Wi-Fi Calling and The Next Generation of Wireless Services

Wi-Fi Calling and The Next Generation of Wireless Services

FierceWirelessTechAn eBook from the editors ofJune 2016

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2 Introduction: After Years in the Shadows, Wi-Fi Calling Finally Goes Big

4 Wi-Fi Calling Is a Mixed Bag for Wireless Carriers

7 Sponsored Content: The Need for VoLTE Interconnection and Roaming is Pressing

8 Voice Over LTE Status Report

12 Wi-Fi Calling is Ready for Its Close-up

16 Sponsored Content: Five Best Practices for Assuring Carrier-Grade Wi-Fi

17 The State of Wi-Fi First Calling

21 Cable MSOs Eye Wi-Fi CallingThank you to our sponsors:

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Wi-Fi Calling And The Next Generation Of Wireless Services // June 2016

n2 Introduction: After Years in the Shadows, Wi-Fi Calling Finally Goes Big

n4 Wi-Fi Calling Is a Mixed Bag for Wireless Carriers

n7 Sponsored Content: The Need for VoLTE Interconnection and Roaming is Pressing

n8 Voice Over LTE Status Report

n12 Wi-Fi Calling is Ready for Its Close-up

n16 Sponsored Content: Five Best Practices for Assuring Carrier-Grade Wi-Fi

n17 The State of Wi-Fi First Calling

n21 Cable MSOs Eye Wi-Fi Calling

FierceWirelessTechAn eBook from the editors ofshare:

Introduction: After Years in the Shadows, Wi-Fi Calling Finally Goes Big

By Mike Dano Editor-in-Chief // FierceWirelessTech

Wi-Fi calling technology is nothing new. Almost a decade ago, T-Mobile launched its HotSpot @Home service with vendor Kineto Wireless that encouraged customers to use Wi-Fi for domestic calls from their homes and the operator’s wide area network — GSM/GPRS/EDGE — when on the go. Not only that, it was successful: T-Mobile in 2011 said 5 million of its 34 million subscribers at the time routed some of their calls over a Wi-Fi network.

But today, in 2016, Wi-Fi calling has reached a whole new level.

Whereas Wi-Fi calling had been used as a competitive wedge by some upstart mobile operators in the United States and elsewhere, today it’s a standard feature on virtually all networks and smartphones in the United States. According to those in the industry, that’s largely thanks to Apple, which in 2014 added Wi-Fi calling to its iOS platform for the iPhone, essentially setting the stage

for mobile operators to tacitly support a technology that many of them considered a threat to their control over their subscribers as well as their claims of ubiquitous wireless coverage. Indeed, despite the release of Wi-Fi calling on Apple’s iOS platform in 2014, Verizon and AT&T only this year finally moved to support the technology on the iPhones on their networks.

To be clear, part of the reason behind the cellular industry’s embrace of Wi-Fi calling has to do with the recent rollout of Voice over LTE technology, which moves circuit-switched voice calling on 2G and 3G networks onto IP-based LTE networks. The result — in some cases — is a more seamless voice calling handoff experience when moving to and from Wi-Fi networks and LTE networks.

But the growth of Wi-Fi calling isn’t only affecting the smartphone vendors and wireless carriers that support it. The technology has also given rise to a whole new






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class of mobile competitor that stretches from startups like Republic Wireless (a Sprint MVNO) to internet heavyweights like Google (with Project Fi) to cable players like Cablevision (with its Freewheel offering). These companies are banking on the millions of publicly accessible Wi-Fi hotspots across the country and the world in order to offer a cellular-free voice calling service. Wi-Fi calling is giving these companies a toehold in a mobile calling market that was previously dominated exclusively by the nation’s cellular operators.

However, the Wi-Fi calling market isn’t a panacea of opportunity — major challenges remain. Perhaps most importantly, the service relies on a transmission standard designed primarily for data communications, as well as spectrum that can be used by anyone and everyone (meaning, it can get pretty crowded). And public and private Wi-Fi hotspots are only as reliable as the

equipment and backhaul providers supporting those connections.

Moreover, despite a decade of real-world usage, Wi-Fi calling technology still isn’t quite where it needs to be. Republic Wireless, for instance, recently introduced Bonded Calling, a type of technology “patch” that the company said intelligently senses sub-optimal conditions on a Wi-Fi network and responds by patching the gaps in a Wi-Fi call with redundancy on a cell data network. While Republic argues the technology can improve its users’ calling experiences, the action nonetheless highlights the fact that Wi-Fi calling still needs work.

In this ebook from FierceWirelessTech, we’ll delve into Wi-Fi calling technology and opportunity, with the goal of highlighting what is and what isn’t working in this complex but important sector. n
















Wi-Fi Calling Is a Mixed Bag for Wireless Carriers

By Kendra Chamberlain

With all the major handset makers and wireless carriers in the U.S. now supporting Wi-Fi calling, the feature has garnered considerable attention as a potentially disruptive force in the wireless industry, opening up opportunity for new MVNO entrants to enter the market without needing to build nationwide cellular networks, and enabling cable operators to offer quad play services to customers.

“There’s been a huge wave of interest [in Wi-Fi calling] over the past year or so,” said Stephen Sale, research director of consumer services at Analysys Mason. “The big driver for that was Apple’s adoption of the function in iOS 8, and so the carriers immediately wanted to get on board to support the Apple feature.”

For carriers, Wi-Fi calling offers an opportunity to improve service and extend coverage, specifically indoor coverage, where cellular networks struggle to penetrate. “It’s a customer retention tool,” said Kyung

Mun, principal strategist of mobile, wireless and cable at Mobile Experts. It also gives operators a means to improve service indoors without needing to invest in network upgrades.

