|
Azaire Neeworks has been among the early vendors who jumped into the FMC bandwagon. Azaire Networks' customer base includes several operators in North America, Europe, and Asia, and includes T-Mobile, SingTel Optus, Rogers Wireless, Chunghwa Telecom, and Mobilkom Austria.
The company feels the demand for subscribers for a 1-number service and rich media will drive the adoption of FMC in  long run.
“Mostly it is the mobile operator that just needs to say “OK, let’s do it”. The standards and technologies are in place as is the desire for “all services everywhere” on the part of consumers and business people” says Jim Grams, Chief Technology Officer, Azaire Networks in an interaction with Idhries Ahmad of CIOL
Please give me a little overview of your FMC product Can you discuss some of your deployments and possibly make a comparison in terms of benefits what it has fetched to your clients?
Azaire Networks’ scalable, carrier-grade IP Converged Network Platform with eXtended Mobility (IP-CNP with XM) is in service worldwide and enables mobile operators to extend their footprint resulting in the delivery of continuous voice and data services on the best available access network at the lowest cost.
The 3GPP/PP2-compliant Azaire Networks IP Converged Network Platform (IP-CNP) represents convergence gateway on the AdvancedTCA® platform, and is the only commercially available solution to support all convergence options including Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), Femtocells, Integrated Wireless (I-WLAN), and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Voice Call Continuity.
Customers & Benefits
Azaire Networks' customer base includes several operators in North America, Europe, and Asia, and includes T-Mobile, SingTel Optus, Rogers Wireless, Chunghwa Telecom, and Mobilkom Austria. We are in trials with leading mobile operators around the world.
We have had our operator deployments with T-Mobile (Germany) for first European wireless service to include uninterrupted service across 3G, GPRS/EDGE & WiFi networks using Azaire’s IP-CNP. With Chunghwa (Taiwan) – 3G walled garden services (music, video) are being deployed over Azaire IP-CNP to give data users complete service parity between 3G & WLAN with seamless integration into Chunghwa’s 3G packet core network.
Also for Mobilkom (Austria), Azaire supplied IP-CNP products were used to build out its WiFi footprint in hostpsots within McDonalds restaurants. We also worked with Rogers (Canada) – Azaire provided the secure authentication and authorization for WiFi services across the nationwide hotspot network for Rogers, the leading voice and data operator in Canada, utilizing existing subscriber billing and credit card payment methods.
§ What are the major trends you are seeing in the FMC deployments
Mobile Operators are looking for ways to extend coverage and capacity for high bandwidth services over a lower cost structure for radio and backhaul and by utilizing WiFi and broadband, operators can increase in-building penetration at low cast and further increase fixed-mobile substitution where your single number is your mobile number (ie cut the landline cord).
Many in the industry claim that most calls are actually made indoors anyway, where WiFi is ubiquitous and provides a way to extend the mobile service offering and subscriber experience.
While UMA solved this problem for 2G, a 3G voice/data solution is required to support the richer data services such as video and IMS provided by Azaire IP-CNP with XM. With this solution, the mobile operator is also assured to take part in the access, service and advertising revenues generated by being in the path of the traffic.
What are the various market factors driving FMC deployments
Mostly it is the mobile operator that just needs to say “OK, let’s do it”. The standards and technologies are in place as is the desire for “all services everywhere” on the part of consumers and business people. As subscribers increasingly want a 1-number service and increasingly expect mobile rich media, the market demand drivers will be in place and operators will realize that FMC solutions such as Azaire IP-CNP is the way to cost-effectively it.
Do you see declining dual mode handset prices as a factor?
Yes and they will further decline as they increase in volume. ABI Research predicted 250m dual-mode handsets worldwide by 2011 and the actuals are tracking to that. When mobile operators embrace FMC more fully, you will see more subsidies and the handset prices will come down further which will feed uptake further.
What are the major factors that are hampering the growth of FMC
In 3 words, dual mode handsets. We will likely see operators announcing FMC initiatives this year and we will start to see increased handset subsidies which will drive adoption. All the other pieces are in place. Today, Azaire IP-CNP instantly enables their current service set for alternative access (WiFi, WiMAX) with the security and billing interfaces the operators expect.
What differentiates residential and enterprise FMC?
