Mar 15, 1999 12:00 PM,

Putting the Zip in IP

Rhonda Wickham

IP network development was the buzz for Wireless 1999. If you didn't pick up on the inordinate number of new datacom vendor names such as Cisco and Ascend, then you definitely would have heard it in the aisles. The newsflash is that IP is the new white horse that will enable wireless carriers to handle data in the future.

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Traditionally, wireless carriers have been the specialists in circuit-switched networks to handle their predominantly mobile voice traffic. They even have used those networks for carrying limited data traffic over CDPD networks. However, as data moves from 2% of all wireless traffic today to more than 23% by 2002, carriers will need to transform their networks not only for packet data but also to handle the increased traffic more efficiently. That is where IP telephony comes in.

"The future calls for networks that are optimized for a variety of applications requiring a mix of voice and data, wireline and wireless, circuit- and packet-switched elements," said Sohail Qadri, British Telecom director of mobility.

Rod Nelson, AT&T Wireless CTO, agreed.

"We believe the future of wireless in the 3G era is in high-speed access and packet switching to deliver true multimedia services," he said.

Until recently, ATM seemed to be the logical choice for telecom carriers to support voice, video and data on their networks. However, it appears that IP telephony is the new plan for moving carriers from traditional circuit-switched network architectures to next-generation, IP-optimized, packet-based networks.

What IP offers is lower network operational cost and greater speed in bringing services to market. According to John Roth, Northern Telecom Limited vice chairman & CEO, "The promise of mobile data and Internet services as convenient and ubiquitous as wireless phone service can be realized only with a profound, fundamental change in the cost of operating wireless networks."

Nortel, which introduced its Mobile Webtone at Wireless 1999, plans to provide a path by which it will reduce the cost of operating a mobile network. According to Roth, that goal is to reduce the carrier's cost per megabit in a typical mobile network from 37cents to 4cents in five years.

"We are keenly interested in network improvements that will allow us to reduce our operations costs while improving productivity," said Keith Paglusch, Sprint PCS vice president of technical services and network operations.

Sprint currently is working with both Nortel and Lucent to incorporate IP telephony, Nortel with its Mobile Webtone and Lucent with its advanced, packet-based network architecture.

"Our investment in cdmaOne is extensive," said Sprint PCS' Paglusch. For that reason, he indicated that it was important that Sprint gets what it needs to service the packet-data market from its existing infrastructure.

According to Bill Wiberg, Lucent president of AMPS and PCS, the Investment Protection Option future-proofs the network as carriers move into 3G.

Other IP Connections

Probably one of the most notable entrees from the datacom side was Cisco's teaming with Motorola to develop wireless networks built on an open, IP-based architecture. According to Maureen "Moe" Grzelakowski, Motorola vice president & general manager of marketing for the network solutions sector, Motorola and Cisco plan to bring their plan to market in three phases over the next five years delivering packet-based data services, deploying a backbone infrastructure and then providing an end-to-end infrastructure solution.

In the same vein, Nokia Telecommunications launched an IP & access solutions division, which will combine its own competencies as well as acquired IP and datacom products.

"Growth in datacom will be driven by the explosion in Internet usage," said Kari Suneli, Nokia senior vice president of IP & access solutions. According to Suneli, as the volume of data traffic in the networks continues to increase, Nokia will be matching it with access and service platforms for both carriers and Internet service providers.

One of its first steps was its acquisition of Diamond Lane Communications. The company has developed a multiservice digital subscriber line access multiplexer that increases Internet access speeds up to 125 times faster than current 56kb/s modems over existing telecom networks. This acquisition gives Nokia a critical element driving development of the next wave of communications network infrastructure -- IP and ATM broadband access networks.

But not everyone believes that end-to-end IP networks are the end-all, be-all for wireless carriers. When asked about the major trend at the show, Kevin Keough, Inet vice president of new business development, called it, "IP vaporware."

"IP as a transport, sure. But to rely on it for everything, no way," Keough said. He suggested that IP telephony is hot now much the same as ATM a couple of years ago. Although he admitted that both ATM and IP would provide carriers with the same datacom capability, he didn't think either one would serve as the wireless panacea. He said that diversity is the best thing for wireless carriers.

Chris Resavy, Omnipoint senior director of network & information services, offered a carrier perspective.

"In the short term, it may not be the panacea," he said. "The panacea for us now is to stimulate more competition in the CLEC environment. IP gives us an alternate mode for interconnection that allows us to reduce our costs and pass it on to the customer."

In the long term, however, it probably doesn't matter what type of transport or gateway is used. Wireless carriers are looking to reduce their costs of operation. If it gives them the desired data-centricity as well as reduces the overall operation cost, it probably doesn't much matter what name it goes by.

If there is any question about the future impact of data on the wireless network, take a look at some facts.

* 2.7 trillion e-mails were sent in 1998.

* Internet traffic is doubling every 100 days. More than 100 million additional Internet users are expected to come on-line by 2001.

* 78% of North American Internet users also are mobility users.

Today: Circuit-Switched

Tomorrow: Packet-Switched

Today: Voice-Centric

Tomorrow: Voice- and Data-Centric

Today: Person-to-Person

Tomorrow: Person-to-Person and Machine-to-Machine

Today: Interwork with POTS

Tomorrow: Interwork with Internet/Intranets