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A Primer on Location Technologies in LTE Networks

Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology offers diverse methods for obtaining and delivering user location that help Communication Service Providers (CSPs) monetize and optimize their networks. How can CSPs select the most effective method to support the unique requirements of location-based services (LBS) solutions?

Highlights

• Network-based location capabilities provide and support a wide variety of user services and promote competitive differentiation.
• LTE diverse location determination and delivery capabilities can be matched to unique service requirements.
• With its open architecture, LTE supports LBS across multivendor networks.

Globally, the wireless market is evolving to 4G LTE, which offers very high performance, a rich set of services and a robust ecosystem to support a wide variety of mobile broadband applications. Location information is essential to the success of a rapidly growing number of these applications. As a result, CSPs who can support LBS gain valuable opportunities to monetize their network resources. To date, only a small percentage of CSPs have pursued these opportunities over legacy networks, although Application and Content Providers (ACPs) have actively built Over-the-Top (OTT) LBS that use the network solely for transport, without sharing service revenues.

Now, the migration to LTE technology offers CSPs a variety of new ways to support LBS and strengthen their competitive differentiation with ACPs – even across multi-vendor networks. To deploy the most effective LBS solutions, CSPs first need to identify the unique requirements of each service and then choose the best methods to satisfy these needs. This article supports the selection process by providing a brief overview of typical service requirements, key advantages and disadvantages of solution elements, and a tabular comparison of all these characteristics. It also provides an illustrative use case that examines how LTE location methods could be applied to a dynamic pricing service.

Step 1: Identifying service requirements

Some LBS are targeted at individual users, while others are focused on aggregated user behavior that will be of value to enterprises and ACPs. In very general terms, the services can be grouped into the following categories.

• Regulatory-based applications, such as emergency call services
• Consumer applications, such as social networking, service finder and navigation services
• Business applications, such as fleet management or social networking tailored to business needs
• Third-party applications that enable merchants or ACPs to target specific end users for their advertising or services
• Network operator applications that help detect internal problems or optimize networks and business capabilities

Because LBS have widely diverse requirements, CSPs must carefully identify and prioritize a particular service’s needs before choosing methods of gathering and delivering location information. The following list summarizes some of the most important general requirements:

• Providing the required degree of location accuracy
• Rapidity of response to a location request
• Scalability to support a large number of user locations
• Support for real-time, periodic or event-triggered location updates
• Ease of implementation
• Battery consumption for mobile devices
• Impact on network resources
• Differentiation of the network provider service from ACP offerings

Step 2: Choosing a method of determining location

A network provider needs to select an appropriate method for determining the location of a user device, based on the service requirements that have been identified. (Table 1 compares the advantages and disadvantages of all the methods discussed in this section.)

Primary modes of operation — There are three primary network-enabled modes of operation for determining user location:

• In the device-based mode, the user device obtains location measurements with assistance from the network and calculates the user’s position.
• In the device-assisted mode, the user device provides positioning measurements, which the network uses to calculate the user’s location.
• In the network-based mode, the network calculates the user’s position without involving the device.

The following location technologies support one or more of the above modes.

Assisted Global Positioning System (AGPS) —The network assists GPS-enabled mobile devices to improve the performance of their GPS receivers by providing it with assistance information such as reference time, visible satellite list, reference position, and satellite ephemeris. In general, AGPS provides the highest accuracy of any network-enabled technique. However, it is not reliable indoors or in dense urban or high-rise building environments, in which case AGPS can be supplemented with other techniques such as Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA) or Enhanced Cell ID (ECID) described below.

Cell ID (CID) — A user device is localized to its serving eNode B (eNB), typically to the specific cell/sector within the eNB. Although this method is the least accurate, it is easiest to implement, highly scalable, and has high availability.

ECID — Position is localized to a finer level compared to CID, using additional radio-related measurements. This method has low accuracies (50 -1000m) depending on the size of the cell, but is easier to implement than most other methods and is generally available across diverse vendor products and networks.

OTDOA — This method uses the measured timing of downlink signals received from multiple eNBs to locate the user device in relation to neighboring eNBs. In dense urban and indoor environments, OTDOA can be used to supplement AGPS, provided the user device can detect position reference signals (PRS) from three or more eNBs.

Uplink time difference-of-arrival (UTDOA) — Defined as part of 3GPP Release 11, UTDOA will be available later than the other techniques. As a key benefit, it offers minimal impact on air interface resources.

                       

Table 1: A comparison of location-determination technologies (click to open in new window)

Step 3: Choosing a delivery method for location data

The LTE system provides several methods for delivering location information when it is determined. Each has certain capabilities, strengths and constraints. Thus they should be chosen to match the unique requirements of a specific service. (Table 2 compares the advantages and disadvantages of all the methods discussed in this section.)