Analysts agree use cases for Wi-Fi calling are small and limited given the inherent characteristics of Wi-Fi networks. Despite the hype, it’s unclear if there is (or ever will be) widespread adoption of the feature. Voice has taken a back seat to data on mobile devices, and the days of voice minutes are long gone. “Today, in a user environment that is more data-centric, voice calling is complementary,” said William Ho, principal at 556 Ventures. In other words, Wi-Fi calling is an important solution but less of a disruptive force in the wireless industry.

Taking Voice Over the Top Thanks to advances in both cellular networks and handsets, supporting Wi-Fi calls has recently





















become much easier for carriers. “The standard Wi-Fi deployment that we see is basically quite an easy bolt-on to the IMS deployment; it’s a little over-the-top extension to the cellular network,” said Sale. “The handset side of the solution was solved initially by Apple and on the network side, the IMS related implementation made it a lot easier.”

In the early days of Wi-Fi calling, transitioning between a cellular network and a Wi-Fi network during a call was a technological obstacle, but those issues have largely been resolved now. Plus, the handoff issue isn’t a pressing problem because the use case is very small. “Starting a phone call in the house and walking out the door away from private Wi-Fi coverage doesn’t happen all that often. Most people stay put,” Sale said.

Consumers aren’t concerned with whether a phone call is sent over a cellular network or Wi-Fi, but when they can’t make a phone call — or worse they drop a call due to a bad connection — they do take notice. That’s why Wi-Fi calling could become an important service differentiator for wireless carriers that are battling for customers in an incredibly heated market. But it’s not

a safe bet. Wi-Fi calling relies on networks that are inherently unpredictable and outside the control of wireless operators; and anyone who has tried out the feature is well aware of its pitfalls: fuzzy connections and dropped calls.

As the majority of phone calls are made indoors, whether at home or in the office, the likelihood of a customer ever needing to switch between Wi-Fi and a cellular network mid-call is very slim — except, of course, in those instances when the Wi-Fi network offers a less reliable connection than the cellular connection. “Mobile operators are a little bit stuck there,” Sale said. “They have control of the preferred device, the smartphone, but they can’t always provide a connection.”

New Entrants and New Competitors The growing ubiquity of Wi-Fi networks has paved the way for new players to enter the wireless market. New MVNO entrants are using Wi-Fi calling as a core service offering through “Wi-Fi first” models. These plans offer customers low-cost voice services, typically with only one or two handsets, and rely primarily on Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi first services may or may not offer cellular network connections as back up when no Wi-Fi network is available. Analysts agree these MVNO offers are going after a small slice of the wireless pie.

Cable operators are another potential competitor in this space. Those that have built up large Wi-Fi hotspot networks across the country could enter the wireless voice space as a fourth addition to their broadband, TV and landline voice offerings. “The cablecos that

“As consumers realize more voice and data traffic is carried over Wi-Fi than cellular, it could push wireless prices down.”

KRISTIN PAULIN, SENIOR ANALYST AT OVUM
















are moving into this are trying to make the best of that opportunity, and they have less to lose, so they will be putting price pressure on the cellular players,” Sale said. “And how the cellular players manage that remains to be seen.” Once again, it’s unclear how big of a threat this will pose to wireless carriers. To date, only one cableco in the U.S. — Cablevision — has launched a Wi-Fi calling service.

Implications for Carrier Business Models There’s some concern that Wi-Fi calling might cannibalize some revenue streams for carriers. That’s why most operators in the U.S. aren’t offering Wi-Fi calling support for international or roaming calls. Roaming charges are the last remnants of the era of voice minutes.

“I don’t know how long [operators] will be able to keep that up, they don’t want to cannibalize those particular use cases where they still have relatively high prices,” Sale said, referring to roaming and international calls. “But then of course, these use cases are the very same

use cases that OTT apps have adopted and address.” In other words, consumers looking to avoid roaming charges can always turn to third-party apps such as Skype or MagicJack when making roaming calls in order to avoid those charges.

As the use case for Wi-Fi calling isn’t all that large, analysts don’t expect Wi-Fi calling to affect wireless carriers’ business all that much. “As consumers realize more voice and data traffic is carried over Wi-Fi than cellular, it could push wireless prices down,” said Kristin Paulin, senior analyst at Ovum.

On the other hand, voice is by and large offered unlimited by wireless carriers, as most pricing now is based on data charges. Paulin doesn’t see Wi-Fi calling as being particularly threatening or disruptive to wireless carriers’ business, even if it’s enabling new entrants to compete with them in offering wireless services. “Those who go for the MVNOs with a Wi-Fi business model wouldn’t likely have been high ARPU customers at the major wireless carriers,” Paulin said. “So I don’t think it should affect their businesses in any substantial way.” n







Sponsored Content

Operators’ revenue from mobile voice traffic is declining sharply as subscribers adopt over-the-top (OTT) applications like Skype and Viber. VoLTE represents an opportunity for operators to retain Voice revenue and compete more effectively by improving quality, incorporating multimedia features and escaping the costs and limitations of running circuit-switched voice networks.

The ability to provide consistent VoLTE service across borders presents operators an opportunity to gain an early advantage with current and prospective subscribers. However, multiple challenges remain, starting with a revenue-impacting decision operators must make in choosing the appropriate VoLTE roaming model for their business.

