WORKING GROUP UPDATE

Inter-Working, Roaming Expert Group (IREG)

IREG

IREG experts meet in Hong Kong

The Inter-Working and Roaming Expert Group (IREG) is the GSMA working group that specifies technical, operational and performance recommendations and solutions that support international roaming and interconnection, taking into account Technology evolutions. This Newsletter presents key topics covered during the last IREG#63 meeting held in Toronto, Canada on 2nd to 5th October 2012, with many thanks to the host, Telus. The meeting was attended by more than 100 delegates from all over the world.
IREG #63 began with an opening address from the IREG Chair, Alfonso Della Fera, from Telecom Italia and a welcome message from Mr. Shuming Li, Director, Technology Strategy from Telus. This was the first time that the structure of the Plenary changed to place Subgroups in the middle of the week in order to have more strict interaction between Plenary and Subgroups. During the meeting, the following key topics were presented:

Connected Living: Service Aware Roaming

IREG has also supported the CLSAR project outcome to identify the importance of a seamless roaming experience for M2M communications (including permanent roaming) and the need for improved QoS mechanisms introduced by Policy Charging & Control that will make roaming QoS management easier for 3G and LTE devices..

Alfonso Della Fera, IREG Chair Email: Alfonso

HOT TOPICS IP eXchange (IPX)

Delegates were briefed on the status of the analysis of the new IPX model suggested by some Operators and the action points based on the pillars of their proposal: Core network, Voice Service, GPRS data roaming and Transport. An interesting discussion was held on the new proposed IPX Release Management process and the need to restructure IR.34 to more clearly differentiate between GRX and the IPX wider services. The IPX session also covered the Quality of Service and the Key Performance Indicators that the IPX community may implement to guarantee and end to end Service Level Agreement and how this can be shared with the Mobile Operators.

Non-service related signalling/HLR lookup

In a joint effort with different WGs, IREG has cooperated in the clarification of use cases and rules to pass mobile users network identification (IMSI and MSC Id) to other members. There is a need for protection of the queried Mobile Operator network integrity to prevent unexpected signalling queries imbalance generating network failures. This has brought GSMA to agree a dedicated clause in BA.27 ruling the use of HLR/Signalling queries that can be referred in the roaming and interworking agreements.

Itsuma Tanaka IREG Deputy Chair and PACKET Chair

VoLTE Roaming Testing

The VoLTER Task Force has been working in the new testing document IR.25 to replicate as much as possible, IR.24. IR.25 defines the basic tests for VOLTE roaming The work was expected to be approved in SIGNAL in January 2013.

Technical Security aspects

IREG was briefed on cases of security under sustained attack and the operators recommendation. He also introduced the activities of the different SG Subgroups: CEIR Technical User Group, Mobile Malware Group, Handset Security Steering Group, Signalling Security Group (SIGSG) and the current SG work items.

HD Voice
The HD Voice logo keeps on expanding and GSMA has already issued 16 licences based on the compliancy to the requirements published in June 2012. GSMA has launched different marketing campaigns to promote the use. And during the Plenary, SIGNAL presented the extension of the IR.36 requirements for approval to cover the HD Voice deployment over CDMA 2000.

Jose Antonio Aranda Legazpe IREG Director Email: Jose

Roaming Hubbing
SIGNAL has been liaising with the Roaming Hubbing Steering Group to improve the peering processes between Hubs. IREG is expected to progress on a simplification of the testing procedures and RHSG will provide inputs for technical requirements to RAEX IR.85

Wifi Roaming
IREG has been actively contributing to the Wi-Fi roaming related activities and the outcome was a review of IR.61 and IR.62 to remove non SIM authentication, add some Radius requirements, and add the compliancy with Hot Spot 2.0. A Liaison Statement was presented containing the IREG views about different topics being discussed within the WiFi TF.

RCS 5.0 and 5.1

The joyn accreditation process is progressing well and at the moment four operator networks have been accredited in Spain and Germany. Eleven devices and clients have been accredited. IREG is contributing to the RCS work with future changes to IR.90 and IR.39 to comply with the RCS 5.1 specifications.