User plane method — Very little interaction with underlying wireless access technologies is required, so this method can be used ubiquitously across LTE and legacy networks. It also scales well, making it well suited to support commercial LBS, with less complexity, cost and impact on the network than the control plane solution. Based on OMA SUPL standards, this solution relies on user plane data bearers to transfer location-assistance and positioning-related messages between the SUPL-enabled terminal (SET) and the SUPL Location Platform (SLP). A SUPL client is required on the user device.

The solution’s lack of direct connection to the access network is a disadvantage for supporting positioning methods, like ECID and OTDOA, which require assistance data from the network. In addition, because this solution can only enable single-user location requests, it is not suitable for applications that need periodic reporting on all user locations within a cell or zone. Depending on the location technology used, the User Plane solution can support high accuracies to meet the needs of the majority of LBS applications targeted at the individual user, such as turn by turn navigation, geofencing, and fleet management.

Control plane method — Defined in the 3GPP R9 standards, this solution transfers positioning data over the control plane, between the user device, the eNB and the positioning elements (Evolved Serving Mobile Location Center (e-SMLC)/Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC)). This provides easy access to assistance data from the network and enables more reliable service performance than the user plane solution. And because it does not require a client on the user device, it can be used to support emergency services on LTE networks for limited service devices. On the other hand, this solution has less scalability than the user plane, only supports single-user location requests and is more difficult to interwork with legacy networks.

Per-call measurement data (PCMD) method — This proprietary near real-time Alcatel-Lucent diagnostics tool offers CSPs all active users’ location data along with other call/connection information that can be used for generating wireless heat maps, network planning and optimization, Minimizing Drive Tests (MDT) and more efficient mobile advertising. For example, heat maps correlating location to usage can be used to determine traffic hot spots or coverage holes that can be addressed with RF design and/or network planning.

Network-provided (ULI) method — This standards-based solution supports application enablement, providing a way for third-party applications to get location information. However, it will not deliver the level of granularity offered by user plane or control plane solutions. It reports location changes to a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) or Online Charging System (OCS) through location-event triggers. Then the data can be exposed to external applications using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — or to IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based applications using a PCRF Rx interface.

Home Subscriber Server (HSS) method — This method is particularly useful for IMS core and application entities that already have an existing Sh interface to the HSS that needs network-based user location data for location-based charging, LI, emergency or other services.

Table 2: A comparison of location delivery methods (click to open in new window)

Illustrative Use Case

The location determination and delivery methods described above provide general guidelines on their capabilities and how well they might match different applications depending on the intended use and characteristics of the application.
A specific use case for a Dynamic Pricing service is described in this section to illustrate how the guidelines above can be used for selecting the right location methods.

Dynamic Pricing:
Dynamic pricing service is a good example of an application enablement solution, which permits CSPs/third parties to have secure access to network-based location information to deploy a new LBS. In this case, it uses real-time network-load information to offer pricing discounts or other special offers to selected end users.

To target the right users, the service needs periodic updates on per-cell utilization levels, along with data that identifies users within the cell. Therefore, the key location requirement for this use case is to obtain the cell level location of all service subscribers, along with cell congestion information.

When considering which LTE data delivery methods would be suitable for this use case, it’s clear that the user plane, control plane and HSS methods are not appropriate because they are single-user solutions and also can have device dependencies depending on the location technology used.

The network-provided ULI method is the best alternative, as it is a standards-based device independent option that can provide location information for all or targeted active users in a cell.

A growing opportunity

As the vast number of applications and use cases that rely on location capabilities continues to expand, LTE offers CSPs new ways to benefit from this market opportunity. The LTE network’s diverse methods can be matched to the specific requirements of each service by leveraging the capabilities of the specific network elements (such as eNB, Mobility Management Entity, SUPL Location Platform/e-SMLC/GMLC, and PCRF) required to support the service envisioned. This open and flexible architecture allows network resources to be monetized by supporting a wide array of location based services.

By: Suma Cherian, Wireless Systems Engineer, Alcatel-Lucent; Ashok Rudrapatna, Manager, Wireless Systems Engineer, Alcatel-Lucent

Source: http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/blogs/techzine/2012/a-primer-on-location-technologies-in-lte-networks/?s_cid=smm_tmc0037_tz

Price conscious mobile customers drive biz model innovation

Mobile operators in emerging markets of Asia are challenged by low ARPU (average revenue per user) due to their large prepaid base. To increase their revenue, these players are pushed to become more innovative when it comes to pricing, say analysts.

In Asia-Pacific, major low ARPU (average revenue per user) include China, the Philippines, India and Indonesia where there is a large prepaid base and cheap tariffs, said Nicole McCormick, senior analyst of telco strategy at Ovum.

Shiv Putcha, principal analyst for emerging markets at Ovum shared that the ARPU for India in 2012 is US$1.6 while the ARPU is US$48.5 for the United States.

Jessica Kwee, research analyst at Canalys, added that the mobile market in India and Indonesia is “very saturated” with many competing operators.”India, for example, has at least a dozen operators while Indonesia has around nine to 10 operators,” she said.

