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Aptilo Mobile Data Offloading Solution

Mobile Data Offloading - often called Wi-Fi offload - is so much more than just offloading 3G / 4G mobile users to the Wi-Fi network, which at many locations is a more cost-effective access method for mobile broadband. As both subscribers and devices tend to connect to Wi-Fi whenever it is in reach, mobile operators need to follow their subscribers into the Wi-Fi environment. Hence the business case for Wi-Fi offload is both about saving on costs and reducing churn. This is why many mobile oper-ators are starting to integrate Wi-Fi as just another radio network to their 3GPP mobile core; it is all about building a heterogeneous network (HetNet).

The Aptilo Wi-Fi Offload solution supports local WLAN break-out – which offloads the whole 3G/4G network including the mobile core. We also have support for the different 3GPP stand-ards (see our “Aptilo in 3GPP Wi-Fi access” Fea-ture Brief) for backhauling Wi-Fi data through the mobile core. In both cases Aptilo’s Wi-Fi offload solution provides integration with the mobile core for policy and charging.

Wi-Fi Offload Summary

The rapid increase in smartphones and the new iPhone era have pushed the current 3G/4G networks to the capacity limit in many geographical areas.

Mobile operators are looking to add more capacity and indoor coverage in an affordable way by off-loading data traffic onto their own and/or partner Wi-Fi networks.

This is however not the only driver. Smartphones do better in Wi-Fi networks, with speeds up to 300 Mbit/s and low latency. An average user has 3-4 devices, but maybe only one with a SIM card and users are actively looking for Wi-Fi connections. In order to reduce churn, mobile operators need to be able to follow their subscribers in their quest for Wi-Fi.

Aptilo combines our deep carrier-class Wi-Fi service management knowledge with innovative ways of interacting with the 3GPP mobile core and OSS/BSS in order to provide a cost-effective, holistic and pragmatic road to successful mobile data offloading. Aptilo SMP SIM Authentication™ provides a seamless SIM-based authentication and can be combined with other inno-vative alternative authentication methods.

For policies and charging, mobile operators can inte-grate through standard Diameter interfaces or per-form database lookups and mapping of data through the Aptilo ServiceGlue™ functionality.

Why Mobile Data Offloading to Wi-Fi?For years mobile subscribers have been used to mobile broadband at an affordable price. That worked well until the beginning of the “iPhone era”. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), mobile data traffic will increase EIGHTFOLD between 2015 and 2020. In the same period, mobile traf-fic will grow 3 times faster than fixed traffic and reach 16% of the total IP traffic by 2020 from only 5% in 2015.

Additionally, more and more devices such as laptops and tablets come with mobile data broadband capabilities built-in, as they are designed to down-load e.g. HD video from anywhere, at any time. While some mobile operators urgently need a cost-effective way of satisfying customers’ ever-increasing hun-ger for more bandwidth, this is not the only driver for mobile offload to Wi-Fi. As devices with built-in Wi-Fi perform better in Wi-Fi networks (with speeds up to 300 Mbit/s and low latency) than in 3G / 4G – especially indoors – mobile operators need to be able to deliver a good Wi-Fi-based end-user experience. Furthermore, with the fast growing number of new types of devices in the mar-ket designed specifically as “Wi-Fi only”, the operator can decrease churn and make subscribers more “sticky” by offering Wi-Fi.

Offloading to Wi-Fi reduce costBy offloading users from the 3G / 4G network to Wi-Fi networks, the mobile operator can add more capacity in an affordable and flexible way. We have seen operators that have built Wi-Fi networks proactively in areas with heavy mobile broadband usage such as airports and gained 50% offload – reaping the rewards of reduced cost and lower churn due to a better user experience.

Using femtocells and smallcells is a way of building the 3G/4G radio network cost-effectively, but this method do not provide an option of increasing the footprint quickly through partners the way that Wi-Fi does. Additionally most Wi-Fi-ena-bled devices try to establish a Wi-Fi connection as the first choice whenever avail-able and some applications can only be used on Wi-Fi. It is no surprise that car-rier-class Wi-Fi has rapidly gained interest and priority among mobile operators.