Nicola Witney IREG Coordinator Email: Nicola

November 2012

https://infocentre2.gsma.com

2013 RAEX IR.21 Application update

There has been intensive activity on RAEX; the RAEX TF has organised different training sessions where the rationale of the tool was presented, how to access the application, key structure and functionality, new aspects of the 2012 release, RAEX contest and the application support resources.

o Internet Society o GSMA North America o GSMA Latin America o GSMA Asia Pacific o 3GPP IREGs relationship with 3GPP is particularly active again considering the number of 20 liaisons exchanged in the last semester. You can access the updates here.

IREG

HDVC
An open group of operators and manufacturers have collaborated to jointly agree on the usage of existing and emerging open standards for high quality video conferencing and communication. The result, a technical profile which enables an inter-operable and open solution for HD Video Communication, ( HDVC) bringing opportunities at GSMA to endorse HDVC.

IREG WORKING GROUP ACTIVITIES

The IREG Chair presented the result of last years Work Plan. He confirmed that the Group had delivered all expected work items.

Brbel Henschke, SIGNAL Chair

RILTE
RILTE highlighted there is a high degree of interest with more than 250 delegates on the RILTE list, and that a key activity has been on the IR.92 versioning proposal (not backwards compatible). Delegates were provided a summary of the CRs and new PRDs presented for IREG approval affecting IR.39, IR.58, IR.64, IR.65, IR.92 & IR.94.

IPv6
The ISOC informed delegates of the World IPv6 Launch day which happened in June 12 and attendees were briefed on the access networks involved, the measurements results, the home router vendors, participant websites and the traffic impact. It was also noticed that the most important OTTs already support IPv6 (Google have already 1% of their traffic in IPv6). Delegates were invited to participate in a similar initiative.

PACKET
PACKET currently discusses anything related to IP (Data Roaming, IP Interworking and many more (WiFi, IPv6, or EM)). The main topics discussed in PACKET are: support of S4-SGSN, CS Fallback, QoS for GPRS/LTE, RCS-e/ signalling QoS on IPX, eENUM, WiFi, Root DNS and the CRs and new PRDs presented for IREG approval affecting: IR.33, IR.34, IR.61, IR.67, and IR.88

Michele Zarri, RILTE Chair

OTHER MAIN TOPICS

The IREG Plenary also provided delegates with the chance to learn more about the status of several technical initiatives: o VoLTE profile o New IMS Initiatives o PSMC news o Infocentre 2 o Roaming Simplification o IMEI Monitoring Service o Application Efficiency o Roaming Regulations o BARG Compliancy Initiative Check the IREG Infocentre page to download all the presentations.

SIGNAL
The topics addressed in SIGNAL are: IR.85 approval of MCR02 , ready for RAEX, BARG RING new PRD BA.48 Embedded Mobile roaming principles, approval of many CRs to IR.21 including the confidentiality, extension of HD Voice Logo requirements to CDMA terminals. IR.21 confidentiality and SS7 fraud prevention activities together with SIGSG.

GRXIPX
The topics addressed in GRXIPX are: IR.34 restructure, E2E QoS and KPIs framework, access to Root DNS and IPX documents proposed by 5 Operators.

Paul Arrowsmith, GRXIPX Chair

INTERNATIONAL GROUPS
IREG continues to follow closely the activities of other international Groups. During the Plenary, the attendees were updated on the status of the activities of other GSMA Working Groups such as IWG, BARG, TADIG, SG and TSG. The IREG meeting in Toronto also received updates from:

IREG future meeting

The next IREG plenary will be on 5th 8th March 2013 Shenzhen, China kindly hosted by Huawei. Please feel free to circulate this newsletter amongst your colleagues working on roaming and interworking technical activities. To join the IREG mailing list, please request membership via the IREG Homepage. If you are interested in reading more details about IREG #62, please download the meeting minutes here.

Fiorucci Fabrizio, RAEXTF Chair

For more information please contact the IREG Director:

Mr. Jose Antonio Aranda Legazpe, GSM Association jaranda@gsm.org

IREG#63

November 2012

https://infocentre2.gsma.com