Kwee added that the majority of the populations in these markets have relatively low income so the operators need to compete competed stiffly on price by undercutting each other on calling rates, SMS and even on BlackBerry Internet Service rates.

Nipun Jaiswal, industry analyst for Asia-Pacific ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan said prepaid subscription contribute to over 90 percent of the total user base. While voice and SMS are the main revenue drivers but the tariffs are low due to contribution, he said.

Jaiswal added that these markets are now in a transition phase where consumer behavior is changing and apps such as Skype and Whatsapp are increasingly replacing voice and SMS. “These seemingly cheaper methods of communication look more appealing to the large price conscious prepaid customer base,” he added.

Innovative models
McCormick noted that mobile operators are looking at innovative ways to charge their users to increase their ARPU. “In fact, a lot of pricing innovation is being driven by operators from emerging markets in Asia,” she said.

For example, operators in Indonesia have launched services with different Quality of Service standards and offer speed booster options for customers, said the senior analyst.

“Philippine operators are experts on bundling social messaging for prepaid users. For instance, Globe offers Facebook access [for a daily rate],” she added.

Kwee added operators are also trying to segment mobile rates based on time by offering cheaper calls or data rates during off peak hours. This strategy helps to reduce congestion during peak hours and at the same time try to boost usage during non-peak hours, she said.

Operators in these market have also come up with a prepaid system for Internet access, which Kwee noted was driven by the popularity of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry in Indonesia. The operators provide the option for the consumers to subscribe for the services either daily, weekly or monthly, depending on forecasted usage, usually advertised as unlimited access, she said.

The operators have also extended the prepaid system to provide “sachet” services. “For example, the consumers can just subscribe to BlackBerry Messenger for a cheaper rate. While other packages allow access to BlackBerry Messenger as well as Facebook and other social networking sites, she added.

Jaiswal shared that Indian operator Aircel has a service which allows subscribers to update their Facebook status through voice calls. Users can dial a short code and record the message which will be posted as a status update, he said.

Preference for micro payments
The Canalys analyst added that operators in these price conscious markets are leveraging the consumers’ tendencies to prefer micro payments as opposed to large, one-off payments.

Thus she believes more can be done to expand micro payment services for these operators. “Currently most micro payments are focused on IM (instant-messaging) and social network but there is a possibility to extend this business model to other services, like music and video streaming” by charging a premium for temporary speed boost, she added,

Kwee noted that there is potential for providing a centralized providing centralized data storage, especially for contact information storage and backup, as many users in emerging markets switching SIM frequentlywhich makes it difficult to manage their contact list.

McCormick believes that the ultimate way for operators to increase their ARPU is by increasing tariffs. “For example, there have been tariff increases made by the Big Three operators in Indonesia–Telkomsel, Indosat and XL–since the second quarter of 2011 in the wake of an 18-month damaging tariff price war,” she said..

For Jaiswal, partnerships with low-end smartphone makers is a good choice for operators. “One such example is China Unicom’s partnership with Xiaomi and Huawei. This would enable operators to subsidize handsets and offer them along with smart bundled packages of voice, text and mobile internet,” he said.

By Liau Yun Qing | July 18, 2012 — Updated 04:03 GMT (21:03 PDT)

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/price-conscious-mobile-customers-drive-biz-model-innovation-7000001095/

Long run Evolution in Mobile top speed and Carrier innovation

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Endeavour Useage Technologies, Bangalore
Since 2002, Practice – The Mobility Creator, has remained focused directly down strategic mobile consulting & mobile database development. Endeavour’s strategic consulting program especially on iphone shows brings best mobility practices there are helped large organizations that fortune 500 companies typically articulating their enterprise range of motion strategies and implementation tracks. Endeavour’s expertise spans all through all mobile operating platforms just as big 4? Android database development, iPhone Application development, BlackBerry database development, and Windows Phone specialized.

Posted on July 18, 2012

 Source: http://www.bootsshoesblog.com/long-run-evolution-in-mobile-top-speed-and-carrier-innovation/

Samsung Makes Strategic Investment In Mobile Broadband Developer Stoke To Support Accelerated LTE Push

 Relationship Is Prompted by Increased Operator Traction For Differentiated LTE Value Offerings

Samsung Venture Investment Corporation has made a strategic investment of US$5 million in Mobile Broadband innovator Stoke, Inc. supporting their accelerated penetration of the worldwide LTE market. 

“Samsung has deployed and commercialized very large LTE networks and this proven experience in LTE deployments demonstrates the company’s ability to support customers worldwide in this new era of communications,” said Brian Kang, Senior Director of Samsung Venture. “We are excited by the market potential of Stoke’s gateways to enhance and support the performance and value of differentiated solutions in the LTE space.”

