As many of us know, internet & MMS traffic are the most
used data service types as of today. Streaming video, Corporate Intranet, Cloud
services, VoD are gearing to take the customer experience to new levels . Still
there are some of the fundamental issues to be dealt for a brighter win-win
situation across the entire ecosystem of mobile telecom industry (Mobile Broadband
+ Voice) across the globe.
It is evident that offering mobile broadband using “LTE”
technology is more efficient then any other existing one at present. LTE
networks are mostly being built on existing 3G/2G Core Network infrastructures
like SGSN/GGSN by duly upgrading them as MME/SGW respectively.
But the important big question is still on the “UE”
Manufacturing.
There are big dilemmas like create only Dongle and move to
VoLTE and get voice services or manufacture multi radio support capable
handsets or not.
It is well known truth the Frequency Bands going o be one of
the deciding factors of these questions.
For an example iPhone 5 supports few LTE Bands. And the
handsets available in non US countries too but can it supports the frequency
bands of those countries which may allocate different one than US?
This is an example of the main topic we are about to step
into...APN
What is APN?
As explained in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Point_Name
Access
Point Name (APN) is a configurable network identifier used by a
mobile device when connecting to a Mobile Services carrier. The carrier will
then examine this identifier to determine what type of network connection
should be created, for example: what IP addresses should be assigned to the
wireless device, what security methods should be used, and how or if, it should
be connected to some private customer network.
More
specifically, the APN identifies the packet
data network (PDN), that a mobile data user wants to communicate
with. In addition to identifying a PDN, an APN may also be used to define the
type of service, (e.g. connection to wireless
application protocol (WAP) server, multimedia
messaging service (MMS)), that is provided by the PDN. APN is used
in 3GPP data access networks, e.g. general packet
radio service (GPRS), evolved
packet core (EPC).
So it is evident that APN helps the network to determine
proper routing of the data packets.
Nokia, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Samsung (Bada-OS) &
iPhone (iOS 6) - All of them support
multiple APN-Application Context Names. But phones loaded with android OS
offers only one APN definitions and which is applicable for any applications invoked
in that particular phone as explained simply in the following Figure-2.
Figure-1 3GPP R8 Standard Architecture
Figure-2 Dats Service Types & APN Usage
Impact 1: Unnecessary load for GGSN in finding the proper
route towards MMSC/Other services.
Solution 1: Based on the specific MMSC Proxy address, DNS
can provide the routing,
Disadvantage: DNS Capacity is compromised.
Impact 2 : QoS treatment will not be proper. QoS to be
differentiated based on invoked service based on the invoked service rather
than applying a standard profile HLR passes differential QoS to SGSN if
subscribed differently. Even SGSN itself can alter the QoS according the requested
APN. But not as per the requested “SERVICE” if that comes via the same APN.
SGSN don’t have the ability to treat a particular type of traffic within an
established DATA PIPE (i.e. GTP Tunnel).
Disadvantage: Customer experience compromised. Normally for such bad performances the network will be vivtim to pay the price whereas the issue lies somewhere else which is not easy for all to understand.
Solution 2: It is important that Android Platform to have
multiple APN Definition capability as per 3GPP standard and each of the
service/application should have the freedom to choose appropriate APNs based on
manual /OTA Push configurations.
This discussions is more about QoS handling in the Um/Uu & Gb/IuPS interface.
Part 2 : End and Conclusion
