC topics within a number of organisations including ETSI, 3GPP, IEEE and IETF • Experienced in developing standards compliant systems in both fixed and mobile communications • RMR is a contract R&D house that undertakeswork both for Siemens and for a wide range of third party organisations around the world

4. Fixed Mobile Convergence • Right now we have two voice/data worlds – Fixed wireline and Mobile wireless • We also have Wi-Fi (and very soon WiMAX and Korea is developing WiBro) which are generally seen as being a kind of wireless fixed solution but often operated by mobile operators (or their partners) • But… Wi-Fi is beginning to adopt SIM-based authentication (eg EAP-SIM) making it look a little more like mobile • FMC aims to provide a single back-end infrastructure supporting all fixed and mobile users, potentially with single sign-on access The best way to predict the future is to invent it.Alan Kay

5. Why FMC? • FMC offers: • Tariffing • Ubiquity (any network access) • Ease of use (single sign-in, common user experience) • Enhanced mediated services – often peer to peer and making use of presence (& possibly also location) info: • Multimedia instant messaging (IM) • Presence-based games • Cooperative content sharing & editing • IM for interaction with knowledge “agents” Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962)

6. User Motivations for FMC • Single device – single contact number • Personal rather than shared device • Traditional home phones are family phones • No personal address book • No personal SMS/MMS messaging history • Traditional mobiles are personal phones • Personal address book & SMS history • Personalisation – ringtones, wallpaper, customised shortcuts • Consistent user experience across cellular, fixed-line and hot-spot access • Cheaper tariffing at office and home • Presence-based applications and services • Access to higher data-rates at office and home

7. Operator Motivations for FMC • Single back-end infrastructure giving cost and support savings • Value-added services can be seamlessly delivered over a wide range of bearers with flexible tariffing including post-paid contract • All end-user devices strongly authenticated • VoIP traffic can be effectively tariffed • FMC can hide details of one operator’s infrastructure from its interconnected neighbours Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.Popular Mechanics, March 1949

8. Progress in Standardisation • Standards led ETSI, 3GPP, ITU-T, IEEE, IETF • Market led • Some people in the market-place cannot wait for standardisation eg Skype & other new entrants The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.John Sladek

9. Fixed Mobile Convergence Alliance (FMCA) • FMC handset technologies favoured by the Fixed Mobile Convergence Alliance (FMCA): • Bluetooth CTP (cordless telephony profile) • Wi-Fi SIP (VoIP using SIP signalling) • Wi-Fi UMA (GSM tunnelled over Wi-Fi) Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), New York TImes, Apr. 29, 1930

10. UMA - Unlicenced Mobile Access • FMC by tunnelling GSM over IP (via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) • UMA (Unlicenced Mobile Access) – eg BT Bluephone “Fusion”, offering roaming of GSM onto fixed line • UMA is now 3GPP work item "Generic Access to A/Gb interfaces“, and is now part of 3GPP Release 6+ activity I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

11. 3GPP – IP Multimedia Subsystem • 3GPP Rel 5 – IMS for non-real-time services and near real-time services • 3GPP Rel 6 – IMS for real-time services • Uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) • IMS infrastructure provides a set of SIP application servers, subscriber databases (HSS) and gateways to enable a variety of integrated voice and data services • IMS was developed for mobile rather than fixed… • …3GPP has now added new work items for network independence of IMS – e.g. over Wi-Fi as well as 3G/GPRS

12. ETSI TISPAN • “Telecoms & Internet converged Services & Protocols for Advanced Networks“ • Fixed line transition from circuit-switched to packet-switched voice services • Fixed network service aspects, architectural aspects, protocol aspects, Quality of Service (QoS) studies, security related studies & mobility aspects within fixed networks • Encompasses ETSI FMC standardisation activity • Recent agreement that TISPAN will use relevant 3GPP (IMS) docs to realise FMC • ETSI TISPAN & 3GPP IMS seen as the “official” route to FMC in Europe

13. Some relevant IETF activities • VOIPPEER (for VoIP operator interconnect) • Subject of recent meetings to establish new IETF Working Group • Focus on peering arrangements for VoIP operators to interconnect over the Internet • cf GSMA GRX (GPRS Roaming Exchange) but over the Internet rather than through private links • ENUM to assist call routing and number translation • Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) -related activities • From a central role in IMS for large operators… • … to enabling DIY interconnect for very small VoIP operators

14. EU Framework Programme 6 • Wireless World Initiative (WWI) • Projects funded by EU under FP6 • Focus is on systems beyond 3G • Projects cover: • New air interface • Network infrastructure, includes work on convergence between different operator business environments – such as dynamic roaming • Services and applications • The FMC world will increasingly require large numbers of roaming agreements between “operators” of all sizes, including relationships with home or business networks

15. Terminals • FMC-type terminals have been slow to appear but there are examples: • BT Bluephone “Fusion” service • KT One Phone service • Siemens M34 Gigaset USB Adapter allows home DECT phone traffic to be routed via a PC out as VoIP traffic using Skype or SIP • dualphone.net cordless DECT handset basestation connects via USB to a PC running Skype, DECT terminal LCD display indicates online “presence” status of Skype buddies

16. FMC client software • IMS FMC clients have been slow to appear • At present, FMC-like client software typically: • Mainly Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Wireless Village clients on phones • Mainly AIM(also Yahoo, MSN Messenger, Jabber etc) or Skype on PDAs and PCs • Siemens OpenScape client on PCs • + some use of SIP-based VoIP eg sipgate, esp. in Europe but firewall issues have slowed uptake

17. Infrastructure • IMS infrastructure now being offered to Mobile and Fixed Network Operators • Siemens IMS already being adopted in both fixed and mobile worlds • SIP-based IMS infrastructure makes it easy to develop enhanced services running on SIP application servers It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years. John Von Neumann (ca. 1949)

18. The future • Terminals are becoming ever more sophisticated • User interfaces for small form-factor devices are becoming more effective • Increasingly people expect to be able to access more than just voice from their phone • Increasingly people expect to be able to access more than just data from their PC or PDA • The technical barriers to FMC have been pretty much resolved, it is now up to the operators and consumers… Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ), "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

19. LifeWorks – the vision from Siemens Unified user experience Home On the go Hotspot Office Access Mobile networks Fixed networks Enterprise networks LifeWorks Siemens Communications with its expertise in mobile and fixed networks, enterprise networks and devices is uniquely positioned to deliver this vision

20. LifeWorks – the future of communication • FMC is part of the LifeWorks vision from Siemens • Easy and efficient communication and universal access to services • To turn the vision into reality Siemens has started the LifeWorks@Com program with the following projects: • FMC • Enterprise Mobility • Smart home • IMS based mobility solutions • WLAN solutions • Location based solutions • Mobile broadcast