Managing the myriad of devices on 4G

Mformation Technologies will have its work cut out for in the coming year. Sprint has selected its device management platform to handle activation, provisioning, diagnostics and management for on its Xohm network, which promises to be nothing like the typical rollout of any wireless network in the past.

Gone are the phone numbers that identify every cellular subscriber and his or her service subscription. Also gone are the unique device-identifying numbers used to provision service and assign numbers to individual phones. Instead, Sprint and other WiMAX operators are left with media access control (MAC) addresses—of which there can be multiple on a single device—and an IP address—which can be reassigned every time a user logs into the network.

“You have to relate multiple IP address and MAC addresses back to a specific person and a specific device,” said Matt Bancroft, chief marketing officer for Mformation. “It’s a much more complicated management task.”

What makes it even more complicated is the fact that those IP and MAC addresses tell the network nothing about the device they are assigned to or the services they support. An IP address is simply a routing number for IP traffic, while a MAC address identifies components of any given WiMAX device without identifying its overall capabilities. Mformation’s Service Manager therefore has to link the device and the subscriber to those manifold and changing addresses, a task it does through access customer service and security information through authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) servers. In the case of Sprint, that AAA data will come from Bridgewater, who is also a Sprint vendor a partner of Mformation.

At its initial launch, Xohm’s device management task will be relatively simple. Most subscribers will be using home gateways or laptop cards, which are fairly easy to configure and provide a relatively simple service: broadband access to a computer or network. But as Sprint builds its WiMAX ecosystem, a variety of different types of devices will appear on the network, all with different service profiles as well as activation issues. Connected MP3 players and mini-computers will have to be configured differently, and the old notion of a single subscriber with a single device will disappear as customers start connecting multiple devices to the network.

The Xohm network as a Sprint-run entity may disappear in a matter of months though. Sprint and Clearwire are set to close on joint venture with outside investors that will combine the two operator’s WiMAX resources. While Mformation is Sprint’s management server provider for both 3G and 4G, it is not a vendor for Clearwire. Bancroft said that Mformation is fairly confident that it can extend its relationship with Sprint to the new Clearwire.

“We have the only solution in the market that does this and we’re the incumbent with Sprint,” Bancroft said. He added that Intel Capital is an investor in Mformation as well as the Clearwire venture. “I think we’re in reasonably good shape.”