The New Paradigm of Connectivity

The New Paradigm of Connectivity

Communication is multi-dimensional

Audio communication has been the primary means of interaction between human beings for ages. Communication can in general be categorized into more than just the physical dimension – it has an emotional dimension too. Modern Telecommunication technologies brings about an integration of video and imaging with the conventional voice, commonly known as multimedia which has been instrumental in bringing about a paradigm change in the quality of experience in communication. For instance, an application to bring about easy interaction amongst communities, an application that provides information on the location of its members, their status in terms of being available or wanting privacy, helping them with their day to day needs in identifying shops, health club, entertainment center or a school could go a long way in the entire concept of networking becoming a part of their life style. In all this, the service is not restricted to just the physical voice interaction but gets enhanced through video and imaging to bring about a rich experience. The customer feels empowered.

Birth of a new network paradigm

The previous generation network can best be described as a ‘Circuit based voice network’ that primarily catered to transport of voice signals over end-to-end nailed-down circuits or channels. There was very little flexibility in configuration of channels within a network. The ‘Time Division Multiplexing’ technology as it was called was more voice-centric, with the result that it was more expensive to transport data. The old paradigm gave way to the new one described as a ‘Packet based network’ that catered to voice, video or data in a seamless manner. The packets were governed by protocols at as many as seven layers or levels of communication – the physical layer, the link layer, the network layer, the transport layer, the session layer, the presentation layer and the applications layer. Such layer-based Packet networks afforded tremendous flexibility in specialized development based on universal standards. For instance, the Internet protocol in the network layer enabled packets to be routed in a dynamic fashion depending upon the prevailing condition of the network. Services over the new network could be offered ubiquitously. The same network could be utilized by different users on a shared basis. Packet based networks thus became far more economical as an overall business case for communication than the TDM based networks.

Role of Internet

The Internet protocol in the network layer became universally accepted as the new paradigm that was to govern global networks of the future, so much so that the resulting network was christened by the name ‘Internet’.  So much has been the popularity of Internet that the entire telecom industry had to move with the so called Internet wave. New standards were developed to adapt the use of the Internet protocol that could carry any kind of signal – voice, video or data, at mind boggling speeds to replace the conventional telephony and mobile services. The new networks that were created were christened as “Next Generation Networks” (NGN) capable of providing customers with high speed broadband. The technologies permitted hitherto unheard-of scaling factors to serve millions of customers from a single server instead of the conventional tens of thousands. Developments in mobile access technologies started surpassing those in the fixed access technologies in terms of speeds. These developments represented a unique opportunity for the Telecom Service Provider (TSP) to reduce capital expenditures by being able to offer all the three services – voice, video and data, over a single integrated IP-based (Internet Protocol based) infrastructure.  Also, core infrastructures, hitherto installed in central offices scattered over the geography, could now be consolidate on centralized basis. The operational expenditures in terms of power, space and manpower savings as a result of fewer buildings for housing equipment has reduced enormously by a minimum factor of 10. Access to the global and ubiquitous Internet combined with mobility has become an essential service offering within the NGN environment. The NGN is thus well positioned to orchestrate any access technology, and through such access, facilitate delivery of any service, at any place, through any device and at any time permitting many more new services to be offered and consequently increase new revenue opportunities for the TSP. All this has made NGN an important imperative for adoption for most service providers.

Complimentarity is critical to Communication

Through NGN, different broadband access services under land-line and mobile become complementary to each other rather than acting as substitute to each other. Such an integrated approach permits service providers to leverage on both their land-line subscribers as well as mobile subscribers by bringing on board the strength of both land-line and mobile networks through what is known as Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC).

FMC technologies provides the customer with an opportunity to link and synergize the capabilities of the Fixed and Mobile services, while the service provider finds therein the solutions to the problems of scarcity of spectrum as well as that of customer churn. For instance, when a mobile subscriber comes within the building premises, there is loss of wireless signal strength due to absorption by the concrete walls. The in-building signal losses cause a drop in voice quality and consequent call drop.  FMC allows the calls on the mobile network to be automatically transferred to the land-line using technologies such as the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) using the open free-for-all WiFi spectrum. The UMA utilizes dual band devices for the purpose – one band using the normal mobile spectrum allotted to the service provider, and the other using the free WiFi band.  Effectively, the voice is first carried over the WiFi thus solving the problem of poor in-door mobile coverage. Thereafter it is back hauled over wired broadband.

Another variant of FMC provides a ‘single number’ service to multiple devices, including the mobile, the home phone, a connected home hub, a Personal Computer or a laptop while retaining the speech quality at the same level as that which we have been used to over the conventional home phone.

Indoor coverage is also provided by technologies referred to as ‘Femto-cell’, ‘Pico-cell’ or ‘Nano-cell’ utilizing part of the licensed mobile spectrum to achieve the same objectives. 

The service provider can offer bundled wire line phone and broadband services and position FMC to churn in calls generated by customers using mobile connections of its competitors, thereby offering better coverage and “always connected” services to its subscribers, independent of device.

IMS to govern the future of Communications

At this time, Mobile network operators the world over are planning to leverage emerging IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) service platforms to deliver not only true “one phone, one number” telephony over both fixed and mobile infrastructure but also extend the plain phone service to multimedia service through what is known as ‘Voice-over-IP’. Multimedia service thus combines the voice, video and data into a single contextual session.

The one phone, one number concept enables a mobile handset to use 2G/3G mobile infrastructure and the associated 2G/3G spectrum when it is operated outdoors and ‘VoIP over WiFi’ or ‘Femto-cell’ when it is operated indoors at work or at home. Global standards for IMS and associated FMC have been developed by the 3GPP Standards body and ratified by 3GPP2, ITU, ETSI, TISPAN and others. It has become clear that the immediate benefactors of IMS shall be those operators who already have both fixed and mobile deployments in good measure.