The Disruption of VoLTE Roaming Models Operators are uncertain about which roaming model to embrace.* The two models, both approved by GSMA, are Local Break-Out (LBO) and S8 Home Routed (S8HR). Internal departments are often unaligned as they debate trade-offs between time-to-market and regional call quality. The main differences between the models are the way they route calls. In S8HR, voice is treated as data and is charged using a data business model, while LBO maintains the existing voice business model.

In the LBO model, the current international Voice revenue is preserved as the sending party pays the receiving-party termination rates (MTR’s). In the case of S8HR, the voice traffic is now part of the total S8 data traffic; the majority of calls in from the subscriber in the visited network end up at home. International carriers do not pay MTR’s to the receiving party in the S8 HR model. This results in a loss of revenues for the home operator, most likely in its interconnect department. This can have significant financial impact for countries and networks.

The Technical Gaps of VoLTE Roaming ModelsiBasis’ S8HR trials revealed several technical gaps that are acknowledged by GSMA and 3GPP. The first challenge, from the home network point of view, is local regulatory compliance, especially if the visited network has a different emergency call support structure.

The second gap relates to call quality. When the end-user makes a call that needs to be terminated close to the visited network, the call “trombones” back to the home network, which could be very far away, impacting the call quality, as we observed.

Because some operators will implement S8HR and others LBO, there will be interoperability problems between the models. Today, there is no interoperability between them, which can result in

lack of scalability and loss of revenue.

During our trials we also observed the increased complexity of S8HR, which requires number translation by the home network for special format local numbers within the visited network, as well as identification of the visited network needed for end-user billing.

There are also several challenges to be addressed by the visited network side, such as lawful intercept support and overcoming the lack of service awareness. Because voice is treated as data, the visited network lacks visibility, which is critical for service trouble shooting, fraud prevention and voice KPI measurements.

The IPX Hub Solves Roaming Implementation ChallengesThe iBasis IPX acts as a hub between different operators helping to solve interoperability issues and mediating between roaming models. In the case of a regional call, the IPX can act on behalf of the home operator and break-out the call close to the visited network to ensure high quality voice service.

Ovum expects IPX providers to have an increasing role in helping operators understand the implications of VoLTE roaming models, helping them to make better-informed decisions and address implementation challenges. n

The Need for VoLTE Interconnection and Roaming is Pressing By Ajay Joseph, iBasis CTO

*Ovum Survey, Confusion Reigns over VoLTE, ViLTE, and RCS Roaming, March 2016











Voice Over LTE Status Report

By Jason Bovberg

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is expanding throughout the nation’s mobile networks. Some U.S. carriers are moving ambitiously to bring the technology to market, whereas others are taking a more patient, unhurried approach, adding markets as they diversify their networks. T-Mobile, for example, has been the most aggressive U.S. carrier, attributing well over half of all its calls to the technology, the company said in April. Verizon and AT&T are also in various stages of VoLTE rollouts, while Sprint has opted to focus on alternative technologies and strategies.

Considering these different carrier positions and approaches, what is the current status of VoLTE in the United States? How many devices and markets have VoLTE capability? How are operators migrating subscribers to VoLTE and off of circuit-switched? And how is VoLTE related to Wi-Fi Calling? Let’s start with some specifics about the carriers.

The PlayersWhen asked about VoLTE deployment on their networks, big players in wireless communications had varying answers.

Two years ago, AT&T brought its HD Voice service to the market, tapping into its all-IP VoLTE network and becoming one of the first networks to offer high-definition voice. In December, Bill Smith, president of AT&T Network Operations, announced that AT&T’s VoLTE network covered “more than 295 million Americans, including more than 27 million active subscribers.”

Sprint, for its part, has not deployed VoLTE. According to Adrienne Norton, corporate communications for Sprint, “It’s on our roadmap, and we’re working toward having an all IP-based network capable of supporting VoLTE, but we have not announced a timeframe for commercial deployment. Today, we offer HD Voice on





















a very efficient CDMA1x platform, and we don’t plan to transition customers to VoLTE until we can match the great voice experience provided today.”

Rachel Cooper, senior communications manager at T-Mobile, said that “T-Mobile’s nationwide VoLTE is available wherever we have LTE, which now covers over 308 million Americans. Over 53 percent of the phone calls made on the T-Mobile network are now over VoLTE, approximately 309 million calls per day—up from about 25 million calls per day at the beginning of 2015. We currently have 40 VoLTE-enabled devices in our lineup, over 31 million of which are deployed on our network today.”

At Verizon, VoLTE technology has been deployed across 100 percent of its 4G LTE network. “We are still testing interoperability and will continue to do so until VoLTE provides a great experience for customers across wireless providers. We need to ensure that our customers who

choose VoLTE get the same consistent and reliable service they do today when calling other Verizon customers using VoLTE,” said Kelly Crummey, director of corporate communications at Verizon.

Devices and Markets The VoLTE market is advancing forcefully and continues in 2016 as a strong industry trend. According to the April 25, 2016, Global Suppliers Association (GSA) report, “126 operators in 60 countries are investing in VoLTE deployments, studies, or trials, including 55 operators that have commercially launched HD Voice service using VoLTE in 34 countries.”

Still, there is a sense that the market isn’t seeing the progress it should be seeing. As of early April, there were approximately 50 devices supporting VoLTE technology—including some top brands such as BlackBerry, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony—but device deployment has favored smaller brands.

One major issue is that carriers are facing the challenge of charging for their VoLTE services in an era when subscribers are increasingly accustomed to enjoying high-quality calling for free with over-the-top (OTT) solutions such as Skype. In the face of such challenges, VoLTE continues to advance progress, and in fact carriers are optimistic about the immediate future.