Used in LTE networks to secure voice, data and video traffic Stoke’s SSX Multi-Service Gateway delivers unmatched IPsec processing capability together with eNodeB link resilience and high availability required for high-capacity, high volume mobile services networks. Stoke’s secure eNodeB aggregation application, Security eXchange, is the current market leader in numbers deployed in live operator networks. Focused on delivering multiple critical, concurrent functions emerging between the LTE RAN and evolved packet core, Stoke SSX helps operators keep network device count down, while securing core network services and subscriber communications.

“We are pleased to deepen our relationship with Samsung through this investment and look forward to working with them to expand our penetration of the LTE market,” said Vikash Varma, President and CEO at Stoke. 

About Samsung Venture
Samsung Venture America is a venture capital firm specializing in investments in startups. The firm primarily invests in the information technology sector with a focus on consumer electronics, digital media, display technology, semiconductor, and telecommunications. It invests in companies based in North America, Europe, and Asia. The firm typically invests between $2 million and $5 million per investment round, at various stages of the startup company’s life cycle. Samsung Venture America is the San Jose, California office of Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.

About Stoke
Stoke delivers transformative gateway solutions for navigating mobile broadband’s new frontiers addressing today’s challenges using creative approaches that enable mobile operators to manage traffic growth and increase the efficiency, reliability, and scope of mobile data services. Stoke is backed by prominent venture capital firms and carriers including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Focus Ventures, and NTT Docomo. For more information, visit www.stoke.com.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 18, 2012 /PRNewswire

SOURCE Stoke, Inc.

China Mobile and Clearwire Advance Plans for Global Roaming on TD-LTE

• Memorandum of Understanding Lays Foundation for TD-LTE Roaming Between China and U.S.
• Companies Continue to Build on Strong TD-LTE Working Relationship

HONG KONG and BELLEVUE, Wash., July 18, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — China Mobile International Limited, a subsidiary of China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile telecommunications company in terms of subscribers, and Clearwire (Nasdaq:CLWR), a leading provider of wireless broadband services, today announced that the two companies have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) that lays the foundation for international roaming between China and the United States using TD-LTE.

Under the MOU, China Mobile International Limited and Clearwire plan to collaborate on business and technical aspects of their respective operations to define and institute the process necessary to support international roaming and to ensure the operators’ systems and devices are able to support roaming. The companies also expect this agreement to serve as a blueprint for future roaming agreements with other members of the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) of which China Mobile and Clearwire are founding members.

“We recently demonstrated the roaming capability between Hong Kong FDD LTE and Hang Zhou TD-LTE. With the commercial launches of TD-LTE networks in major markets, these networks shall enable international roaming to create a ubiquitous user experience and a unified market,” said Dr. Tiger Lin, Chairman of China Mobile International. “Our goal is to make a converged LTE TDD/FDD market in which our subscribers roam between a TD-LTE network and a LTE FDD network at affordable cost and enjoy the benefit of LTE service globally.”

“Today’s new agreement with China Mobile will add substantial momentum to our own LTE network deployment and to the development of the TD-LTE ecosystem around the world,” said Dr. John Saw, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Clearwire. “The global nature of the TD-LTE ecosystem and interoperability will be an important achievement for both companies. We are pleased that our position as a leading 4G operator has allowed us to develop a strong working relationship with a key global counterpart like China Mobile.”

China Mobile and Clearwire are developing TD-LTE networks in their respective domestic markets. Through mutual collaboration, the companies will provide their customers with 4G roaming capability and help 4G services to follow the same global pattern towards international accessibility as other wireless technology. The companies expect the spectrum in the 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz range which will be used in their TD-LTE network deployment will make up one of the most widely deployed 4G configurations in the world.

About China Mobile International Limited

China Mobile International Limited (CMI) is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Mobile Limited (HKEX:0941).

As the world’s largest telecommunications operator in terms of network scale, customer base and market value, China Mobile strives to continuously expand its global network and international business. In order to provide better services to meet the growing demand in China’s international telecommunications market, China Mobile established a subsidiary, CMI in December 2010, the Company responsible for the operation of China Mobile’s international business. Leveraging on the strong support by China Mobile, CMI provides a full range of comprehensive international telecommunications services that cover IDD, roaming, internet, MNC services and VAS, across the globe. CMI commits to provide customer with the experience of “feel at home”, wherever and whenever they are.

CMI headquartered in Hong Kong, the world’s major telecommunications hub. The Company has representative office in Beijing, China and subsidiaries in U.S.A and U.K. Additional information is available at http://www.chinamobile.com.

About Clearwire

Clearwire Corporation (Nasdaq:CLWR), through its operating subsidiaries, is a leading provider of 4G wireless broadband services offering services in areas of the U.S. where more than 130 million people live. The company holds the deepest portfolio of wireless spectrum available for data services in the U.S. Clearwire serves retail customers through its own CLEAR^® brand as well as through wholesale relationships with some of the leading companies in the retail, technology and telecommunications industries. The company is constructing a next-generation 4G LTE Advanced-ready network to address the capacity needs of the market, and is also working closely with the Global TD-LTE Initiative and China Mobile to further the TD-LTE ecosystem. Clearwire is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. Additional information is available at http://www.clearwire.com.