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Three key aspects of Mobile Data OffloadingThere are three main aspects of mobile data offloading that need to be addressed in order for service providers to benefit from off-loading data traffic from 3G/4G to Wi-Fi:

• Building a Wi-Fi footprint that is adapted for offloading.

• How to get devices to select Wi-Fi and automatically authenticate for a seamless user experience.

• How to interact with the mobile core for policy and charging.

Aptilo’s mobile data offloading solution helps service providers address these aspects in a cost-effective, holistic and pragmatic way.

Building Wi-Fi footprint for offloadingWhether mobile operators choose to partner with existing Wire-less Internet Service Providers (WISPs), build their own Wi-Fi net-work or both, they all share the same challenges. Either way, they can rely on Aptilo Networks’ vast experience delivering proven car-rier-class Wi-Fi service management and policy control solutions to 100+ service providers in more than 70 countries since 2001. The Aptilo Service Management Platform™ (SMP) provide a highly scalable carrier-grade public Wi-Fi solution that includes enhance-ments for offloading. Our solution is ideal both for operators that want to build their own Wi-Fi footprint and for those that want to roam with wireless internet service providers (WISPs). Third-party Wi-Fi networks can easily be incorporated and benefit from Apti-lo’s value-added functionality for Wi-Fi offloading, giving the oper-ator full flexibility in building their own footprint and/or cooperat-ing with WISPs.

A multitude of Wi-Fi service provider roaming interfaces have been technically verified through the Aptilo platform, including leading roaming aggregators and brokers such as Boingo and iPass.

For operators that want to monetize their Wi-Fi networks beyond the offloading aspect, Aptilo offers a best-in-class hotspot 2.0 ready Wi-Fi service management system with support for a wide array of business models and payment options, learn more about this in our “Carrier-Class Wi-Fi” solution data sheet.

How to get devices to select Wi-Fi Without a seamless user experience and a superior quality of the Wi-Fi connection users will not move over to the Wi-Fi network and thus no offloading will occur.

Smartphones: Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phones with advanced oper-ating systems such as Android, BlackBerry, Apple’s iOS and Win-dows Mobile will generally automatically try to move over from the 3G/4G data connection to a Wi-Fi network as soon as it is in range. They will generally also remember the Wi-Fi networks to which they’ve been connected and automatically try to recon-nect to them. The network selection mechanisms will be further improved with the Hotspot 2.0 802.11u standard, providing sup-port for a more intelligent selection of Wi-Fi networks without any user interaction.

Laptops: Laptops will not automatically connect to the Wi-Fi net-work and will need some type of connection manager to make this process automatic and seamless for the user.

Using connection managers: Connection managers can be used also in mobile phones to provide a more intelligent offloading experience where policies decide where and when offloading from 3G / 4G to Wi-Fi and vice versa should occur. The policies to con-trol this mechanism - as defined in the latest 3GPP standards - are handled by the Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) which communicates policy decisions to the connection manager. The ANDSF can retrieve policy decisions from the Policy Charging and Rules Function (PCRF). Since this standard is still in an early stage, there are many proprietary and semi-proprietary solu-tions on the market from different client vendors.

SIM-based authentication Users need to be authenticated when they move from the 3G/4G network to the Wi-Fi network. Operators may need to retrieve bill-ing data and apply policies to the Wi-Fi service. The core functions of some of these capabilities in the Wi-Fi network take place in the AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) server. The subscriber’s authentication data for the 3G/4G network resides in the Home Location Register (HLR) or Home Subscriber Server (HSS). A seamless way to integrate Wi-Fi and 3G / 4G authentication is to use the SIM authentication module in Aptilo SMP which provides EAP-SIM/AKA (SIM / USIM-based) authentication for Wi-Fi users based on the information retrieved from the HLR or HSS in the mobile core in accordance with the 3GPP AAA functionality. In this case the Wi-Fi network must support 802.1x which encrypts the content of the communication – an important benefit as it gives a security level equivalent to the security in 3G / 4G networks.

The user device will attach to a hotspot and authenticate using EAP-SIM/AKA over 802.1x. The Wi-Fi access point embeds the EAP mes-sages in RADIUS and forwards it to the Aptilo SMP SIM Authentication which authenticates the user in interaction with the HSS over the Diame-ter Wx interface or with the HLR over the SS7 /MAP D’/Gr’ interface .

