Ericsson Brings Carrier-Grade Wi-Fi To Mobile Broadband

To ensure users always get the best connection, Ericsson has announced its 3GPP compliant Wi-Fi network access, control and management solutions. These enable mobile operators to easily incorporate Wi-Fi in their heterogeneous network strategy, while delivering a consistently high-performance user experience, even in high traffic areas. Incorporating Wi-Fi is a key focus of tier-one mobile operators.

Key to the user experience is an Ericsson feature that automatically selects the best connection: real-time traffic steering. Ericsson’s real-time traffic steering is a software upgrade that constantly assesses key performance indicators in both the mobile 3GPP network and the Wi-Fi network before dynamically and seamlessly shifting the consumer’s smartphone connection between networks. This ensures the best user experience and optimises network resources. Real-time traffic steering is a network-driven feature requiring no user intervention or additional device software. Ericsson also now supports access selection, a self-optimising network (SON) feature enabling load-balancing between Wi-Fi and 3GPP networks to optimise the average user experience.

Thomas Noren, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio, Ericsson, said, “Heterogeneous network strategies among leading mobile operators are focused on delivering a great mobile broadband experience to their customers, wherever they are. By coordinating licensed small cells with the macro cell, as we announced earlier this year, and intelligently integrating Wi-Fi and 3GPP throughout the network, we’re providing operators with the most effective way to deliver consistently high performance consumer connections.”

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With indoor areas increasingly prone to mobile network congestion, Ericsson has also developed the first 802.11ac access point designed to enable mobile operators to deliver supplemental small cell or standalone Wi-Fi coverage indoors. The 802.11ac standard is common on tablets and increasingly prevalent on smartphones.

Two new cloud-controller options, both featuring 3GPP-standard interfaces to the mobile core, make it easier and more cost-efficient for operators to add Wi-Fi to their existing mobile services. The Ericsson Evo Controller now features a Wi-Fi controller blade, the WIC 8030. A new standalone controller, the WIC 8100, supports up to 10,000 access points and 500,000 concurrent subscribers, allowing operators to consolidate multiple Wi-Fi networks from a centralised location in a cost-efficient way.

Ericsson is also introducing integrated management of Wi-Fi and 3GPP networks on a common platform, simplifying operations and reducing network costs.

These new Wi-Fi 3GPP integration products and features provide complementary and incremental benefits to emerging industry standard features that Ericsson supports, including: Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF), IP session mobility (also referred to as IP address preservation) and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Passpoint (based on the Wi-Fi Alliance Hotspot 2.0 Specification). Ericsson also offers Wi-Fi 3GPP integration solutions to optimise the user experience for operators targeting residential Wi-Fi coverage. Ericsson had also recently announced a new Wi-Fi Gateway application on the Smart Services Router (SSR) which also supports integration of Wi-Fi networks with mobile broadband infrastructure.