TELUS Mobility, which provides more than 3 million clients across Canada with a full suite of wireless voice, Internet and data services, has selected Tatara to provide components for Wi-Fi roaming and cdma (1X) interoperability.
The Tatara Wi-Fi Service Delivery Platform allows a carrier to maintain control of its subscribers and to extend advanced services to those subscribers – regardless of what type of network they are using or who operates the network.
Tatara’s Wi-Fi Service Delivery Platform consists of two components – the Tatara Subscriber Gateway and the Tatara Service Manager. Together, they enable a retail service provider to:
- Deliver extensive coverage through a broad set of roaming partners – without compromising the quality of the end customer experience
- Proactively audit partners, manage partner service level agreements and monitor the quality of service that end users experience while roaming
- Support a broad set of pricing plans – including time, volume or session-based prepay plans; plans that account for the actual QOS experienced during a session; and plans that enable incremental pricing for value added service access
Meanwhile Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics will soon introduce 1xRTT and EV-DO chipsets that will compete with Qualcomm’s. TI chips are already in many cell phones and Wi-Fi access points. Qualcomm and TI are suing each other over violations in the licensing agreement.
Intel, on the other hand, wants to team up with gear makers and content providers to develop and co-market new high-bandwidth applications to be used with networks running 802.11g. One possiblity; streaming video on demand from a cable set-top box.
RIM is testing BlackBerrys that can roam between Wi-Fi and cellular networks.
Roaming 802.1X clients are available from Meetinghouse, PCTel, Funk and Padcom among others.
- Meetinghouse, has secure 802.1x client software for Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac, Pocket PC 2002, as well as Palm OS.
- PCTel’s Segue client can work with the centralized Segue Controller which provides user identification and billing solution for carriers and their subscribers. It integrates a network of Segue Hot Spot gateways with the backend systems for roaming support from other authorized providers.
- Funk’s Radius software and AdmitOne VPN Client for Pocket PC lets you set up a highly secure end-to-end connection.
A new standard governing how global partners can share Wi-Fi roaming revenue will soon be available. The Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (IPDR.org), has approved the WLAN Accounting and Settlement (WLANAS) service specification, which is designed to standardize settlement costs among hot spot operators and home service providers.
The standard, says IPDR.org, supports native environments for various Wi-Fi providers, including GSM, CDMA, WISP, ISP and wireline.
IPDR.org has forged a partnership with the Wi-Fi Alliance to enable the two organizations to work together on enabling public WLANs.