Residential drivers are focused around cost effectively providing better in-building coverage for voice. 3GPP-UMA was a good start for 2G but does not today support 3G handsets, whereas 3GPP-IWLAN is 3G and future-proof. Now with Azaire IP-CNP with eXtended Mobility for voice, mobile operators can deliver voice and high-bandwidth data services without directly incurring the CAPEX & OPEX costs of traditional radio access and backhaul.
Enterprise drivers are mostly about lowering roaming costs and providing wireless access to their corporate dialing plans. FMC can help lower costs and increase convenience on dual-mode handsets with wireless IP-PBX voice access within the campus rather than using minutes on their cell number. This advantage extends to secure corporate access and PBX style least-cost routing when they are traveling. And 1-number convenience will make their lives a lot easier by carrying 1 phone, 1 address book and checking 1 voicemail.
Ultimately who do you will be the winner with FMC – fixed or mobile operator?
For the subscriber needing mobility (isn’t that everybody ?), the mobile operators are clearly in the driver’s seat to deliver “all services everywhere”. They can cause residential users to cut the fixed-line cord if they can solve the in-building challenge. Fixed-line carriers need wireless partnerships (eg BT Fusion with Vodafone UK) to achieve a similar service offer … however this lowers fixed-line carrier’s overall profit margin for the service.
Do you see India as your potential market for your FMC product. Can you share any information with reference to FMC market in India
We are also watching the India market closely. Last year handset growth was nearly 100% in India and this will bring to light the various benefits of alternate access to the extent that broadband is present. The corporate market is very innovative and may be the key driver of dual-mode handsets for on-campus voice. These people will need better voice service while at home and we will be ready to help the mobile operators in India to provide it.
Deploying FMC architecture seems like a utopian dream considering the technological challenges between networks. What are the main challenges in deploying FMC architecture
Azaire sees 2 major technical challenges: (1) Locking the 802.11 interface to the operator’s service domain to prevent revenue leakage if they are subsidizing the handset, (2) Ensuring that the service experience is seamless and living up to the high expectation of mobile service quality.
Both of these problems have been addressed in 3GPP’s Integrating WLAN (I-WLAN) specification. The dual-mode handset is required to register with the mobile network on both radios and form a mandatory IPSec encrypted tunnel on the 802.11 interface. This tunnel terminates in the Azaire Metro-WSG which also authenticates the user to the HLR and then provides secure services transparently as if they were a regular 3G data user. This is also the Security Gateway role we perform for UMA and Femtocell subscribers. The operator can then route traffic selectively while ensuring Security and QoS.
Which cellular technology GSM or CDMA can be easily upgraded into an FMC service? What is the need of integrating CDMA and GSM in case of FMC?
Both GSM/UMTS and CDMA are good candidates for an FMC service. We have trials and commercial deployments with both types of operators. The need translates back to better in-building coverage at a lower cost.
If we divide the FMC markets on regional basis, where do you see it currently in Americas, Europe, Asia and the Africa? Do you have any estimates about these markets?
We see the Americas slightly behind Europe and Asia in high speed data services adoption although this gap is more likely to diminish than widen. FMC plays into this trend but forecasts have been lacking in the industry generally as operators have been focusing on new services first over their existing networks.
But there are these same in-building coverage issues and unquestionable signs that user behavior will tend toward high-bandwidth media consumption which will drive new operator services (Mobile media such as TV). Both of these pressures are relieved by FMC solutions.
The residential FMC market has been very well served in Europe by the likes of Orange and T-Mobile from the mobile side, with FT and BT offering solutions on the fixed side. It has been clear that success has come to those that understand user requirements, communicate the benefits and market the offering and retail aspects properly. Enterprise success has not been widespread but some wireless operators have been able to market hosted Centrex only to the SMB space with some success. RIM has captured the large enterprise data market, while not offering PBX synergies nor relief from cellular roaming on the voice side.
FMC aims to have a one single device. But what we see that is not going to happen very soon and the fixed line is going to remain there
True. However, it is the issues which FMC solves (in-building) that has kept users from cutting the fixed-line cord. Ideally, the single device must also have 1 number & 1 voicemail convenience for enterprise users. There are interesting solutions in this area and we are working with established vendors to provide this service over FMC.
|
