InterDigital, Ping Tan, Senior Staff Engineer Smart Access Manager

Rory Moore:- CES 2014, CEO CommNexus, here with Ping Tan. Ping’s with InterDigital.

And if you’ve been at a football game, baseball game, any kind of sporting event, one of the things that you miss when you’re home is that instant replay from various angles. It’s been able to get on Wi-Fi, to understand all the different services and activities that are occurring at the stadium. You can’t do that.

What we have here is a technology and a design that InterDigital’s completed that’ll enable you, as a fan, to enjoy the same experience you have at home at the stadium, and be there in person.

Ping Tan:All right. Yes. So, here, we have a smart-access manager. And what this is, is actually, you know, it gives intelligence, and, you know, it has also seamless, and, also, it’s secure.

So, on the device - I have a device here - that, you know, anywhere that you are - when you’re at home, at the stadium, or anywhere else, you know - at a shopping mall - you would have the best-available network that can be connected, you know.

And we also monitor, you know, the quality of user experience. So, when you’re connected to a Wi-Fi, and, you know, the Wi-Fi quality is bad, the device knows about that, and it will, you know, use another network.

So, let me show you - for example, you’re talking about the stadium. If you’re at a stadium, the device, you know, receive a [pulse E] from, you know, a server, and you are automatically connected to, you know, this network, stadium Wi-Fi.

What if the stadium Wi-Fi is bad? What happens there? So, let’s generate some congestion, you know, on the stadium Wi-Fi. And you’re automatically connected to the next-best network.

So, this provides the best available network anywhere, and is seamless to the end user - and also provides, you know, the operators to be able to push pulse Es, and improve their network.

Rory Moore:So, for the fan in the stands, they’re on a Wi-Fi at the stadium. They’re receiving content from the stadium. They’re receiving replay and camera vantage points they’re not able to see unless they’re at home. So, now they can see that replay, see a different perspective of the game on their handset.

Even though they’ve seen it live, they can review it, they can see player statistics, video about the history of players. All that can be free on their Wi-Fi while they’re at the stadium.

Ping Tan:Right. So, you know, we provide, you know, this ability for users to be able to connect, you know, wherever they are - even at places where - in stadiums, where there’s a lot of congestion. And even when you get connected to a Wi-Fi network, you know, you may not be able to, you know, stream what you want to see.

But, you know, with this, we know the condition of networks, and we provide the best network available, be it cellular or Wi-Fi. So, we manage, you know, the networks that are available to you so you could connect to it.

Rory Moore:And InterDigital creates the software to do this.

Smart Access Manager Demo with Bob Gazda

Bob: Hello my name is Bob [Gazda] and we’re here at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam. Here at Inter Digital we’re displaying our smart access manager client technology. This is an intelligent data offload client that runs on end users’ devices and it bridges the gap between Wi-Fi networks and other networks providing an always-best connected experience.

So, in today’s world we very much live in a world of network of networks. So, there are Wi-Fi networks overlaid with cellular networks. One network may be congested while at the same time another network is being under-utilized. Our technology is blending these networks together to provide a seamless always-best connected experience to the mobile end user while at the same time providing a network operator the tools that they could best utilize their network resources.

Now the smart access manager is an intelligent data offload client that runs on end user terminal devices like smartphones and tablets. It’s very important to have a client component within the Wi-Fi offload solution to provide flexibility and adaptability in Wi-Fi cellular integration. To a greater degree that can be accomplished with network-only solutions or also proprietary-based solutions.

Our smart access manager client is implementing what is known as the access network selection and discovery function, sometimes referred to as ANDSF, which is a standard component included in the 3GPP.

So, here let’s take a look at our device and we’ll see an example of one of these policies. The smart access manager implements release 8 through release 11 of the 3GPP ANDSF standard. A key access of the standard is providing Wi-Fi preference ratings down to the device to help it make selection decisions to connect to the most appropriate network.

Now the smart access manager takes into consideration both the policy that’s received from the network and then also the real time conditions that are seen on the device. This is extremely important to make that best-connected type of experience.