Alternative authentication methodsEAP-SIM/AKA is the ideal login mechanism because it utilizes the same SIM-based authentication as used in the mobile network and it is just as seamless and secure for the user in the Wi-Fi network as it is in the mobile network. Handling one common user identity – the SIM card – provides operational savings for the mobile operator.

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In reality there is also a need for alternative authentication methods:

• 3GPP2-based mobile networks like CDMA do not normally use SIM card-based authentication.

• Legacy mobile devices do not support EAP-SIM/AKA authentication.

• Wi-Fi only devices such as iPADs. (Cater to subscriber’s all devices)

Below we will discuss some of these alternative authentication methods enabled and supported by Aptilo.

EAP-TTLS: We recommend use of EAP-TTLS which provides secure and seamless authentication similar to EAP-SIM/AKA with the small disadvantage that a user-id/password needs to be provisioned in the device. This can be done manually by the user most commonly through a one-time login or through an app. Some device manu-facturers support a “carrier packet push” which makes this pro-cess seamless for the user. Our captive portal systems solution sup-ports online sign-up for Hotspot 2.0.

Manual user login to Wi-Fi network: Most Wi-Fi-enabled devices will remember the password the next time they login to a previ-ously visited Wi-Fi network. As login is generally a one-time task for the user, the effort of a manual login may be reasonable com-pared to the cost of making it totally seamless. However, the busi-ness case for offloading will suffer from each manual step required by the user. The Aptilo solution includes an optional captive portal for manual login.

Authentication and provisioning of users through SMS: This method can be a simple and fast first step to mobile data offload-ing. The Wi-Fi network is deployed in parallel to the 3G network and the user is registered / logged in through a self-signup loop via SMS (this is in practice a SIM-based authentication with high security).

Authentication using MAC-accounts: If the security policy allows, the user can be automatically authenticated based on the MAC-address of their device. The MAC-addresses can be batch imported into the Aptilo system or verified with a lookup in real-time from e.g. the mobile operator’s CRM or provisioning system.

The Aptilo system can also automatically create an account based on the MAC-address of the device during the first authentication when using other more secure methods such as manual login or SMS. The device will thereafter be automatically authenticated each time it reconnects to the Wi-Fi network via the MAC-account.

Authentication via a client in the device: User credentials can be provisioned in a WISPr or EAP-based client that is used for auto-matic login of the user. Provisioning of credentials can be done in a number of ways including at point-of-sale, over-the-air (OTA) or for some clients silently via SMS.

Applying policies to the Wi-Fi user sessionOperators may need to set policies in order to control the service and charging also for offloaded users and maintain a fair usage policy.

Aptilo supports the standard 3GPP Wi-Fi Access methods (see our separate feature brief) where the traffic is backhauled to the mobile core and where the PCRF and OCS/OFCS systems can be used also for the Wi-Fi traffic.

However, the adoption rate of this method has been slow mainly because this will only offload the radio network and the existing PCRF systems are generally not optimized for Wi-Fi. Below we will describe how it is possible to get the same amount of control also for local WLAN break-out using the advanced features in Aptilo SMP.

Applying policies from mobile core via Aptilo SMP: It is possible - via the Aptilo ServiceGlue™ in Aptilo’s Mobile Data Offloading solu-tion – to intelligently map different policy decisions implemented at the mobile operator to the corresponding parameters in the Wi-Fi network. Policy decisions can be looked up from any database at the mobile operator that supports SOAP/XML, LDAP or RADIUS.

Policy decisions can include things such as allowed locations, volume/time limitations, QoS, prepaid or postpaid and user type.

In the example above service level data from the CRM system is mapped to Quality of Service (QoS) parameters in the Wi-Fi net-work. These parameters can be standards-based RADIUS WiSPr attributes that just give some basic bandwidth (QoS) control or Aptilo’s proprietary service profiles for advanced QoS control.

The policy converter in Aptilo’s solution is designed also to ena-ble mapping and translation of policies to the specific proprietary attributes from vendors such as Aruba, Cisco, Ericsson and Ruckus.

