Stoke and Kineto take contrasting approaches to carrier offload

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Stoke and Kineto take contrasting approaches to carrier offload

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 13 January, 2010

READ MORE: Stoke | Kineto Wireless | Core Network

Offloading data traffic from the mobile network at the earliest opportunity, before it can overwhelm the system's scarce resources, is increasingly seen as a way to address the looming capacity crunch. Two specialists, Stoke and Kineto Wireless, have announced wins this week, taking very different approaches.

Stoke, working with integrator Net One Systems, is to provide its mobile broadband gateway to NTT DoCoMo, which is also an investor in the US-based firm. DoCoMo will use the Stoke Session Exchange (SSX) 3000 in its LTE network, which it will roll out from later this year.

The Japanese carrier already uses Stoke technology, including a deployment of SSX-3000 for its femtocell service. Now the gateway will be deployed to aggregate LTE base stations and support multinetwork access within DoCoMo's all-IP infrastructure.

This product sits at the edge of the network, integrating an IP access gateway plus session and mobility managers, removing many functions and burdens from the core network.

These include the identification and offloading of traffic that does not need to go via the core, to the internet; encryption; femtocell or ASN gateway; and mobility management. It can handle seamless movement of subscribers and data between different RANs including LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi and others.

Barry Hill, VP of sales and marketing at Stoke, told Rethink Wireless recently: "The fixed IP guys realized they must have a flat distributed network, with edge technologies, content data networks - in other words, get the traffic on and off the networks as quickly as possible, and do not have centralization in any form." KT of Korea is also a Stoke customer, focusing on mobile offload.

Over at Kineto, best known for its fixed/mobile convergence solutions using UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access), the firm as added a Smart Wi-Fi Offload system to its range. This turns existing Wi-Fi access points into seamless extensions of a mobile network, so that smartphones can receive all mobile services over Wi-Fi, including voice, SMS, data and services based on IMS. Most approaches involving dual-mode phones only offload web traffic.

With this system, the operator can offload larger amounts of traffic to Wi-Fi, says Kineto. A rising number of carriers are taking control of the WLans themselves, as AT&T did when it acquired Wayport.

Wi-Fi offload can also be used to improve coverage inside buildings, and gives carriers the flexibility to offer discounted WLan-based calling plans, to remain competitive against mobile VoIP specialists.

Smart Wi-Fi Offload has two components. The Smart Wi-Fi application is preloaded onto phones or downloaded from stores for most major OSs. This handles smart routing and offload to the internet, directing premium services over a secure connection to the core network. The other componenet is the Multiservice Access Gateway, which links to the core, supporting a range of interfaces. Two of these were pioneered by Kineto - 3GPP GAN, based on UMA, which is the basis of fixed/mobile convergence offerings based on Wi-Fi and 3G; VoLGA, for voice and SMS over LTE/IP; plus 3GPP Home NodeB, the standard for femtocells, which uses the Iuh interface.