So, in this policy we have three Wi-Fi networks that are included in the policy. We have a home office Wi-Fi, which is the top ranking, a passpoint Wi-Fi as a second, and also an alliance Wi-Fi. Now the smart access manager is also including hotspot 2.0 as part of its capability. We monitor our hotspot 2.0 parameters as part of network selection. The home office is currently not in range so we’re not connected. Since the passport Wi-Fi is the most highly ranked and in-range Wi-Fi that’s what we’re connected to. And then the alliance Wi-Fi is also in range but we’re not currently connected.

So, now I’m going to demonstrate how the smart access manager reacts to congestion conditions as they occur in real time. So, I’m going to inject congestion into the passport Wi-Fi network. When the smart access manager detects this congestion it’s going to react accordingly. One of the parameters that we monitor is something called the BSS load. The BSS load is a measure of air interface congestion on the Wi-Fi network. And you can see I’ve crossed over a threshold that I have set and the smart access manager has disconnected from the passpoint Wi-Fi. We’ve temporarily banned this network due to the congestion conditions and we’ve selected the alliance Wi-Fi, which is our third-preferenced network.

Now the smart access manager is going to periodically reevaluate these networks. We’ll see now it’s reevaluating passpoint Wi-Fi. The congestion conditions are still in play so we’re once again going to ban that network and we’ll be disconnecting from it and selecting the alliance Wi-Fi. Now if I remove the congestion the smart access manager is also going to detect this situation and react accordingly. We’ll see it reselect passpoint Wi-Fi. Now the smart access manager is once again selecting the passpoint Wi-Fi based on the operator-preferred policy.

So, at Inter Digital we have our smart access manager client available both for Android devices and for IOS devices. I’m going to be showing a demonstration of the SAM becoming installed for the first time on a user’s iPhone device, getting an initial policy download from the ANDSF server and then making a Wi-Fi network selection based on that policy.

So, here we have the SAM client installed on my iPhone. I’m going to accept the conditions around the application. As part of the bootstrapping process an SMS message is going to be sent to the server to bootstrap the device and we’re now registering with the server. Once this registration is complete a Wi-Fi configuration profile is going to be sent to the device and then we’re going to be under SAM Wi-Fi control. So, the profile is now being downloaded and it’s available via a web URL link. The profile is now available for installation. I’m going to click install. Oh, it’s done. We can take a look at some details of what’s in this policy.

So, you can see we have four Wi-Fi networks that are part of the policy we’ve received from the ANDSF server. The operator Wi-Fi is going to be the preferred network. And you can see our device is already connected to Wi-Fi. You can see our Wi-Fi connection is now established and we’re connected to the operator Wi-Fi, which is the highest preferred network in our ANDSF policy. So, an aspect of our ANDSF policy is separate devices and separate users can be managed independently of each other. We have an example of that between our iPad device and our iPhone device. Both of these devices have the smart access manager client installed. We have a very small example policy on how they can be separated into two user groups.

The iPhone has the ability to select between two networks, operator and partner, while the iPad only has the ability to select the operator Wi-Fi network. This is just an example of how an offload policy can be tailored between two different users or between two different device types.

To illustrate the dynamic nature of the Wi-Fi offload policy I’m going to adjust the Wi-Fi networks that the iPhone device is allowed to use in its policy. So, I’m just going to remove the operator Wi-Fi and I’m going to insert the partner Wi-Fi. We’ll see the device react to this change in policy. Now to show the policy change I’m going to disable the Wi-Fi on the device and then I’m going to re-enable the Wi-Fi network and we’ll see it adjust based on the new policy that we’ve set.

Now our device is going to start scanning for Wi-Fi again. We’ll see our two networks come into range, both operator Wi-Fi and partner Wi-Fi. Now in this case instead of selecting the operator Wi-Fi our device is selecting the partner Wi-Fi. Like I mentioned earlier the smart access manager is implementing through release 11 of the ANDSF standard. A key aspect that was added in release 11 is the application routing policy. This is a way that a device, if connected to Wi-Fi and cellular simultaneously, applications could be steered towards separate network interfaces. That’s what we’re doing here in our example. We’re streaming YouTube video while we’re simultaneously streaming DailyMotion Video. We have a separate policy for these two applications. The YouTube video is being modeled or managed as a best-effort Internet service. An over-the-top Internet service. It’s going to be a sign to any Wi-Fi network that the device may come in contact with.