Applying policies from mobile core via Diameter Gx interface: Mobile operators may have an existing PCRF for handling policy and charging decisions. These decisions are then communicated via the Diameter Gx interface to the packet gateway node (GGSN / P-GW / DPI nodes) which enforce the policies in the mobile network.

In Aptilo’s mobile data offloading solution the policies from the PCRF are pulled via the Diameter Gx interface and intelligently converted (via the Aptilo IDI mapping functionality) to the corre-sponding parameters in the Wi-Fi network to the extent of the capabilities of the specific Wi-Fi network.

Examples of advanced QoS features are the Aptilo Automatic Bandwidth Balancer function where all available bandwidth is evenly distributed among active user sessions, or Aptilo Dynamic Bandwidth Throttling where a user gets a “bucket” of data and bandwidth is automatically and gradually throttled down as the “bucket” is consumed.

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Applying policies from the Aptilo Service Management Platform: An alternative solution is to provision policies for the Wi-Fi sessions in the service management system for the Wi-Fi service.

We have been working with Wi-Fi policies ever since our first deployment back in 2001. Over the years Aptilo’s Wi-Fi policy control solution evolved to also work as a standard 3GPP PCRF (Policy and Charging Rules Function) and it is

still live in some large scale 3G/LTE deployments. Since then we have decided to focus on our core business Wi-Fi. This history has given us the most powerful and advanced Wi-Fi pol-icy engine in the business. The Aptilo SMP Wi-Fi Policy PCRF+ core, proven in large-scale Wi-Fi deployments globally, has all the 3GPP diameter interfaces in place for a successful Wi-Fi offload deployment.

Billing of the user in the Wi-Fi networkDepending on the business model the mobile operator may want to bill users in the Wi-Fi network or deny access if their prepaid accounts are depleted.

Prepaid billing: For prepaid billing, the optional built-in prepaid system in the Aptilo Mobile Data Offloading solution can check-out quota (credits, time and/or Mb) from the mobile operator’s prepaid system (PPS). This can be done via Aptilo’s Quota Provider API or via Diameter Gy. Usage is then reported back to the prepaid system. Alternatively Aptilo’s solution can act independently from the mobile core as the prepaid system for Wi-Fi usage and get top-up via integration with the mobile operator’s self-care portal.

Post-paid billing: For postpaid billing, Aptilo’s Mobile Data Offload-ing solution can send Charging Data Records (CDRs) and account-ing data to the mobile operator’s billing system.

Full integration with mobile core through Diameter

The Aptilo SMP EAP-SIM/AKA functionality, the Diameter conversion functionality and/or Aptilo ServiceGlue work in concert to provide a mobile data offloading experience that is seamless not only for the subscriber but for the mobile core as well. Policies can be retrieved from different sources via the Diameter Gx interface and the Aptilo IDI and then be translated to the corresponding parameters and mecha-nisms in the Wi-Fi network. With Aptilo’s Diameter conversion func-tionality, operators can transparently control and charge for services via standard Diameter (Gx, Gy and Gz) interfaces in the Wi-Fi network with the same mechanisms that they are using in the 3G/4G network.

Wi-Fi usage statistics to facilitate roamingEven if the end-users are not billed for the service, usage still needs to be monitored for mediation and rating with roaming partners such as WISPs and roaming aggregators, and for the purpose of understand-ing user behavior and how much data traffic has been offloaded.

Aptilo SMP features a flexible and automatic reporting facilitat-ing mediation with WISP partners. Each WISP can be defined as a “zone” for easy and accurate reporting.

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Offloading is more than 3GPP integration With our 100+ carrier-class Wi-Fi service provider deployments, we know that there is much more to offloading than just the mobile core integration.

Learn more in our “Carrier-Class Wi-Fi” data sheet how Aptilo can help you to deploy a solution that supports all kind of devices and venues including functions for Guest Internet Access, BYOD and Hotel billing and more.

For more information about Aptilo’s support for the standard 3GPP Wi-Fi access, please read our “Aptilo in 3GPP Wi-Fi access” Feature Brief.

Do not miss our two white papers “Seamless Wi-Fi Offload a business opportunity today” and “Seamless Wi-Fi Offload from vision to reality”.

90 seconds about Aptilo and why operators must go Wi-Fi !https://youtu.be/zx2nUs-hJv0