Abstracts of Workshop Presentations

Tutorials, November 17, 2011

Thanx to the ongoing convergence of telecommunications, Internet and entertainment, and the increasing adoption of internet technologies in our daily lifes, we are moving rapidly into a world of total interconnection of humans and machines. This means that after fixed mobile convergence (FMC) and voice data integration which has coind the evolution of telecommunication infrastructures in the last decade, we are now witnessing the start of a much broader convergence of quite different application domains with different value chains and technologies. This convergence is driven by the adoption and extension of Internet technologies in various application domains under the banner of the Future Internet (FI), which today is getting a lot of attention by the increasing notion of Smart Cities, the Internet of services (IoS), Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) communications. Thus different transport and control platforms need to be integrated into a future internet service platform enabling an open set of application domains by so-called common or generic enablers on top of different fixed and mobile network infrastructures.
This half day tutorial will provide an overview of relevant control platforms and the related standards in the context of fixed and mobile Next Generation Network (NGN) evolution towards the Future Internet (FI). Starting form Intelligent Networks (IN) we will look at the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and the emerging 3GPP Machine Type Communications (MTC) platform. In addition, we look at relevant Service Delivery Platform (SDP) concepts and related service enablers and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) as defined by ETSI, 3GPP, GSMA and OMA for enabling seamlessly various applications on top of fixed and mobile networks. We also address the current state of the art in international Future Internet research performed in Germany, Europe, US, and Japan.
We will illustrate that operators can play a dominant role in the future internet context when providing the right infrastructures and appropriate interfaces to the right partners in the future. Finally, the tutorial terminates with an introduction to relevant toolkits and laboratories from Fraunhofer FOKUS and Technical University Berlin, enabling rapid prototyping for academic and industry research in the context of NGN to FI evolution. Thus we will briefly introduce the Open IMS core, OpenEPC, and the upcoming OpenMTC toolkits, as well as the FUSECO-Playground and the NGN2FI evolution lab enabling comprehensive prototyping in the context of academic and industry research.

Dynamic spectrum access, cognitive radio networks, and spectrum management as key enablers for upcoming mobile communications ─ Understanding opportunities and coexistence requirements from evolving developments in research, standardization, regulation and technology
Bernd Bochow, Marc Emmelmann, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Germany

This tutorial will address upcoming challenges and opportunities in the course of applying flexible spectrum-use principles to upcoming and future dynamic spectrum access wireless communication systems. The tutorial aims to help understanding the migration from today’s technology and license-based spectrum allotment towards future flexible spectrum use potentially based on technology-agnostic temporary spectrum usage rights and spectrum trading paradigms. Regarding dynamic spectrum access technologies the tutorial will focus on topics arising from white space utilization and spectrum sensing requirements, as well as on related interference and coexistence issues. Existing technologies such as IEEE 802.22 or the usage of geolocation databases will serve as examples. A short overview of challenges in providing QoS and mobility support in dynamic spectrum access systems will be given. The tutorial will further discuss regulatory constraints with respect to spectrum sharing, interference avoidance and incumbent protection, as well as related business perspectives of cross-spectrum traffic off-loading and spectrum micro-trading beyond current spectrum-refarming approaches. Finally, an overview of current global standardization efforts is provided.

Workshop - Session 1, November 17, 2011

Mobile Service Status and Trends in the US
HP Baumeister – Fraunhofer Digital Media Technologies, USA

The US as the largest market for mobile services are leading in 4G penetration. We will present the current status and trends, and offer some interpretation of what this might mean for the US and other markets.

FMC and the role of IMS in reality/DTAG
Albrecht Seus, Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany

Deutsche Telekom has been actively forcing the transformation process from a classic telecommunication operator towards an All-IP service provider. This short talk gives an overview about the roadmap towards converged networks and applications and the role of IMS in that process.

Opportunities in NGN Network Virtualization
Jorge Carapinha, Portugal Telecom Inovação, Portugal

Virtualization has become a key enabler of agile provision of IT services. By applying virtualization to networks, it should be possible to establish and reconfigure multiple isolated network domains over a common infrastructure with great flexibility, nearly on-demand. This capability would open up a wide range of new possibilities in several contexts and business scenarios. However, complex challenges must be overcome to materialize this vision in practice.