Migrating Subscribers to VoLTE Obviously, VoLTE services are independent of the legacy circuit-switched voice network and will require migrations from traditional hardware. At first, voice

“...to enjoy the operational gains that VoLTE brings, operators are seeding their device portfolios with VoLTE-enabled handsets. As users upgrade to these new devices, [they] will likely hear

the benefits of VoLTE/HD calling.”

WILLIAM HO, PRINCIPAL, 556 VENTURES
















traffic will probably be handled by 2G/3G circuit-switched networks and data traffic by LTE networks. In this phase, some operators might even use OTT apps to take care of voice. Later migration phases would see increasingly enriched voice services based on Voice over IP over LTE (based on GSMA IR.92 standards). Finally, operators would migrate to full IP networks to reap the rewards of greater capacity and rich communication services.

“Typically, to enjoy the operational gains that VoLTE brings, operators are seeding their device portfolios with VoLTE-enabled handsets,” says William Ho, principal at analyst firm 556 Ventures. “As users upgrade to these new devices, users will likely hear the benefits of VoLTE/HD calling.” However, at least in the United States, operators might face a couple of snags, according to Ho. “First, users are keeping their handsets longer, therefore delaying the migration cycle that operators want; and second, in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environments, older non-VoLTE devices will continue to remain in operators’ bases.”

InteroperabilityA major hurdle to VoLTE technology is that it only works between two phones that are on the same carrier’s network. This reality damages the VoLTE experience and the calling experience in general. However, with the accelerating adoption of the technology, inter-carrier VoLTE calling is not far away.

AT&T and Verizon recently announced plans to collaborate on cross-carrier VoLTE interoperability. Although the companies missed their target date of late

2015, Smith said that AT&T had performed successful VoLTE exchange tests between AT&T and Verizon customers.

Still, the best-case scenario for large-scale commercial deployment will be 2017, according to Rob Chamberlin, chief revenue officer and cofounder of DataXoom, an MVNO geared toward businesses. “The two largest carriers are really doubling down on the investment they’ve made into their wireless networks,” he says. “The major U.S. wireless carriers have invested billions of dollars for spectrum and network upgrades to move to VoLTE, and it’s unlikely they will pursue another technology—certainly not to the point where it takes precedence over traditional cellular connectivity.”

VoLTE vs. Wi-Fi CallingHow is VoLTE related to Wi-Fi calling? Simplistically, both VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling are transport media for voice. VoLTE occurs over the cellular network riding on LTE technology on licensed spectrum, whereas Wi-Fi calling rides on Wi-Fi technology on unlicensed spectrum.

“They’re complementary sometimes,” says Ho. “Wi-Fi calling is good when a wireless carrier’s network signals can’t reach where the user is attempting to make a voice call. The user can be in a garage, in the subway or otherwise underground, where Wi-Fi may be available. Also, Wi-Fi calling allows users to call when they’re abroad and depending on the home wireless carrier’s terms and conditions, the roaming cost of calling from abroad may be nullified.”
















One carrier view may be that VoLTE call quality is higher because the carrier might have specific voice quality thresholds it needs to keep. “This is a function of how carriers architect their networks to deliver that quality,” says Ho. “However, because Wi-Fi calling is outside their network, one may not guarantee the voice quality because, by nature, an internet service serving the wireless router is a ‘best effort’ service without any quality-of-service guarantees.”

Another carrier view is that VoLTE is an operational savings strategy. “That is, because LTE is so data-efficient and VoLTE rides on that technology and is packetized, the traditional nailed-up channels to inefficiently deliver voice will be a thing of the past,” says Ho. “As a result, operators are refarming their 2G and 3G spectrum and retiring that older serving technology and upgrading to LTE technology.” n
















Wi-Fi Calling is Ready for Its Close-up

By Tara Seals

Voice over Wi-Fi isn’t a new technology, but it’s one that has languished from a lack of handset support and a few technology challenges, like seamless handover. For a while, Wi-Fi calling seemed poised to go the way of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard: Once glamorous, but eventually ending up as a relic of a long-obsolete technological age.

In the last year, all of that seems to have changed. Thanks in part to Apple’s support for Wi-Fi calling on the iPhone, and the increasing deployment of IMS and evolved packet cores (EPC) in wireless networks, VoWiFi has seen a renaissance. In fact, all four major wireless carriers in the U.S. plus a handful of cable MSOs and MVNOs have launched the service on at least a limited basis, and handset vendors are supporting the movement enthusiastically. It would appear that Wi-Fi calling is ready for its close-up.

Strategy Analytics forecasts that VoWiFi will be used

with 9 percent of mobile voice subscriptions by the end of 2022, up from 0.2 percent today. The firm said that it will account for approximately one third of calls from these connections, and will, overall, generate 3 percent of mobile voice minutes in 2022.

“We saw an uptick towards the second half of last year in deployments and plans,” said Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, director of mobile broadband opportunities at Strategy Analytics. She said that about 10 operators have deployed services, mostly in the U.S. where T-Mobile has led the way as an early adopter. “The iPhone in supporting it was an initial driver, but now we’re seeing Microsoft Lumia and Android handsets with it built in. It’s critical to have that install base—everything else will flow from there.”

A Raft of BenefitsFor users, Wi-Fi is a free alternative to paying for voice minutes—and it means that indoor coverage can be





















much, much better. And for wireless carriers, Wi-Fi calling offers an important new dimension to service provider business models.

First and foremost, leveraging Wi-Fi means that carriers can increase their indoor coverage capabilities—an endemic issue for macro networks. Wireless signals often don’t penetrate homes, offices and public buildings very well, leaving end users frustrated. The wireless carrier that solves the issue ends up with a clear advantage on the competitive front.

