4G Americas says integrating cellular and Wi-Fi is critical to meeting capacity demands

4G Americas has published a whitepaper, Integration of Cellular and Wi-Fi Networks, which makes specific recommendations to enhance key components in Wi-Fi/Cellular integration.

The whitepaper focuses on enhancing Wi-Fi network selection and traffic steering, referred to as Intelligent Network Selection (INS) enabled by Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF).  Using ANDSF for Wi-Fi network selection can contribute to better network performance and lead to improved user experience.

According to 4G Americas, fundamental aspects to Wi-Fi include seamless service / session continuity, QoS, security, Hotspot 2.0 and concepts of INS; ANDSF, its technical background and existing challenges for ANDSF-based INS; and device aspects of network selection and traffic steering, current standards and solutions and gaps in existing standards work.

Networks are getting congested with mobile and video traffic. The Wi-Fi technology standards are uniquely positioned to complement existing cellular networks given its adoption and harmonized unlicensed global spectrum allocation.

4G-Americas

According to Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas, service providers need to improve Wi-Fi and Cellular interworking for ubiquitous mobile broadband access.

4G Americas reviews the standardization work in 3GPP for a network-based mobility mechanism (SaMOG). This technology option supports tight integration of Trusted Wi-Fi networks with 3GPP Cellular networks and is identified as the best path forward.

Subscribers can move between LTE and Trusted Wi-Fi networks while preserving their IP address and allowing access to Operator Services over Wi-Fi (IP Multimedia Subsystem or IMS), the report said.

4G Americas also recommends the use of WPA2 airlink encryption and SIM-based credentials for authentication purposes by dual mode devices that support both Wi-Fi and Cellular accesses. It explores how to enable real-time services and end-to-end Quality of Service over an integrated Trusted Wi-Fi network.

The 4G Americas project was supported by AT&T and Ericsson.

AT&T thinks the integration of Wi-Fi and Cellular will provide a benefit to both operators and their customers.

Ericsson said Wi-Fi is one of the tools in the toolkit for operators to meet the increasing demand for mobile broadband connectivity, especially indoors, and to help mitigate resulting network capacity concerns.

editor@telecomlead.com

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