LTE/EPC deployment architectures to enable content delivery optimization
Maria Cuevas, BT, UK

• Understanding the rationale for data traffic management and optimization on LTE/EPC networks
• Examining technical solutions for data traffic management and optimization on LTE/EPC networks
• Evaluating different business models and deployment architectures for data traffic management over LTE
• Case Study: Edge Cache deployment on LTE/EPC networks

Policy Control and its Relationship to IMS/EPC
Christian Gayda, NSN, Germany

Core networks are under increasing pressure. This presentation outlines how to face these key challenges and what is the roles of Policy Control and IMS in flexible broadband core networks. Abstract in Stichpunkten:

• Key challenges on core networks
• How to face the challenges
• Policy Control to increase flexibility
• IMS and PCS in Flexible Core Networks

Many thanks in advance for your reply.

The Role of WAC in the Mobile Application Ecosystem
Joachim Zeiß, Zeiss-Consulting, Hungary

The Wholesale Applications Community has been established to increase the overall market for mobile applications. WAC presses this goal by encouraging web based technologies (through device and 3rd-party remote APIs), driving scaled deployment of those and offer complimentary commercial models. Most of all, WAC is a commercial enabler to eliminate the obstacles of B2B relationships between Telecoms and App/Web designers by introducing a global wholesale for apps and telco services, i.e. the one big business partner acting on behalf of all participating operators. Current and potential future success of WAC and possible alternatives to the WAC strategy are being discussed.

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Workshop - Session 2, November 17, 2011

Role of IMS/EPC for Automotive Applications – Case Study CoCarX
Gero Fiege, Vodafone D2, Germany

The research project „Cooperative Cars eXtended (CoCarX)“ defines a IMS-based service architecture that allows flexible and fine grained automotive service provisioning in both an automotive manufacturer and mobile network operator friendly way and in a pan-European fashion. The exemplary services Road Hazard Warning, push of TEPEG traffic information and video transmission were demonstrated.

M2M Communications – Status Quo and Research Perpectives
Dr. Marcus Heitmann, Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Labs (Research & Development), Germany

In M2M there still is a huge gap between the possibilities of advanced technology and what actually is being transferred and utilized in industry and business. Par ex. RFID was predicted to bring disruptive changes in retail and logistics. However it was not adopted as expected. With wireless sensor networks we could now face a similar setting. There are many reasons why the transfer of technology from research into business is being hampered. Firstly, there are concrete technological challenges to be solved, such as energy efficiency, security, and robustness. Secondly, there are organizational and business related costs which could easily eat up the benefits of new technologies. This talk gives a short overview about research topics that could address the technical challenges and sketches an approach currently being developed by industry to relate technical aspects of the Internet of Things and M2M with business processes.

From NGN towards a Future Internet Core Platform
Hans Joachim Einsiedler, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Germany

Currently local and global network service providers have rolled out different technologies - even at the same place. Bandwidth, time constrains, and accessibility demands per customer, mobile terminal, smart phone, sensors and other M2M devices will increase drastically since mobile applications and services will become an essential part of the business and private life. These challenging demands have to be supported by new control and management mechanisms over current existing and new technologies.

Standardisation on M2M at ETSI : Open Interfaces for an M2M services platform
Marylin Arndt, Francetelecom group, Orange Labs, France

• three interfaces : mIa, dIa, mId and their APIs defining service capabilities
• independency of any underlying network. (mobile or fixed)
• common ground to vertical applications
• open APIs that will allow third parties to come in
• can add work done in 3GPP?

Introduction to upcoming OMA M2M APIs
Musa Unmehopa, Alcatel Lucent, France

Musa Unmehopa, chairman of the Technical Plenary of the Open Mobile Alliance, will be talking about OMA's strategy in the area of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication, which is based on OMA's leadership position in Device Management in the mobile space. OMA believes that the M2M standardization challenges can be best addressed through an extension of OMA DM remote management and provisioning capabilities using the OMA Gateway Management Object and the new OMA work to develop specifications for a Lightweight M2M protocol.

Mobile/ Cloud Service Provider Plattform
Bernd Wunderlich, IBM, Germany

Cloud Computing is seen as one of the key business opportunities for Communication Service Providers (CSPs). CSPs are best positioned as they own the network as a key infrastructure and have the know-how to offer services in a highly scaleable manner. There are many different concepts which CSPs can address, from classical IT offerings, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Plattform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings, More focussed on Telco services and highly relevant to the future of Mobile Networks is a Mobile Cloud concept. With this concept, CSPs can deliver Telco services to various end-points including M2M devices and Smart or Feature phones. Services enabled by mobile networks in a distributed fashion will provide new ways to connect of sort of devices and provide new services such as for Smarter Cities, Smarter Homes, and Smarter Energy & Utililities. The new technology deployed has furthermore the potential to reduce the transmission costs by up-to 50%.

