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IEEE 802.21 MEDIA INDEPENDENT HANDOVER

Title: Market Need for MRPM

Date Submitted: July 16, 2008

Presented at IEEE 802.21 session #27 in Denver

Authors or Source(s): Kevin A. Noll (Time Warner Cable)

Abstract: A brief discussion of the market need for standardized Multi-Radio Management.

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IEEE 802.21 presentation release statementsThis document has been prepared to assist the IEEE 802.21 Working Group. It is

offered as a basis for discussion and is not binding on the contributing individual(s) or organization(s). The material in this document is subject to change in form and content after further study. The contributor(s) reserve(s) the right to add, amend or withdraw material contained herein.

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Multi-Interface Market

• Why do devices have multiple interfaces?

• Ubiquitous access!

• Migration to new technologies

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Multi-Radio Market

• The market is seeing the introduction of many dual-radio devices.

• For Example:

• GSM/WiFi and CMDA2000/WiFi phones• EV-DO/WiMax on Cardbus • EV-DO/WiMax on USB • WiMax/WiFi on PCI-Express

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Dual-Radio Market

• Also consider:

• The typical laptop with integrated wired and wireless LAN interfaces

• New Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC)

• These are just examples. Many other variations are on the horizon.

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Service Provider Desires

• Provide the user with ubiquitous and “seamless” access

• Note a movement among some service providers to “share” access networks, especially where the underlying technology (e.g. WiMax, WiFi) tends to encourage this

• Note also a movement from consumers to have ubiquitous access from a single service provider (e.g. many WiFi hotspot providers and ISP aggregators)

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Service Provider Desires

• An optimal end-user experience where the user is not bothered by:

• Having to discover available networks• Selecting the best network (based on cost, performance, or

other criteria)• Setting the criteria for the “best network”• Concern for battery life on the platform in use• Enabling and disabling interfaces

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Service Provider Desires

• A method to reduce the service provider’s cost of providing “ubiquitous” access to the consumer

• Primarily to use “paid-for” or free (typically owned or “open-access”) facilities when available

• instead of “for-pay” (leased or contracted) facilities

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Existing Solutions

• End-User manually manages connections

• Manual configuration frustrates the end-user because:• Time required to figure out which connection to use and

enable it• Frustrated by short battery life• Knowledge required of the OS and installed interfaces to

enable/disable interfaces

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Existing Solutions

• Client-based (typically laptops) connection management software

• Searches for available networks• Based on pre-programmed criteria the software chooses the

“most desirable” network (not necessarily “best-available”)• May or may not disable other interfaces (for the purpose of

battery-life, network use cost-reduction, etc.)

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Gaps

• Some dual-mode products that are available on the market today require more power than is available

• For example: USB can provide up to 0.5 amps, but current dual-mode USB WWAN devices require >0.5 amps to have both radios enabled.

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Gaps

• Connection manager software is unable to discover all available networks without powering up each interface in-turn.

• Possibly requiring the user to wait longer than desired• Possibly using more batter power than is desired, especially

for small devices (typical dual-mode mobile phone battery is rated 850-1100mAH)

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Gaps

• Service Provider is unable to dynamically interact with the client platform:

• To inform the user platform that another interface is more desirable than the currently active one

• To inform the user platform that data is available/waiting for delivery to an inactive interface

• To provide an alternate path for delivery of data destined for an inactive radio on the platform via a currently active radio (this would save time in the delivery process and reduce power-use)

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Q & A?