Aside from increased competition and pricing pressures, mobile operators are facing a multitude of challenges this year.

Migrating to 4G
From an operational standpoint, MNOs are grappling with their migration to 4G, the successor to 3G. In addition to the timing of this migration, to support the kinds of services that consumers expect, carriers are faced with the challenge of providing the necessary high-speed bandwidth to deliver a substantial increase in data rate. From a carrier perspective, the affordability of managing, billing and distributing content over these networks to drive revenue to recover those higher operating costs is another challenge in realizing a 4G vision.

Ensuring Seamless Roaming
Seamless roaming enables a mobile operator’s data subscriber to remain continuously connected as they cross network boundaries and use different radio access networks. Ensuring seamless, international roaming is becoming more and more important as carriers’ heavily valued customers are business subscribers who frequently travel and need their mobile devices to work outside of their home network.

Accounting for SIM Bypass
This year, carriers are also struggling with SIM bypass, when SIM boxes are used to bypass the interconnection between networks and divert international calls to national GSM calls to evade the revenue that operators are entitled to.

Tuesday, June 29 at the Cisco Live Conference Las Vegas, John Chambers announced their newest product, the Cius tablet aimed at the enterprise market and positioned as a mobility product. That very same day a two hour IPv6 deployment panel, moderated by Cisco’s Alain Fiocco, featured Google, Microsoft, Comcast and Tata Communications in front of a room filled to near capacity.

The nature of the audience was interesting. Compared to previous years, when asked about their affiliation, the number of hands raised for the category ‘enterprise’ was signicantly higher. ISPs, Government and Education sector used to dominate but Industry now seems to have finally taken notice.

The session was prefaced by John Chambers’ video, the same one presented at the Google IPv6 Conference some weeks ago, announcing Cisco’s commitment to IPv6 support on all product lines. Top down works in most Corporations, so the various fiefs and divisions will certainly take notice as they will most likely be regularly probed on their progress. Let us assume that their bonuses will also be linked to some IPv6 related deliverables, this always brings quite some focus.

What remains of the increasingly putrid IPv4 address pool seems to dry up even faster under the scorching sun of the Vegas Valley. The exhaustion counters agree that a year from now the IANA pool will be dry while some pundits hypothesize a final run on the remaining IPv4 address blocks. Why not a betting site on the exact IPv4 exhaustion date? after all this is Vegas. Allocation of ever smaller blocks remains a temptation, ignoring the fact that associated table sizes would put possibly unbearable strain on routing and affect service quality. ‘Business continuity’ is becoming the new mantra for a more rapid adoption of IPv6. The perceived issues, not surprisingly are the lack of training and back-office readiness as already voiced at the Google Conference.

In the meantime the tier 1 networks are ready, the active IPv6 BGP table is now well over 3000 and shows a healthy growth, content is increasingly IPv6 accessible, operating systems are ready and IPv6 trickles down all the way to the eyeballs, in other words the end-user. Some end-user customers even switched to Comcast, just to be part of their IPv6 trial.

When I will see ‘IPv6 ready’ written on a Cisco Linksys box at Future Shop, I will buy one. I am also eagerly waiting for Videotron, my cable and internet provider, to follow in Comcast’s steps. And by the way, we were told that Cius is Android based and IPv6 ready.

IPv6 is doing well under the desert sun and summer heat.

This post originally appeared on CircleID.

It is undeniable that we are moving towards an IP-enabled world. However, are we ready?

In short, yes. The industry and Tata Communications in particular is seeing that MNOs are increasingly relying on Application Service Providers such as Blackberry/RIM. Therefore the MNO are demanding high-quality, secured access interconnects into Application Service Providers to deliver such business critical applications which is what the IPX framework was developed for.

The cost efficiency aspect afforded by an IP-based delivery platform is demonstrative of the longevity of IPX. By having only one transport and interconnect technology for all services, MNOs can extend domestic services into the international market with much less overhead, resulting in CAPEX and OPEX efficiencies.

In addition to cost, the industry is also embracing IPX as the future-proof interconnect framework. When all mobile services migrate to LTE including Voice, MNOs will need a quality and secure transport network for all business critical applications.

Although not all MNOs are implementing IPX currently, the migration to an all IP world is bound to happen. And for those MNOs that provide ASP services to their subscribers and want to future proof their interconnection needs when migrating to LTE they will need a interconnect framework.

That framework is the “IPX.”

MNOs are starting to move towards IP communications with the introduction of Long Term Evolution (LTE). As we move further into LTE, MNOs increasingly require the right partner to enable the secure transport of voice, signaling and data services.