The Clearwire Corporation logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=8493

Forward-Looking Statements

This release, and other written and oral statements made by Clearwire from time to time, contain forward-looking statements which are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs, as well as on a number of assumptions concerning future events made with information that is currently available. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, management’s expectations regarding future financial and operating performance and financial condition; proposed transactions; network development and market launch plans; strategic plans and objectives; industry conditions; the strength of the balance sheet; and liquidity and financing needs. The words “will,” “would,” “may,” “should,” “estimate,” “project,” “forecast,” “intend,” “expect,” “believe,” “target,” “designed,” “plan” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Clearwire’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from such statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ are:

• We have a history of operating losses and we expect to continue to realize significant net losses for the foreseeable future.
• If our business fails to perform as we expect or if we incur unforeseen expenses in the near term, we will require additional capital to fund our current business. Also, we will need substantial additional capital over the long-term. Such additional capital may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. If we fail to obtain additional capital, our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations will likely be materially and adversely affected, and we will be forced to consider all available alternatives.
• Our current plans and projections are based on a number of assumptions about our future performance, which may prove to be inaccurate, such as our ability to substantially expand our wholesale business and implement various cost savings initiatives.
• Our business has become increasingly dependent on our wholesale partners, and Sprint in particular. If we do not receive the amount of revenues we expect from existing wholesale partners or if we are unable to enter into new agreements with additional wholesale partners for new wholesale commitments, our business prospects, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected, or we could be forced to consider all available alternatives.
• We regularly evaluate our plans, and we may elect to pursue new or alternative strategies which we believe would be beneficial to our business, including among other things, expanding our network coverage to new markets, augmenting our network coverage in existing markets, changing our sales and marketing strategy and/or acquiring additional spectrum. Such modifications to our plans could significantly change our capital requirements.
• We plan to deploy LTE on our wireless broadband network, alongside mobile WiMAX and we will incur significant costs to deploy such technology. Additionally, LTE technology, or other alternative technologies that we may consider, may not perform as we expect on our network and deploying such technologies would result in additional risks to the company, including uncertainty regarding our ability to successfully add a new technology to our current network and to operate dual technology networks without disruptions to customer service, as well as our ability to generate new wholesale customers for the new network.
• We currently depend on our commercial partners to develop and deliver the equipment for our legacy and mobile WiMAX networks, and will be dependent on commercial partners to deliver equipment and devices for our planned LTE network as well.
• Many of our competitors for our retail business are better established and have significantly greater resources, and may subsidize their competitive offerings with other products and services.
• Our substantial indebtedness and restrictive debt covenants could limit our financing options and liquidity position and may limit our ability to grow our business.
• Sprint owns just less than a majority of our common shares, is our largest shareholder, and may have, or may develop in the future, interests that may diverge from other stockholders.
• Future sales of large blocks of our common stock may adversely impact our stock price.

For a more detailed description of the factors that could cause such a difference, please refer to Clearwire’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the information under the heading “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on February 16, 2012 and subsequent Form 10-Q filings. Clearwire assumes no obligation to update or supplement such forward-looking statements.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 7:01 AM

Source: http://www.istockanalyst.com/business/news/5948166/china-mobile-and-clearwire-advance-plans-for-global-roaming-on-td-lte

Can Public-Safety Radio’s P25 Survive LTE?

Project 25 (P25 or APCO-25) is a suite of North American digital radio communication standards for digital public safety radio communications. It was launched in 1988 as a step beyond the old-fashioned two-way voice contact between first responders and their dispatchers, with the dispatchers serving as the link to other agencies when necessary, generally over a telephone line.

It began when Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to collect recommendations from users and manufacturers. Based on the recommendations of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International (APCO), Project 25 then came into existence. In scope, this was unprecedented, but it wasn’t just happening in North America. Europe’s Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) protocol standards are a parallel effort, with much in common, but the two are not compatible.

The Incident Command System

P25 is about radios and interoperability, but hardware is only one aspect of the problem that public-safety professionals were addressing. Interoperability is one part of a possible solution, but it has to fit into broader picture. At nearly the same time that P25 was emerging, there were major efforts to rationalize and standardize the process by which individual public-safety organizations handled incidents and the ways that multiple agencies worked together when a tempest of smaller “incidents” escalated into a calamity.

The part of the larger effort that made more comprehensively interoperable radios necessary is the Incident Command System (ICS), which defines how those radios will be used (Fig. 1).¹ ICS is a scalable structure for managing incidents ranging from a traffic crash to a major disaster. It provides a common framework for temporarily managing groups of people from agencies that do not routinely work together.

1. The Incident Command System embraces structure and planning. Even incidents involving police, fire, and emergency personnel only require fairly simple command structures.

