On Fri, 2009-03-06 at 19:12 -0600, John Scrivner wrote: > Sadly WISPs have dragged their feet in development of true mobility > and roaming.
There are many reasons for this, some of which make roaming a near impossibility. I have some customers who are doing some things that are very near to one meaning of the term "mobility". If you are referring to the ability to take a device freely from one network to another, then there are ways to accomplish this, given certain criteria are met. If you are referring to Mobile IP, then that is easily accomplished (well, I guess it depends on how "easily" is defined). I have helped a couple of customers build out networks that accomplish both of the above scenarios. > These features are the true differentiators of wireless > broadband over DSL or DOCSIS. Yes, indeed! > The cellular industry is more quickly adapting to the need to move > to an IP centric platform for their mobile voice/data systems than > we are in recognizing the compelling desire of everyone to have > everything available to them everywhere with mobility. There are a multitude of reasons for this, too. Not the least of which is available capital. With the right amount of money, I can build exactly the same network. Another is the junk spectrum we all use, which the cellular companies are not burdened with. IPV6, once widely deployed, will make this easier, too. In fact, the IPv6 standard was developed with mobility in mind. > Land lines are going away and wireless MOBILE phones > are increasing in quantity. WISPs may well lose out in the end if they > do not band together to form interoperability standards for mobile IP, > VoIP, roaming, etc. There are several problems to address to make this happen. First, as I already stated, IPv6 makes many of these problems go away. Secondly, what network technology do we decide on? I mean, you have 802.11x, Canopy, Trango, Alvarion and a host of others that are not in any way compatible. Even supposing you pick a standard such as 802.11x (it is, after all, more widely used than most other non-standard protocols), there are problems that come with this set of protocols that are difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. Even at the link layer, it is far too slow to be called "mobile" just in terms of switching from tower to tower (ap to ap is abetter description). I'm not sure you'd ever convince Canopy WISPs to use 802.11 any quicker than you'd convince 802.11 users to switch to Canopy. > Last I checked there is not a single WISPA member > network out there which is fully mobile with integrated roaming with > another operator. There is at least one of my customers who is a WISPA member AND has partnership agreements with 2 other WISPs. The system we have built uses 802.11a/b/g (all three, actually), RADIUS for auth and we have a mobile IP solution available for those customers who have need of such a solution (it is an add-on pay service). I am under NDA with one of the partners in this group and I cannot give names, but perhaps that person/company will step up and respond. > If any of you have built a truly good mobility roaming gateway > solution which allows for WISPs to tie their networks together > and offer mobility then I welcome some feedback on the subject. I've shared as much as I am able. Suffice it to say that there are some networks out there that are offering the kind of advanced services you are describing. The big issue is interoperability of gear. That has to be in place first, then the rest can be built. > What about truly mobile and roaming capable voice services over IP? Take a look at my blog. I have done some really neat things in the past with mobile IP services. Some of these are ongoing as we speak. > Anyone out there ever build the equivalent of the > ASN gateway for our networks? I am ready to start negotiating > connection to this and right now we do not even have access to > anything to connect to. The problems are numerous. Building a scalable solution that will fit multiple operators is a real challenge. Some of the challenges will potentially require you and your proposed partner to make significant network design changes. If you have an interest in such a project, let's get together (we can meet in Cape sometime) and see what we can come up with. -- ******************************************************************** * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation* * http://www.butchevans.com/ * Network Engineering * * http://www.wispa.org/ * WISPA Board Member * * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * Wired or Wireless Networks * ******************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