That could include the Wi-Fi policy that was received in the ANDSF rules. Or it could be user wireless LANs that the end user may have connected to outside of the ANDSF policy. The DailyMotion video is being treated as or managed as an operator service. So, this application will either route through the operator’s Wi-Fi network or the cellular network and will be banned or blocked from any other Wi-Fi network outside of the operator’s infrastructure. We can see we’re streaming both of these videos simultaneously.

Now if we take a look at the trooper traffic you can see the amount of traffic the DailyMotion video is taking on the 3GPP or the cellular network. And then simultaneously the YouTube traffic is routing via the Wi-Fi network.

The smart access manager is an intelligent data offload and traffic management client for Android and IOS devices. Being a client application it can take advantage of the contextual information that is available only on the client. One of the real time conditions of the networks that the device is seeing, what’s the context of the user. It provides automatic, seamless Wi-Fi cellular connectivity to the user providing the mobile end user an always-best connected experience. And lastly our solution is centered on standards. So, we’re implementing the ANDSF standard, which is a key component for scalability as this technology rolls out into the marketplace. SAM, smart access manager, broadband management, Bob Gazda, solutions

SAM Demo Interview with Bob Gazda

Male Voice: So, I’m with Bob Gazda. Bob’s with our team that’s doing smart access management research. Bob, what are we looking at here?

Bob Gazda: Here, we have our smart access manager client. This is a connectivity mobility solution that runs on a user’s handset. The idea is to provide a seamless, invisible network experience to mobile users. I care about the content that I want; not necessarily my network connections. But then at the same time we can provide a policy framework that allows a network owner or network operator to manage their network assets, take advantage of Wi-Fi networks in conjunction or in combination with cellular networks, and then we can intelligently match application traffic to those networks.

Male Voice: In terms of market this is kind of at the intersection where operator meets device, right? You’ve got something running on the device that helps you manage the policies and policy control but one of the advantages is for operators as well, correct?

Bob Gazda: Exactly. So, operators are deploying their own Wi-Fi networks so it’s very common. And as an operator I can have a congested cellular network while right next to it I have under-utilized Wi-Fi assets. And this is about being able to take advantage of those assets and do it in a way that’s seamless to the users. So, I’m not bothering somebody with Wi-Fi access and it will happen seamlessly to the mobile user.

Male Voice: Fantastic. Thanks a lot.

SAM Client Software - Commnexus 2013

Smart Access Manager

InterDigital. Smart Access Manager: How it Works.


Context-aware power into off-load, segregate, aggregate traffic. (SAM) Smart Access Manager.


What is SAM? SAM is a policy-driven client that seamlessly navigates connectivity between cellular and Wi-Fi network.


How does SAM work? Service provider has a multitude of adaptable ANDSF policies which are sent to a user’s device.


When a network becomes congested device offloads application to an approved Wi-Fi network. The device manages its connectivity by location, time of day, operator, and user preferences all in real time.


How is SAM used? Dynamic policy control intelligently matches applications to networks by:
1) Smartphone connected through a cellular network. Running apps (streaming audio via LTE; streaming a video feed via LTE)
2) Phone connects and switches to Wi-Fi. Running apps (streaming audio via Wi-Fi; streaming a video feed via Wi-Fi)
3) Phone connects to both cellular and Wi-Fi. Running apps (streaming audio via LTE; streaming a video feed via Wi-Fi)
The result: an efficient combination of policy enforcement, network analytics, knowledge of user content.


What are the benefits of SAM? This solution is unique because it is standards compliant. Users who use our SAM will see these advantages:


User Benefit: consistent and seamless quality of experience for application and services
Service Provider Advantage: Service provider manages network resources efficiently
Application Providers Advantage: Unique capability to map networks and applications. Best-in-class experience, services, and applications anywhere, any networks.
OEM Advantage: Scalable solution enterprise, metro and macro deployments. Closely coordinate and manage Wi-Fi, Femto, 3G, LTE networks.


SAM’s efficiency optimizes resources on the mobile device and improves user experience.

VIDEOS

InterDigital, Ping Tan, Senior Staff Engineer Smart Access Manager

Smart Access Manager Demo with Bob Gazda

SAM Demo Interview with Bob Gazda

SAM Client Software - Commnexus 2013

Smart Access Manager