Consider the recent Colorado wildfires, which involved multiple federal, state, county, and local police organizations, as well as local, state, and National Forest Service/Bureau of Land Management firefighters on the ground and airborne. Plus, private agencies such as the Red Cross were faced with finding food and shelter for the recently displaced. Trained volunteer amateur radio operators from amateur radio emergency services organizations offered support too. All of those people need a management structure within which to work (Fig. 2).

2. Not all ICS “incidents” are disasters. They may just be events that call for multiple layers of coordination. For example, the Thales Liberty Multiband Land Mobile Radio was used at the 2009 Kentucky Derby. (courtesy of DHS S&T Command, Control and Interoperability Division)

Although ICS is a management philosophy, it’s both a driver for the development of interoperable communications hardware and the tool for managing the problems that require interoperability. Imagine, for example, the difficulties involved in coordinating cops and firefighters, ground crews with chainsaws and bulldozers, borate bombers and helicopters, Red Cross workers, and caterers. (You have to feed these crews.) Plus, you have to keep meddlesome mayors and county supervisors in the loop and feed useful information to the media in a bad situation that threatens to get worse every minute.

ICS emphasizes planning and practice ahead of time and allows for information-sharing, learning, and rapid adaptation. But in application, it needs to evolve continuously. It’s impossible to standardize any aspect of incident control and declare rigidly that’s how things will be done for every future incident.²

P25 Concepts

Understanding ICS puts P25 into a context. After that, it’s all about standards. On a technical level, there is one fundamental rule for P25. Compliant radios may communicate in analog mode with legacy radios and in either digital or analog mode with other P25 radios. Beyond that, P25 standards allow considerable flexibility.

Some organizations use a single frequency. Others have multiple frequencies and use trunking to assign channels. With trunking, free channels are assigned by predefined trunked radio systems (TRS) protocols.

In operation, a control channel transmits data from the site controller that runs the TRS. All of the field radios in the system then continuously monitor the control channel. P25 systems in the 700-, 800-, and 900-MHz bands are generally trunked. Below 512 MHz, trunking is allowed if it doesn’t interfere with exiting radio systems in surrounding areas.

In a major incident, trunking systems assign priorities and share channels among agencies. New talk groups automatically preempt other routine communications, and lower-priority messages experience a busy signal.

Trunked radio systems aren’t optimal for all situations. For example, in a terrorist attack that also involves ambulances and firefighters, tactical law enforcement units are better served by going off-network and using direct radio-to-radio communications and portable or vehicular repeaters. P25 accommodates this flexibility.

Variations in frequency assignments among agencies, along with the characteristics of different bands, introduce their own complications. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the Forest Service and local governments use available VHF frequencies between 136 and 174 MHz. Other federal agencies employ UHF frequencies between 380 and 400 MHz and between 402 and 420 MHz. (Radiosondes, satellite, and space exploration frequencies fill that 2-MHz gap between 400 and 402 MHz.) Local government agencies are allotted UHF frequencies from 450 to 512 MHz as well as the 700- and 800-MHz bands.

Frequency also impacts in-building coverage. VHF high-band signals don’t propagate as well from inside buildings as UHF 700- and 800-MHz signals. Within those licensed bands, there are layers and layers of equipment, starting with the firefighters’ personal radios. This brings up an interesting illustration of the complexity involved in making decisions about direct communications versus trunking.

A firefighter inside a building might need an immediate burst of water from a truck just outside to deal with a sudden flare-up. That firefighter would have a personal radio. There also would be a radio on the truck. Is it better to communicate the need point-to-point over a path of a hundred feet or to go through a trunked repeater atop a building several miles away? What if elements of the trunking infrastructure fail or are sabotaged? One solution is to make the elements of the infrastructure themselves mobile. People try to answer these kinds of questions after simulations or actual catastrophes.

Standards

P25 standards describe eight open interfaces (Fig. 3). The Common Air Interface (CAI) Requires P25-compliant radios to be able to communicate with any other CAI radio, regardless of manufacturer. CAI also provides for interoperability with legacy equipment. Further, it deals with interfacing between repeaters and other subsystems, roaming capacity, spectral efficiency, and the manner in which channels are reassigned and reused.

3. P25 is an ambitious effort to provide transparent interoperability across not just radio, but all communications modes used by public-safety agencies.

The Inter RF Subsystem Interface (ISSI) standard focuses on how RF subsystems work with each other and the ways they can be connected into wide-area networks (WANs). The Fixed Station Interface (FSI) defines what makes up voice and data packets and command and control messages, as well as voice and data encryption and connections between radios and telephone networks.

The Console Subsystem Interface (CSSI) standard describes messaging for interfacing a console subsystem to a P25 RF subsystem. A console is the hardware used by a dispatcher or a supervisor who deals with personnel operating where the incident is taking place. There is also a trunked console interface in ISSI. The Network Management Interface (NMI) provides specs for all networked elements of the RF subsystem.