But in addition to helping solve the coverage issue, Wi-Fi calling also provides a competitive block-and-tackle strategy against over-the-top (OTT) players like Viber or Skype, which are cannibalizing both texting and voice revenues. Wi-Fi calling can be deployed as a native service that’s accessed from within the normal phone dialer—so for users, there’s no need to download an app or click open a different app with a foreign user interface to make a call.

Quantitative research bears out that this is having a positive effect for carrier loyalty: The 2015 Ericsson ConsumerLab Study found that 53 percent of mobile users that have access to the capability have moved at least some of their OTT app communication to Wi-Fi calling.

VoWiFi also represents a transition for operators on the voice side, because it can be tied with rich messaging or used to add voice capability to apps.

“Younger segments don’t call a lot,” Grimaldo noted. “But voice may be important as part of video calling or something else. The key is to just make it easy so you don’t have to choose a network or think about how they’re calling or using voice.”

Tied in with this is the ability to offer voice on non-SIM devices like tablets and computers. Ericsson for instance has a multi-device solution that leverages VoWiFi for one-number support across screens.

There are other benefits as well. According to Ericsson, 61 percent of the Wi-Fi calling users in the US have increased their voice usage with Wi-Fi calling—meaning that they make more and longer voice calls. That is a significant data point given that voice has been increasingly supplanted by messaging. Wi-Fi calling may have a halo effect on other services as well: The Ericsson study found that 55 percent of users have increased their SMS usage over Wi-Fi (i.e., using services like Apple’s iMessage).

Given the differentiation opportunities that VoWiFi offers, carriers that don’t deploy it may find themselves

“It’s a business decision when operators launch Wi-Fi calling, but we have typically seen that when one operator in the market launch Wi-Fi calling the other operators quickly launch too.”

MICHAEL AXELSSON, DIRECTOR & HEAD OF PRODUCT MARKETING FOR THE NETWORK FUNCTIONS BUSINESS UNIT, CLOUD AND IP, ERICSSON
















far behind in the market. As such, some say that it’s on its way to becoming table stakes in many markets.

“It’s a business decision when operators launch Wi-Fi calling, but we have typically seen that when one operator in the market launches Wi-Fi calling the other operators quickly launch too,” said Michael Axelsson, Ericsson’s director and head of product marketing for the network functions business unit, cloud and IP. “Many operators are using Wi-Fi calling as part of their growth strategy...Ericsson has 45+ contracts with Ericsson EPC and/or IMS capabilities, of which more than 10 are alive.”

Axelsson said that Wi-Fi calling also will benefit from the growth in voice over LTE (VoLTE) services, which share the same underlying IMS platform. According to Strategy Analytics, VoLTE deployments will push the number of Wi-Fi calling connections from 22 million in 2015 to almost 800 million in 2022.

“It’s a seamless handover between Wi-Fi and VoLTE, which for example means that if you are at home in a voice call over Wi-Fi and you have to leave your home, the session is seamlessly transferred and handed over to VoLTE. With the Ericsson Wi-Fi Calling Multi-device solution you can also transfer the call between different devices seamlessly.”

Lingering ChallengesFor all of the momentum, that’s not to say there aren’t challenges that linger in the market—from both a business and a technology perspective.

“Operators need to work on their handset portfolios, and make arrangements for supporting Android, iPhone and Microsoft,” Grimaldo said, noting that she expects to see a faster ramp for mid-tier and lower tier devices coming up that will result in a fuller portfolio

of devices enabled for users. “They also need to work on international roaming agreements, and the fact that in some places, the free Wi-Fi on offer can’t support voice—users often have to upgrade their Wi-Fi package at hotels and in hotspots in order to use Wi-Fi calling.”

And indeed, according to Rich McNally, senior director of service assurance at Spirent Communications, the main issue that operators face is the fact that Wi-Fi calling is taking place in uncontrolled network and spectrum environments in most cases.

“That means that there are interference challenges that they have never had to deal with before,” he explained. “There may be other devices taking capacity, and there are network utility variables. There are also routing

“Operators need to work on their handset portfolios, and make arrangements for supporting Android, iPhone and Microsoft.”

SUSAN WELSH DE GRIMALDO, DIRECTOR OF MOBILE BROADBAND OPPORTUNITIES, STRATEGY ANALYTICS
















differences—previously, a carrier would control the call all the way through the network, end-to-end. Now, it likely won’t control it all the way unless they have some kind of agreement with the actual Wi-Fi provider.”

The quality of the experience is central to the carrier positioning, so they need to stay on top of the service performance and monitor it at key locations—high traffic areas, for instance, or in places where they have deals with retailers or coffee shops. Handoffs are still a concern—carriers can’t afford for calls drop as users move from one hotspot to another, or from a hotspot to the cellular RAN.

“Users need a consistent user experience,” McNally said. “But now, there’s more diversity in the possible paths they could take to make a call. It could be mobile to mobile, mobile to landline, and in either case it could be flowing over Wi-Fi on either end. So service management has become more complex. You have to

focus on the things that matter to the end user—does the call drop, does it sound good?”

Despite the challenges, Grimaldo expects continued momentum for VoWiFi overall—and interesting market developments to watch going forward.

“It will be interesting to see if there will be interoperable HD voice—and do people shift their behavior because of that?” she said. “And the Wi-Fi Hotspot 2.0 initiative that allows more seamless roaming using a connection manager is interesting. There are a lot of moving parts on the technology side.”