Increase Offerings
MNOs should look for a partner that will enable them to add service functionalities as this converged approach offers an efficient way to introduce new application and services to end users.

Leverage a Global Footprint
MNOs should select a partner that has a large global footprint. By doing so, MNOs will have fewer NNI interconnections, allowing them to ensure high-quality.

Access to Economies of Scale
In addition, MNOs can leverage the economies of scale to focus on their core areas of expertise, including building customer relationships, driving revenue from on-net terminations and enhancing value-added services.

MNOs need the right partners to address the challenges of migrating to an all IP world. By choosing the right partner, MNOs can fully benefit from an efficient and future-proof platform for convergence, IPX.

Like every other player within the voice industry, mobile operators know that they will eventually need to transition to an all-IP solution to gain the same benefits that other players are seeking, such as cost savings, more efficient architectures, and more flexible networks. However, mobile operators have a different relative priority list that is driving their transition to IP.

Because mobile services still command a premium, particularly for international calling and roaming, cost efficiencies aren’t as urgent a driver as for traditional carriers, who have seen their margins eroded through intense competitive pressures.

However, again because mobile services command a premium, quality is a much higher priority. In an all-IP world, mobile operators will be able to use mobile-dedicated codecs end to end, without intermediary providers transcoding.

Most interesting for mobile operators is the promise of much greater levels of application interoperability, as well as the ability to manage many more services over a single connection. While a wholesale carrier may interconnect with hundreds of other providers, mobile operators generally manage a much more limited supply pool. In an IP architecture, mobile operators can continue to drive up the value of each interconnect, enabling greater service variety without increasing management overhead.

The POPClock tells us that there are 6,807,230,170 of us on this planet when I looked it up at 22:26 UTC (EST+5) Feb 26, 2010. In the meantime we are about to connect the 5 billionth cell phone user this year according to ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona he also mentioned that the current recession hardly put a dent in the subscriber growth. Gartner Research shows 1.2 billion cell phones sold in 2009, down 0.9 from the previous year but a strong growth in smart phones which saw sales of 172.4 million units growing by 23.8% for the year, 58% in the fourth quarter only! On the network side, a February 26th press release from the GSA association announced that 59 operators in 28 countries are now committed to LTE compared to 39 operators in 19 countries six months ago. A further 16 operators are running technology trials. By the end of 2010 22 LTE networks will have entered commercial service. The first two commercial LTE networks were launched last December in Sweden and Norway. And let us not forget Mobile Wimax which is also gaining some momentum.

As Global Insight speculates, we are indeed likely to see the smart phone war starting to get more acrimonious in 2010 as software platforms and manufactures slug it out, hopefully to the benefit of the consumer. Mobile web browsing for the masses should not be that far away as smart phone prices start dropping seriously. On the network side we are likely to witness a titanic battle amongst mobile network operators trying to walk the fine line between the cost of G4 licenses and network upgrades, affordable end-user pricing, growth in market share and EBITDA. The only certainty is a decoupling between the growth in traffic volumes and the growth in revenue.

As markets and technologies evolved so fast it was rather interesting to see the sudden scramble on how to do voice and SMS over LTE. The most basic, and let us admit, most lucrative, services seemed forgotten in the data deluge. Would it be Volga (Voice over LTE with generic access) using existing circuit switched networks or would it be One Voice which is IMS based with real VoIP calls. One Voice now seems to be gaining the upper hand.

IMS implies addressable IP addresses, lots of them, no need to say more.

Time has come for an IPv6 address population clock to complement the
IPv4 address exhaustion clock .

This post originally appeared on CircleID.

All the talk early this year seems to be about LTE deployment to alleviate chronic Apple and other smartphones induced indigestion on the AT&T and other major Mobile Networks swamped by data traffic.

The telluric shift albeit the user will not care or should not notice is that when he or she will power on that smartphone or whatever the communicating Swiss Knife will be called, it will request an IP address to complete an IP based call. A device without an IP address will be rather difficult to reach and the ungodly NATword should not even be whispered. The comfort of the good old circuit switched network core will be gone in the LTE era.

It is rather timely, if not a bit last minute, that the Global Certification Forum (GCF), announced a LTE device certification scheme to be ready by the end of 2010.

Verizon, as far as I know, is the only mobile network Operator so far who officially announced IPv6 support in their devices and stated that “the device shall be assigned an IPv6 address whenever it attaches to the LTE network.”

Verizon’s commitment to IPv6 seems to be further underscored as ICSA, their independent conformity testing lab became the first one approved by NIST for USGv6 conformance testing. Congratulations, Verizon.