Experiences from OTT / Mobile Cloud Services over Mobile Broadband Networks
Alan Duric, Telio Holding ASA, Norway

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Workshop - Panel Discussion, November 17, 2011

Extend IMS or Rebuild a New Universal IP Control Platform

Due to the fact, that new mobile applications require specific new features from an IP control platform, IMS is currently extended to fit specific application needs of operators. In this panel we want to discuss if IMS has the potential to become the universal IP control platform, or if new control platforms, such as EPC or Machine Type Communication (MTC) are needed or specific application domains, such as the booming M2M business.

To stimulate later questions from the audience here are some initial questions:

• What will be the key functionalities in a future converged fixed mobile network environment?
• How many of these might be mapped to IMS and will be IMS crucial for efficient implementation?
• In regard to OTT services and their support, how important is the role of EPC and MTC? Will we have IMS, EPC and MTC altogether in the future, and/or is IMS here to stay or will IMS be substituted by EPC and other platforms?
• How do you see the impact of M2M communications on service control platform evolution? When do we see a unified MTC/SDP environment for various M2M domains?
• Will M2M communications be basic, how smart can sensors become? Might some and which of the existing communication APIs be applied to M2M communications?
• Does Rich Communications has the potential to become the future global standard telecommunications service? If yes by when?
• What role will IMS, EPC and MTC play in emerging Smart City infrastructures?
• What will be the role of overlay networks in telecommunications and will Open Flow replace the service control platforms we know today?

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Conference - Session 1, November 18, 2011

Network Sharing – Opportunities & Challenges
Dr. Dieter Schafhuber, Accenture, Germany

Dramatic growth of network traffic and network services are driving operating costs upwards while revenue increase is slowing down in all mature markets. Operators are more and more under pressure to optimize network costs. Network sharing does promise significant savings and rises new challenges.

ETSI INT IMS/EPC Interoperability Standardisation – Motivation, Roadmap & First Results
Giulio Maggiore, Telecom Italia, Italy / ETSI TC INT Chairman, France

• ETSI INT work program: IMS/EPC Standardization
• Interoperability for better standards …interoperability for better products
• ETSI TC INT role in interoperability landscape
• IMS/EPC Interoperability: First results and plans for the future

RCS Trial Experiences and Global Rollout Plans
Christian Gayda, NSN, Germany (Christoph Aktas, VP RCS Standardisation, GSMA, UK)

RCS Trial Experiences and Global Rollout Plans
The presentation will briefly cover the status and the evolution of the GSMA RCS project. Feedback from the public RCS trials conducted by major European operators will be shared. The feedback is based on the end user experience and acceptance of the RCS service. Exactly this feedback has triggered a group of leading European operators to push for a first commercial implementation of the RCS service in an adapted manor to meet the end user expectations. This adapted version of RCS is called RCS-e (RCS-enhanced) and covers the following major use cases; Rich Call for video and file sharing as well as Rich Messaging for instant messaging. As the leading operators are actively planning the rollout of the RCS service, others are eager to follow.

Technologies and Platforms towards Mobile Cloud Computing
Thomas Bohnert, SAP Research, Switzerland

NGMN Alliance: Status Quo and Quo Vadis
Walter Grethe, Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany

It started with: A White Paper on "Requirements for a Next Generation Mobile Network. (2006)
5 years later - LTE is in commercial service all over the world.
Mission accomplished!! - or??

Is there still a need for an "Operator Voice" and an organisation dealing with NGMN.

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Conference - Session 2, November 18, 2011

LTE Rollout Experiences and Next Steps
Franz Seiser, Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany

• recap of LTE deployment up to now: national data only networks
• pre-requisits to enable LTE data roaming
• reality check on SMS/Voice over LTE implementations
• IMS voice / VoLTE: another roaming challenge

LTE Rollout Experiences and Voice over LTE Plans for an Integrated Operator
Volker Sebastian, Vodafone, Germany

• Overview of Vodafone LTE network
• lessons learned during our LTE introduction
• Usage of mobile fixed synergy for Vodafone LTE voice service
• Mobility aspects and circuit switched fallback (CSFB)
• Outlook and future voice over LTE solutions

• LTE as fixed line substitution within white spot areas
• A rush into the mobile market by complementing LTE data with 3G-Voice
• Converging data and voice into a single radio and service environment

Some challenges while introducing LTE
Dietmar Kohnenmergen, Eplus, Germany

• Are the standardized solutions for voice and SMS sufficient from operator point of view?
• Do standardization groups, suppliers and MNOs have the same understanding of voice and SMS?
• What are the most critical instances within the legacy network, which are impacted by LTE/EPC introduction?
• How to integrate HLR/HSS functionality?
• Which role plays a multi vendor environment?

