News
New Direction for Mobile Broadband Project
21 MAY 2010: JANET(UK) aspires to be a 'one stop shop' for networking solutions and expertise, including areas of connectivity provision that are not currently addressed by actual JANET services. On behalf of our customers we monitor technical trends, make judgements, and where appropriate provide advice and support.
One such area is that of mobile data access for personal devices when off-campus. Along with many others, we believe that truly broadband, ubiquitous connectivity to mobile users increases their productivity and opens up new opportunities in teaching and research in the field.
Although at present there is no specific JANET offering that meets this need, there is one broadband wireless technology with which the JANET community is very familiar: 802.11-based WiFi wireless LANs. Wherever eduroam is currently available, education users can get straightforward access to reliable broadband speeds using hardware already present in their platforms of choice. JANET(UK)'s mobile broadband strategy currently focuses, therefore, on extending the footprint of eduroam into more and more social spaces: public transport, libraries, leisure facilities, even 'wireless city' initiatives. There will never be complete national WiFi coverage but in keeping with our fiscal responsibility we can usefully target our efforts to cover locations where most of a user's off-campus time is spent to maximise their mobile connectivity. For example, we are exploring the possibility of introducing eduroam connectivity on public transport vehicles.
An alternative technology for mobile broadband delivery, and also one with which many JANET users will be familiar, is via a 3G USB dongle that can offer telephony-based data. As noted at the recent Network Access event, our Irish colleagues in HEAnet offer such a service in partnership with a national mobile telephony provider.
However, we note that the Irish market is rather different to ours: UK academia doesn't represent as great a proportion of potential subscribers to make commercial concessions likely, but there are too many of us to make direct subsidy feasible. Moreover, surveys detect satisfaction issues among subscribers to 3G data plans at present regarding the speed and price of 3G. The simple fact is that telephony carriers' networks are optimised for call traffic but the mobile data demands of a modern smart phone far exceed this (for example, a typical YouTube clip is the equivalent of half a million SMS messages). JANET(UK) cannot realistically license and install a national radio network ourselves, and there is little our expertise could do to improve the user experience or cost. At present, therefore, we have no plans to involve ourselves with 3G provision.
Future technologies
So what about future technologies? If the bandwidth bottleneck is solved, competition ought to drive down prices, so inherently faster protocols should save the day. We have engaged with WiMAX providers: however, at present there is no national infrastructure across which to offer a service. A campus-by-campus rollout could be envisaged but excellent wireless mobility on and between campuses is already provided with local 802.11 WLANs and the eduroam service, and the individual costs to organisations of deploying their own WiMAX cells (within some kind of agreement with a spectrum licence holder) are considerable. Meanwhile, close on the heels of WiMAX is the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) which is favoured by telephony providers. This is not deployed in the UK yet and may incur licensing costs that will inflate initial data plan pricing when it arrives: however, once it has arrived we will certainly include it in our consideration of current trends.
An excellent talk at this year's Networkshop set out the merits of each of these technologies and the realistic timescales for their realisation. In the medium term, however, we find that neither of these are viable for a national pervasive service.
This is not to say that we have abandoned exploration of alternative technologies and mechanisms; we have approached the market in the hopes of identifying innovative ways to deliver mobile connectivity that can complement our short term approach of expanding eduroam. Equally, we have not forgotten that our sector needs more than simple connectivity in this area: we intend to support researchers working on future wireless standards. As an initial step, we are exploring to what extent availability of reserved spectrum would enable currently-planned research in the UK, with a view to preparing a case to Ofcom for this application. The role of wireless, both as a research topic in itself and as a mobility enabler for education, research, training and cultural activities, is one of the core considerations for the design of the next generation of the JANET network.
In the meantime, our interest in the ways in which you are using mobile data hasn't ended with our formal consultation that finished in January (many thanks if you assisted us with this activity). If you, or your staff or students are doing something interesting in this space, please contact the author! mark.o'leary@ja.net