MVNOs like Republic Wireless, FreedomPop and Google Fi are “doing some interesting things in developing technologies and patents for smoother handoff,” Grimaldo said. “They can offer a service that automatically chooses the best connection, or that chooses the best connection in terms of cost.” n







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Once upon a time, carrier-class access networks and Wi-Fi didn’t have much in common. Wi-Fi was seen as a best effort access technology—not carrier-grade. Today, there’s nothing but Wi-Fi for carriers seeking to support their surging traffic levels: only Wi-Fi technology meets carrier’s requirements for performance, capacity and cost. Given the scarcity of spectrum and unabated growth of mobile video traffic, the business case for Wi-Fi has never been stronger. As a result, carriers are embracing Wi-Fi and working with vendors to evolve to carrier-Wi-Fi which closely integrates Wi-Fi technology with existing carrier networks.

The evolution to deliver carrier-Wi-Fi is about more than technology and standards—it’s also about deploying carrier-grade service assurance processes. Many enterprises depend on Wi-Fi as a critical delivery mechanism for business applications and financial transactions. Likewise, service providers need to ensure Wi-Fi Quality of Experience (QoE) for their end-users in metro areas and high-profile venues. To assure both enterprises and end-users receive acceptable QoE, carriers need to adopt similar approaches to their assurance of fixed and mobile services.

Based on our work with leading providers deploying carrier-Wi-Fi, we’ve developed the following best practices:

Go beyond the Access Point (AP)—Due to the unique nature of Wi-Fi, AP performance data provides limited value for assessing service availability and QoE. AP performance data may include users trying to access the AP from areas it’s not designed to serve, users experiencing sporadic interference, or it may not have visibility into users that tried to access the service and failed. For all these reasons, it’s important to look beyond the AP when crafting a carrier-grade Wi-Fi assurance strategy.

Be proactive, not passive—A controlled, proactive test approach counters the limitations of passively collected AP performance data. By proactively testing the AP with a QoE device in a known location, one can gather data relevant to specific coverage areas, verify test location(s) for interference, and have full visibility of initiation failures.

Measure what matters—To truly understand Wi-Fi QoE, tests that replicate typical, real-world activities must be performed. Performance counters or RF connectivity tests often miss obscure configuration issues that can have dramatic QoE impacts. To understand a typical consumer’s QoE, the QoE device needs to perform tests such as

downloading files, browsing the web, and accessing social media apps. For enterprise customers with a service-level agreement (SLA), the QoE device needs to measure the performance and connectivity of the Wi-Fi service and critical application servers.

Go 24/7—Issues can occur anytime day or night. To effectively measure SLAs and ensure visibility of customer issues (before complaints start), it’s critical to monitor availability and QoE 24/7.

Get to the root of the issue—It’s not enough to measure QoE and related SLAs; carrier-grade service assurance requires additional information that accelerates segmentation of issues and identification of root causes. For carrier-Wi-Fi, that means assurance systems must provide metrics such as RSSI, channel, frequency, and SNR and network QoS metrics such as latency and DNS failures. n

Five Best Practices for Assuring Carrier-Grade Wi-FiBy Iain Wood, Spirent Senior Manager, Service Assurance

AP

QoEDevice

CaptureCustomerExperience

Be proactive, not passive: Active QoE probes test Wi-Fi service availability and experience from a known location, overcoming key limitations of passively collected performance data.











The State of Wi-Fi First Calling

By Jason Bovberg

Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly pervasive. Experts agree that in a year or two, consumers will be able to auto-connect to Wi-Fi hotspots much more easily. For this reason, several mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are beginning to embrace Wi-Fi First Calling as a competitive solution.

“Today, if you walk into a Starbucks, for example, you might not be able to transparently auto-connect to a hotspot,” says Stephen Stokols, founder and CEO, FreedomPop, “but Wi-Fi is going to start to look a lot more like cellular as far as auto-connecting. You’ll be able to move from one hotspot to another and enjoy seamless connectivity, just like with cellular towers now.”

But while the goal is to be more cellular-like, it is taking time to deploy the technology that will automatically connect users without having to go through the whole re-authentication process each time. And in a world

of seamless Wi-Fi, business models become tricky. How will customers respond to operators charging for Wi-Fi calling services? What is the future of Wi-Fi First calling? And what does this model mean for Cablevision’s Freewheel Wi-Fi calling service, Google’s Project Fi MVNO, and other such services that are taking the focus away from traditional cellular carriers?

On the HorizonIf you own a modern smartphone, you’re familiar with the concept of Wi-Fi First calling, which essentially means that the device uses Wi-Fi instead of your cellular network wherever it can. A related, complementary technology is VoIP over Wi-Fi. “If you’re on Wi-Fi, you have lower cost on the cellular and network side, and if you’re using VoIP, you have much lower cost on the voice side,” says Stokols. Using a combination of these technologies, MVNOs such as FreedomPop are able to offer extremely low-cost solutions.





















Ross Cassan, director of product marketing at Spirent Communications, agrees that the future of Wi-Fi First calling is bright. “Our customers are already using Wi-Fi calling to augment their network coverage,” he says. “Forthcoming technologies that allow for intelligent management of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) will further improve the experience. The vision of seamless services will become a reality in the next few years.”

“The key driver behind technologies such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Wi-Fi calling,” adds Rob Chamberlin, cofounder and chief revenue officer at MVNO DataXoom, “is making the existing carrier networks more efficient in terms of spectrum utilization and enhancing the customer experience. These technologies provide the public with more choice and the market with more competition, which should ultimately drive down prices for wireless customers.”