The Subscriber Data Peripheral Interface (SDPI) describes a port through which mobiles and portables can connect to laptops or data networks. The Data Network Interface (DNI) takes that down a level to the RF subsystem connections to computers, data networks, and external data sources. Finally, the Telephone Interconnect Interface describes how P25 works with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

Implementation

P25-compliant technology was deployed in phases to get something into people’s hands and to provide for feedback from the field.

Phase 1 radio systems operate in 12.5-kHz analog, digital, or mixed mode using frequency-division multiple-access. Data rates are limited, and bandwidths are wide. Phase 1 uses the IMBE voice codec, the original implementation of the Digital Voice Systems Inc. (DVSI) proprietary Multi-Band Excitation (MBE) technology. (IMBE is “Improved MBE.”)

Phase 2 uses DVSI’s AMBE+2 voice codec to reduce the needed bit rate so one voice channel only requires 6000 bits/s (including error correction and signaling). It also advances console interfacing between repeaters and other subsystems.

In lieu of the more familiar analog Tone-Coded Squelch System (CTCSS), P25 employs Digital-Coded Squelch (DCS) codes for access control in the form of a 12-bit network access code (NAC).

Enter LTE

The trouble with standards is that they get outflanked by technology, and that’s what’s happening to 700-MHz P25. Its capacity and bandwidth are being obsoleted by the latest and anticipated next generations of cellular technology. In particular, better analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital signal processors (DSPs) have made software-defined radio a reality, although a reality that must be approached carefully (see “Professional Mobile Radio Goes Digital With DSPs”).

Cellular technology provides economies of scale. Companies that make P25 communications gear, including Motorola and Thales, also make cellular telephony products. They’re working with P25 public-safety organizations to adapt P25 to the newer technology, and the newer technology to P25, and the government is helping them.

The newer technology is Long-Term Evolution (LTE). The name itself is a positive sign that suggests it will adapt, rather than allow itself to be rapidly obsoleted. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) defined third-generation (3G) phones, and the International Telecommunications Union-Telecommunications (ITU-T) later standardized them.3

The 3G system is based on wideband CDMA with a 5-MHz bandwidth. It can download data at 384 kbits/s under normal conditions and up to 2 Mbits/s in some instances. High-speed packet access (HSPA) uses higher-level quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) to get speeds up to 21 or 42 Mbits/s downlink (cell site to phone) and up to 7 and/or 14 Mbits/s uplink (phone to cell site). Then, cdma2000 phones added 1xRTT and Rev A and Rev B modifications that boost speed as well.

While people tend to hype LTE as “4G,” it’s really an advanced 3G standard. It uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which divides each channel into smaller 15-kHz subchannels or subcarriers, each of which is modulated with part of the data. In other words, the incoming fast data is divided into slower streams that modulate the subcarriers with either quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) or 16-phase QAM (16QAM).

LTE also uses multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna agility. The data stream is divided between the antennas to boost speed and to make the link more reliable. Combining OFDM and MIMO lets LTE deliver data as fast as 100 Mbits/s downstream and 50 Mbits/s upstream.

Keep in mind that that’s just data. Neither 3G/LTE nor 4G when it truly arrives will use these techniques for voice communications, which still relies upon 2G GSM or cdma2000. This is helpful in maintaining interoperability between LTE devices and P25.

Recent LTE/P25 Announcements

About a year ago, Harris Corp. released its BeOn. According to the company, it’s the first solution that lets subscribers on a cellular or public-safety LTE network talk to each other, exchange text messages, and pass real-time location information to connected team members and the dispatcher’s computer-assisted dispatch system. Harris also says that BeOn provides the integrated P25 feature set, including voice, text messaging, and location services. BeOn had previously been offered without P25 capabilities.

Voice communication services are delivered to first responders as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) data packets using wireless broadband IP data services, via the Harris VIDA IP-based network. The VIDA network platform is a unified voice and data communication system based on P25 standards.

According to Motorola, LTE is enabled by its use of an OFDM air interface, advanced antenna techniques including MIMO and beam forming, flat all-IP architectures, and a common IP core.⁴ LTE technology, Motorola says, is available in two technologies: paired frequency-division duplex (FDD) and unpaired time-division duplex (TDD).

FDD is standard for the cellular industry, and public-safety narrowband technologies are available. TDD-based systems, commonly called TD-LTE, share the same spectrum for both the downlink and uplink. Also, these systems can be configured to allocate channel capacity for each.

The United States has allocated 10 MHz of paired spectrum in the 700-MHz band for public safety, allowing a 5-MHz channel in each direction. The U.S. government authorized a new 700-MHz LTE network for broadband services for the public-safety community in the tax relief bill that President Obama signed on February 12, says Andy Seybold, a wireless industry analyst.⁵ The authorization reallocates the cellular 700-MHz D Block to public safety and funds the network with proceeds from future auctions. Initial funding for the network will be $7 billion.