A two pronged approach was followed by service providers whereby the first approach would bring about convergence at the device level.  The existing mobile network was optimized with IP architectures and adapted to directly support IP devices.  There was, of course, an obvious dependency on devices such as dual-mode handsets, integrated residential communication hubs, etc. that became increasingly prevalent in the market.  The second approach was a deeper and more meaningful transformation of the core network into IMS that would bring about true convergence based on transformation towards the all-IP core network.  The essential component in this approach was the preservation of existing mobile services. The service provider would then use an IMS platform to transparently combine regular mobile service on their 2G or 3G mobile networks with VoIP services over WiFi and/or fixed broadband access. Since the mobile portion of FMC used the existing mobile number and existing mobile switching systems, mobile operators with significant fixed deployment would obviously derive a distinct advantage.

Bringing Societies together

The business of connecting a nation with over a billion population is about connecting a diversity of entities having interest with each other, popularly known as social networking. It is not about merely connecting individuals on a one-to-one basis. We are connecting communities of citizens with a lot of expectation. We are connecting people with common interests – societies, organizations, markets, banks, economies, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals or simply friends, families and relatives. There is a pattern in each such connecting construct upon which an application can be weaved. It is these applications that dive deep into the emotions and behavioural pattern of individuals that create a need which was hitherto dormant. For example, the Facebook brought about very old, almost forgotten friends together. The future of communications would be intimately tied with scores of such applications working seamlessly not only across networks but also between different devices.

The convenience of the triple screen has been spoken about in technological circles quite at length – screens formed on television, the mobile handset and the personal computer. Tremendous convenience of the touch Pad, also called the I-Pad or simply the ‘Tablet’ would address the choice of ‘Quad’ screen. Seamless communication would mean that a set of common friends share their presence over these screens without any restrictions whatsoever. They could chat with each other on instant messaging, share pictures or documents around which a discussion could be centered. The chat mode could be transferred to voice or even video as need would suggest.

Cloud computing is seen as a major technology that could actually off-load much of the processing power from the PC. The price points of simple touch screen tablets could come down drastically and customers could be offered applications on “pay-as-you-use” model.

Vision for a Connected Society

The ultimate vision for a connected society would have to thus evolve out of the present day ‘cut-and-dry’ connectivity plane into the societal plane, delving very much into applications that meet emotional expectations, while enrichening and enhancing their interactive experiences. Convergence of a wide range of fragmented technologies known by the acronyms such as 2G, 3G, GPON and DSL has shown how these objectives could be technically met. The challenge really lies in bringing about such convergence through an economical model that renders several of the more common and relevant services affordable to the masses. 

From the customer’s perspective, what is needed is a broadband pipe working on Internet protocol. If however, public-Internet service is all that is provided over the broadband pipe, such a situation can impose severe limitations on the quality of service. This is because the traffic in the public-Internet space, what is often referred to as the cyber media, is handled by routers belonging to different entities the world over and as such becomes uncontrollable and is understandably termed as ‘unmanaged network’. Traffic bottlenecks in the unmanaged network often result in packet drops or packet delays, both of which cause severe impairment to the quality of service. The traffic in the public Internet space is also susceptible to cyber crimes. 

The Telecom Operator can however offer broadband through Gateways that are capable of providing the customer the choice of accessing the global Internet on one hand or any of the services provided over the managed IP network of the operator on the other, as shown in Figure 1 below. These gateways are called Broadband Network Gateways (BNG) in the case of Fixed Access networks and the combination of Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) in the case of Mobile networks. The broadband access channel is partitioned into two Private Virtual Circuits (PVCs) thus creating separate paths for the global Internet and for the Managed services.

The voice services provided over the managed IP network, also referred to as VoIP services, can match the PSTN voice services in terms of quality and other parameters and will therefore be superior to the ‘Internet-telephony’ services provided over the public Internet. Likewise, the managed IP network can be used to offer video services in comparison to similar services delivered over ISDN of PSTN. The Services provided over the Managed IP network can be operated under the Basic Service and the Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (CMTS) licenses whereas the Internet service can be operated under the Internet Service Provider license. Alternatively, the same set of services can also be provided under the Unified Access Service license (UASL). The security conditions relevant to the respective licenses will become applicable.

The operator as a matter of strategy can configure all its broadband customers to receive free incoming Voice and Video calls, thereby bringing its new ‘Voice & Video over IP’ (VVoIP) subscribers at par with any other subscriber in the network in terms of diversity of access. Such next generation techniques significantly enhance the propensity for growth of VVoIP services. The growth of telecom industry would no longer be measured by the conventional “tele-density” but by a new parametric called “tele-service density” that will ad-measure the aggregate number of application service users taking into account all the applications per 100 population.

Convergence of old and new networks

With so many new technologies, it is expected that the networks using these technologies inter-operate seamlessly not only with each other, but also with the older technologies which it bids to replace, thus protecting older investments. Thus the new NGN switches inter-operate with the older TDM switches through what are known as ‘Media Gateways’ (MGW). Similarly in the Transmission space, the new Carrier Ethernet networks inter-operate with the older SDH equipment through ‘Ethernet over SDH’ interfaces or through the use of ‘SDH emulation over Carrier Ethernet’. We would need to adopt a seamless migration methodology to migrate from the old CMTS networks to the new IMS networks. The emphasis will be from customers using disparate networks to customers using convergent networks which have platforms that enable the operator to view the customer as a single entity with a single face though using a variety of services.