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Conference - Vendor Panel, November 18, 2011

• When will we see LTE networks beyond Germany and the US?
• What is IMS used for in the next years before VoLTE is being deployed? And when can we expect first VoLTE service offers?
• Will EPC and QoS support only be needed for VoLTE or will EPC also play a role for OTT service enablement?
• Does Rich Communications has the potential to become the future global standard telecommunications service? If yes by when?
• Will we see RCS deployments without IMS?
• What will be the impact of M2M communications on operator service control platforms?
• What might be the role of IMS and EPC in this context?
• Questions from the audience

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Conference - Session 3, November 18, 2011

Converged Networks and Services in a Future Wireless World: the EU R&D perspective
Luis Rodríguez-Roselló, European Commission, Belgium

The development of the networks of the future is driven by a series of technological and societal trends, among others the ubiquitous access to broadband (Mobile Internet), the interweaving of real and cyber worlds so as to create smart environments (Real World Internet) or the demanding media services, such as social media, video on demand and games. All of them compound to add requirements for ultra fast communications, increasing bandwidth and spectrum resources and full adaptability so as to optimise access and connectivity everywhere and ensuring efficient delivery of services.
In order to meet the above requirements, Research and Development on Future Networks is focussed on the development of the future European Internet infrastructure with ultra-high speed broadband networking: in particular mobile broadband systems (towards Gbit/s capacity, flexible radio technologies, with smart spectral efficiency) and ultra-high capacity energy-efficient all-optical networks. R&D takes a holistic approach ranging from systems and architectures towards more enabling technologies and accounting for the increasing convergence and integration of optical and wireless networks as much as the interplay between services and the network infrastructure. 

Service layer enhancements of future networks based on IMS and EPC will allow new service models especially in the automotive domain. The talk will focus on a more flexible charging model based on IMS that allows service specific charging for both, a B2B and B2C business. Examples from an automotive field trial and the public-funded project CoCarX will be presented.

The presentation will focus on the development of an open services innovation testbed at QUWIC (QU Wireless Innovations Center) in Qatar. QUWIC is the first regional institution focusing on utilizing emerging wireless/mobile technologies in creating smart solutions and applications for use in a number of market segments.

The talk will address the following points:

• Introduction about QUWIC
• Open Testbeds as basis for Services Innovations
• Identifying business objectives and key players
• Partnership with key industry and research organizations
• Encouraging developer community by providing tools for simple use of testbed functionalities

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Conference - Session 4, November 18, 2011

NMN (Next Mobile Network)
Dr. Masami Yabusaki, DOCOMO Communication Laboratories Europe GmbH

While it launched LTE over All-IP NW, NTTDOCOMO started research on Next Mobile Network (NMN). NMN will accommodate LTE-A, and Future Radio Access (FRA) system by Optical-based transport Mobile Network. NMN will be effectively and efficiently operated through Virtual Network. NMN will offer novel network-value added services through smart-pipe with sophisticated Service Delivery Network.

Mobile Broadband and VoIP in the US: Trends and Updates
HP Baumeister, Fraunhofer Digital Media Technologies, USA

The US is emerging as a 4G hotbed, with Sprint as the first 4G, and Verizon Wireless now the largest LTE operator world-wide. At the same time, US companies are taking the lead in VoIP. We will review the status around these topics, and look at the emerging trends.

QoE/QoS in Broadband Internet Access and its Evolution in Latin America
Alfonso Ehijo, University of Chile, Chile

• Broadband Internet Access in Latin America. Actual Situation. Speed and technology distribution.
• The Evolution of the Services+Technologies and their impact in QoE/QoS.
• Net Neutrality as an indicator of QoS. Results and importance of this pioneer initiative.
• The key role of LTE in the Convergent Operator.

Experiences from the NGN Deployment and New Services for the 2010 Soccer Worldcup
Philip Bremner, SA Telkom, South Africa

• Introduction: WAN Connectivity FIFA Event Network
• Provision of Infrastructure to Cape Town Stadium
• Network Integration Model for the FIFA Event
• Services for the FIFA Event
• WAN/LAN Network for the Media
• Non-FIFA Media services

The study involving 6 incumbent operators and a large number of users shows that most of the operators have their migration plan based on replacement concept emphasizing on migrating TDM based Transport network to IP network by using soft switch first for continuity of the existing services, then IMS for multimedia service. The survey also reveals the change of the pattern of present and next two year telecommunication usage in Thailand. This paper studies, surveys the readiness/preparation for migration from legacy network to NGN network in Thailand. The direction and declaration of the national migration plan of Thailand as well as NGN test bed are also presented.

Towards a Common CS and PS Core Network: Vision and Reality
I Gusti Ngurah Panca, PT Telkomsel, Indonesia