The current reality of Wi-Fi First calling is that it’s a huge benefit for MVNOs looking to reduce their reliance on cellular networks. From a consumer’s perspective, Wi-Fi calling is primarily used to provide better mobile phone coverage. From the operator’s perspective, the sky is the limit.

Getting into the ActIf mobile operators have access to a massive Wi-Fi network, it makes sense to leverage that asset to disrupt an industry composed of large incumbents. “I think the cable companies, long rumored to be interested in mobility, are finally ready to jump into the space in a major way with Wi-Fi First offerings,” says Chamberlin.

“Driving this are their robust Wi-Fi networks and the increasingly mobile consumer.”

An interesting entry into the wireless market, according to Chamberlin, will be Comcast’s new MVNO. “With a massive Wi-Fi network … and a wholesale contract with Verizon, Comcast seems to have the key elements in place for a very competitive Wi-Fi First mobile offering,” he says. “If I were a running a large carrier, I’d be concerned about another powerful competitor with deep pockets entering the industry.”

For its part, DataXoom launched as a data-only MVNO because the company believes that the core value of wireless networks is mobile data connectivity, and that voice and SMS will soon be considered “apps” by consumers. “To this point,” Chamberlin says, “both Facebook and Slack have announced that they’re adding voice and video capabilities into their platforms.”

Another interesting player in the market is Cablevision, whose $9.95 wireless plan for subscribers offers a

“…Wi-Fi is going to start to look a lot more like cellular as far as auto-connecting. You’ll be able to move from one hotspot to another and enjoy seamless connectivity,

just like with cellular towers now.”

STEPHEN STOKOLS, FOUNDER AND CEO, FREEDOMPOP
















compelling value (although lacking a traditional cellular capability) and gives the cable operator another service to bundle in with its core cable and Internet offerings. However, some people believe that the type of Wi-Fi Only service Cablevision offers is too limited. “I think Wi-Fi Only limits consumers too much,” says Stokols. “There’s nowhere near enough Wi-Fi ubiquity for that kind of service to be successful. We’re still five years away from that.”

Cherie Gary, spokeswoman for Republic Wireless, agrees. “I don’t think Wi-Fi Only is a compelling offering. Do we have customers at Republic who choose our $5 unlimited Wi-Fi Everything plan (no cellular anything)? Sure, but it’s pretty limited. Customers who go that route can jump up to the $10 plan and at least get cellular talk and text when they need it. We allow customers to change their plan at any time, and the bill is pro-rated accordingly. So, if they need cellular data for a week vacation, they can upgrade to .5 GB of cellular data at $17.50, then switch back to their $5-$10 plans as soon as they’re done.”

And what of Google’s Project Fi? Experts agree that Google has brought welcome attention to Wi-Fi calling,

but Project Fi is somewhat misunderstood. “Google Fi is not really Wi-Fi First,” says Stokols. “The defining characteristic of Google Fi is the ability of its chipsets to switch among multiple networks, such as T-Mobile and Sprint. Wherever it finds the strongest network strength, that’s the network it will use.”

“There’s a huge difference between Wi-Fi First and just offering Wi-Fi calling,” says Gary. “Google’s Project Fi mainly uses T-Mobile’s circuit-switched cellular network, and the last time I tested a Project Fi phone, I had to manually go in and adjust the settings to make the phone use Wi-Fi as the primary network.”

“Google seems to be bending over backwards to not seem overly competitive with the major wireless incumbents,” says Chamberlin. “Including the word ‘Project’ in its name implies that the company isn’t interested in becoming a wireless industry titan any time soon. Google is still highly dependent on major wireless carriers to promote and distribute its Android software, so it makes sense the company is treading lightly.”

Making the DifferenceThe race is on to see which companies can bring to market an offering that boasts seamless service and improved quality. Not only that, but flexibility for the customer—letting them choose what works best for them, and putting money back into their pockets—will probably be a difference maker for most MNVOs in this market. “I read somewhere that carriers are making an estimated $50 billion a year selling consumers more cellular data than they’re using,” says Gary. “Jiminy Cricket! $50 billion!”

“Google seems to be bending over backwards to not seem overly competitive with the major wireless incumbents.”

ROB CHAMBERLIN, COFOUNDER AND CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER AT MVNO DATAXOOM
















“HD calling with new Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) and Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) codecs have greatly improved resiliency to IP networking issues and call quality,” says Cassan. “The key is to add the intelligence to the network to ensure the best (cost/quality) medium is chosen whenever and wherever the call is happening and moving to. Who will win in the end remains to be seen, but I’d bet there’s a strong connection to testing and visibility.”

Expect MVNOs to be laser-focused on keeping prices very low while also working to innovate the entire customer experience—everything from customer support and fulfillment logistics to groundbreaking call technologies to new carrier partners and phones from multiple OEMs. n
















Cable MSOs Eye Wi-Fi Calling

By Tara Seals

Cable MSOs have long been interested in extending their reach into their customer’s lives beyond the home. To that end, most of the Tier 1 cable operators have amassed impressive networks of Wi-Fi hotspots. Formerly a value-add meant to add “stickiness” to the triple play, those footprints now offer a perfect opportunity to deploy mobile calling—without having to become an MVNO to do it.

Several major cable companies, including Comcast, Charter, Time Warner Cable and Bright House are expected to soon launch Wi-Fi-centric calling services that will use Verizon’s cellular network for fallback. And Cablevision has introduced a Wi-Fi only calling service using the company’s abundance of Wi-Fi hotspots. Other cable operators have hinted that similar initiatives are in the works. And, smaller operators are looking at Wi-Fi calling as a way to reduce their roaming costs.