In the meantime, Telia Sonera claimed the world’s first commercial LTE deployment in Stockholm and Oslo in December. Has anyone confirmed what kind of IP addresses they are using, IPv4 and/or IPv6? They just announced the suppliers for their LTE network extension to 29 cities in Sweden and Norway. Let us hope the Nordic countries will continue to surprise us as they have done for a long time in telecommunications.

With all the LTE plans announced lately, it should not come as a surprise to see LTE as a prime discussion topic during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month. And while it will not have the starring role, IPv6 will be best supporting actor.

With the first LTE networks coming on-line later this year it will be interesting to track compliance and interoperability.

LTE should not be fragmented in too many Short Term Evolutions. The end-user community expects seamless high quality service, to them it is ancillary if is called LTE and works in IPv4 or IPv6.

This post originally appeared on CircleID.

The theme of the 40th International Institute of Communications (IIC) conference in Montreal this week was “Wrestling with unpredictability in Global Communications”. The panel I had the pleasure to be part of was under the motto : “Broadband futures”. One of the questions addressed to me: Should we be concerned about a shortage of IP addresses as more people use broadband networks for more things? My answer was predictable, at least to me.

A more fundamental question we all wrestle with however is to qualify and quantify the broadband evolution over a five year horizon. We find two major schools of thought: one sees complete mobile or at least wireless dominance, the other a happy coexistence between mobile and Fibre To The Home or somewhere near. All seem to agree on video dominance in the consumption of bandwidth and on traffic projections growing exponentially over the next five years. The updated Cisco VNI study unveiled at Supercomm last week and presented also at IIC abounds in the same direction. Their projections show hyperconnectivity and 56 exabytes per month sloshing through the internet by 2013 including around 2.2 exabytes of mobile internet and the zettabyte era in sight.

The Arbor presentation at the NANOG meeting in Dearborn provided another interesting set of facts to consider when pondering the future: the growing concentration of the content, applications and internet transport and the blurring between ISP’s, CDN’s, content and application providers, giving birth to hypergiants. Out of around 35000 networks, 150 of them now amount for more than 50% of the internet traffic and companies such as Google and Comcast, absent in the 2007 top 10, are now part of them.

The phenomenal growth of mobile data now has some major cellular networks bursting at the seams and is leading to a major surge in investments. The latest GSM data shows that 42 carriers in 21 countries are now committed to LTE deployment, up 35% from six months ago. Better to keep things in perspective and a degree of vigilance however, as illustrated by the disappointment of the latest quarter of 3G penetration and iPhones sales in China. A reminder of the unhappy relationship between forecasts and unpredictability.

No wonder that predicting the speed of transition to IPv6 remains a divinatory art even if it is predictable that we are about to run out of IPv4 addresses.

This post originally appeared on CircleID.

Within the mobile world, data and voice services have traditionally been more closely intertwined than in the fixed world, because both voice and data services ran on the same radio access network. As a result, mobile operators face an even stronger incentive to migrate to IP. Not only can IP deliver efficiency gains in the core and at the endpoints, IP can also significantly simplify the radio access layer.

Once mobile phones reach the point of having as much bandwidth as a home cable modem, handsets that encode voice to IP directly at the handset level will be a strong driver for IP networks for MNOs.

However, two challenges that will need to be overcome are quality issues and capacity buildout. Because mobile customers pay a premium for voice services, that quality expectations rise as well. Meanwhile, mobile operators face the challenge of scaling up capacity at the sales side, while simultaneously enabling their core networks to carry increased IP traffic that strong demand for data services is generating.

In the end, as the popularity of data services grows, mobile operators may end up having much more in common with ISPs than with traditional voice providers when it comes to their business models.

Mobile operators have built a strong – and still growing – business around delivering voice and messaging traffic. However, with the rising popularity of 3G data services and smartphones, mobile operators are seeing traditional revenue streams come under competition from similar data services delivered over the Internet, and within an IP ecosystem.

For MNOs, the potential for competition in these core services, whether from IM applications that replace text messaging, or VoIP applications that can even turn traditional voice calls into data streamed over a WiFi or 3G connection, could revolutionize their business. As a result, mobile operators tend to have difficult questions about the potential loss of revenue and loss of control they face with IP services.

Nevertheless, as the popularity of the application store grows, and consumers continue to show strong demand for phones such as the iPhone and Blackberry that offer a more open and customizable experience, MNOs see as well a strong revenue potential in becoming primarily an IP and data delivery platform. Data services are currently priced at a premium, and access speeds are increasing exponentially.

For MNOs, success in an IP world will require the ability to work with content and application providers to collaboratively deliver a differentiated user experience. With the right services, mobile operators could face an even brighter IP-enabled future.