“This legislation also encourages public/private partnerships to help reduce the network costs,” Seybold says. “Some of these partnerships will be with commercial network operators and will include sharing of cell sites, high-speed backhaul, and, in some cases, the day-to-day operation and maintenance of all or a portion of the network.”

Seybold notes that device vendors will also gain from this new network. “New devices will be needed to serve the public safety network only (Band 14) or to also provide services on the AT&T and Verizon Wireless 3G and 4G networks when a public safety unit is out of its network’s coverage, which will certainly be the case during network construction over the next three to five years,” he says.

Harris Corp. recently concluded a demonstration, begun in March, of a dedicated LTE for public-safety network with the cops on the street in cities around the U.S. and the network core at the company’s headquarters in Chelmsford, Mass.

In Massachusetts, Harris provided a dispatcher and an LTE packet core from Nokia Siemens Networks. The public-safety officers were at LTE pilot locations in Miami, Las Vegas, and Monroe County, N.Y. The demonstration showcased the system’s ability to allow distant access to the core’s high capacity.

During the demonstration, the dispatcher could view the location of the police vehicle, know whether it was available for communications (communication may not be appropriate during certain surveillance situations), and engage in a push-to-talk call through the Harris BeOn application, which provides a P25 feature set over a broadband connection.

Date Posted: July 17, 2012 11:50 AM

Author: Don Tuite

Source: http://electronicdesign.com/article/analog-and-mixed-signal/publicsafety-radios-p25-survive-lte-74193

Smart Grid Evolution Continues at the Cellular Level

San Francisco-based Grid Net, which pioneered the cellular smart grid model in 2008 with a private 4G cellular deployment, is in the vanguard of public 3G cellular smart grid adoption.

The company has extended its software platform and added a wide range of new features to support 3G public cellular smart grid deployments. In fact, Grid Net claims that version 2.7 of its smart grid network operating system supports more point-to-point public and private broadband networks— including 4G WiMAX (News – Alert), 4G LTE, Ethernet over Fiber Optic, and 3G UMTS and EVDO CDMA cellular— than any other smart grid platform on the market today.

 

 

Looking back on the evolution of Grid Net, the company’s chairman and CEO, John W. Combs recalls, “Grid Net [forged] the cellular smart grid model in 2008 with our first private 4G WiMAX deployment at SP AusNet [an electricityand gas utility that services more than one million customers in southeast Australia]. Over time, as component prices and bandwidth costs decreased, both telecom carriers and utilities signaled a willingness to move forward with 3G cellular public networks. It is a significant challenge to create a secure and cost effective smart grid over public networks, but we have done it with v2.7, our most advanced cellular smart grid innovation to date.”

The advancement of traditional cellular voice and data networks to machine-to-machine (M2M) networks has created an escalation in device density— from hundreds per cell to tens of thousands per cell. Today’s jam-packed networks require sophisticated optimization and security techniques to protect and most effectively use critical resources. The Grid Net Platform v2.7 features:

• Application framework for M2M network optimization: The Grid Net Platform v2.7 provides powerful and configurable tools to optimize massively scalable cellular network access and admission control, control signaling, content distribution, communications network status and service restoration, and power distribution service restoration;
• Content distribution optimization and control: The new version significantly reduces bandwidth usage by providing secure, digitally-signed differential firmware upgrades.
• Off-peak network utilization: The platform enables operators to distribute content, such as firmware upgrades (differential or monolithic), during off-peak times.
• Differential state synchronization: With its centrally managed, highly distributed architecture, the system enables operators to monitor all managed devices continually.
• Configurable connectivity: The Grid Net Platform v2.7 provides Grid Net-enabled devices with configurable network connectivity models to prevent unnecessary network resource consumption. Emergency connections are permitted without delay, but all non-essential traffic may be scheduled according to resource availability and priority.

“The Grid Net Platform v2.7 provides telecom carriers with the most effective means to monetize their cellular network investments by increasing device density and optimizing resource utilization,” adds Combs. “It also provides utilities with the highest performance network and most competitive access costs by minimizing network traffic and pushing non-critical operations to off-peak times. Grid Net’s cellular smart grid model will unleash a world of innovation— advanced grid applications, networked grid assets, managed service offerings, strategic deployment models, and more— that mesh simply cannot match.”

None of this is possible without the most comprehensive approach to smart grid security.

“Grid Net’s best-in-class smart grid security solution is built upon years of experience in cyber security standards development for both the cellular and utility industries, leveraging well-vetted, open standard security protocols proven to secure global economies and mission-critical systems,” comments Will Bell, vice president of Software Engineering at Grid Net. “In order to secure assets as critical as power grids and public cellular networks, the Grid Net Platform v2.7 offers a complete suite of device and identity management services that range from supply chain manufacturing through field installation and operations.”

July 17, 2012

Edited by Brooke Neuman

Source: By Cheryl Kaften  TMCnet Contributor