“We always get a lot of MSOs calling,” said Ken

Kolderup, CMO at Taqua, which offers a mobile core and other infrastructure for Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi). “They mainly want to find a way to roll out a quad play while offloading the costs of using a macro RAN partner and becoming an MVNO. Everyone gets the basic economics behind wanting to do this—if I don’t own spectrum, doing it as a resale-based MVNO means difficult margins on that business.”

A few years ago, the technology was such that without a mobile core, deploying wireless didn’t make sense, but that’s now changed. Now, a non-traditional operator can leverage Wi-Fi connectivity in unlicensed spectrum using their existing infrastructure—so the pieces are falling into place.

“It’s a natural move for cable operators,” said Joe Hoffman, an analyst at ABI Research. “For the cable companies, most had IMS deployed a long time ago—so supporting VoWiFi is not such a big step. Once the





















handsets are out there, it will be easy to run, if they have a deal with a cell provider for roaming and fallback. As for pure Wi-Fi only plays—well there’s a niche for that but it’s not very big.”

Home subscribers spend the majority of their time connected to Wi-Fi at their houses and at the cablecos’ public hotspots, so cable operators see a way to keep most of the traffic on their network and just use the macro RAN for fallback. This is especially compelling considering that cable providers have high-capacity backhaul and fiber, and are deploying customer premise equipment (CPE) with the capability to support two Wi-Fi addresses: One is a hotspot for private use at home, and then there’s a public-facing hotspot that helps spread high-capacity Wi-Fi throughout the neighborhood.

“By leveraging that footprint, we believe that a non-traditional provider can lower their overall cost of service delivery by almost 50 percent,” said Kolderup. “And that in turn gives them a cost basis to get into the market more aggressively on pricing. That’s kicking some people into gear now. This next wave to get into the

quad-play is beginning to emerge.”

Taking Home Service to GoFor the cable operator, being able to offer home voice service on the go is a big differentiator. And not just because it’s a fourth service in the bundle that will help address churn.

“For the consumer, unlimited calling is the norm—and to operators, voice is just a set of data packets,” said Derek Peterson, CTO at Boingo Wireless, a hotspot aggregator. “With VoWiFi, you can offer unlimited calling everywhere—not just at home, or at a hotspot, but across screens. You’re not actually locked to your mobile phone as the only voice communication channel. So that means carriers have another way to showcase voice calling outside of the handset that you’re carrying around all the time.”

That includes location, he added. “Think about cabins in the woods and mountain lodges—the macro RAN can’t reach there very well. VoWiFi opens up great new kinds of locations for cable guys to offer coverage and capture opportunity.”

ABI’s Hoffman meanwhile noted that Wi-Fi is now an expected part of the home service, so triple-play providers are now looking at value-adds within the home as well. AT&T for instance has been talking about their Wi-Fi plans, which include security, marketing and analytics as additional paths for monetizing customers. And, VoWiFi is also another digital path to making services richer by adding voice to apps and services—for instance, on the smart home front.

“Everyone gets the basic economics behind wanting to do this—if I don’t own spectrum, doing it as a resale-based MVNO means difficult margins on that

business.”

KEN KOLDERUP, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, TAQUA
















“These are things that people would be willing to pay a couple bucks a month for, that require no new equipment to be deployed,” said Hoffman.

Taqua’s Kolderup added that other types of non-traditional operators could get into this space as well. “The tech is so straightforward that conceivably, a large enterprise could become a mobile operator for their own employees,” he said. “Who can become a mobile operator is changing because of the underlying technology.”

Lingering ObstaclesAs with most things, some challenges remain. For one, deploying VoWiFi requires back-office changes, including IT work, subscriber management and billing. But handsets and handoffs represent perhaps the biggest challenges.

For Apple, VoWiFi deployment is straightforward, because Wi-Fi calling is supported as a native capability on iPhone. But Android is a whole other kettle of fish.

“There are more than a hundred OEMs making Android phones, and a lot of places outside the U.S., Android makes up 80 to 90 percent of the phones,” Kolderup said. “So it’s a very big challenge.” Taqua addresses this with an app that enables native Wi-Fi calling for Android. The user downloads the app, which acts as a connection manager in the background. But further penetration of VoWiFi support will be critical for the market to truly take off.

Then there’s the issue of handoffs. While the handoff

back and forth with LTE is pretty simple because it’s an IP-to-IP communication, the challenge is finding a way to maximize the time connected to Wi-Fi—appropriate Wi-Fi, that is.

“When you’re home, you automatically connect,” Peterson said. “But out in public, the quality of the hotspot connection varies, and some are behind a paywall or a registration wall. So moving around public hotspots can be a headache for the end user. One of the things we’ve been pushing is the need for automatic connection and security.”

Boingo has a bilateral Passpoint agreement, for instance, with Time Warner Cable, which allows seamless connections and roaming. It also has similar deals with Liberty Global, and with American Tower in Boston.

But even then, there’s work to be done.

“The challenge is that once you get the Passpoint connection, you then have to make sure you connect at the right time,” Peterson said. “If you’re driving and you stop at a light, the decision whether to hand off that call to a hotspot at the car wash for a couple of seconds needs to be intelligently handled.”

Boingo is working with device manufacturers and carriers to develop a management engine to help make that decision in those kinds off scenarios.

“It will be at least another year or so before that’s truly resolved,” he said. “It will be on the end user for a while to manage their connections in the meantime.” n`






Documents

Wi-Fi Calling and The Next Generation of Wireless Services