Making the Most of Wi-Fi Calling

I
n the time since Apples revelation
that iOS 8 would support a form of Wi-Fi calling, the industry has seen a
barrage of announcements, even TV commercials, around Wi-Fi calling. Come
to find out that many of them are actually existing products and technologies
simply re-spun. A deeper dive into Wi-Fi callings history and characteristics
reveals what is truly needed to properly support this exciting new Apple
capability, as well as other Vo-Fi services.

So What is Wi-Fi Calling?

Sort of like the term cloud, Wi-Fi calling often means different things to
different people.

Simply put, Wi-Fi calling is the ability to place

a voice call using IP encapsulation over a Wi-Fi network, but this can be
implemented in a variety of ways.
The iOS form of Wi-Fi calling is different from so-called over-the-top (OTT)
services like Skype or Lync because it is integrated within the OSs dialer (not
a third- party app) and is architected to work in the same way a Voice over

LTE (VoLTE) call works. Its also being developed to support the transparent
handoff of a call as the user moves between Wi-Fi and LTE coverage areas,
something OTT approaches simply cant do. Its more of an evolution of
about older UMA (unlicensed mobile access) based services, which were
some of the first to support cellular voice services over Wi-Fi. Other
implementations would include services from MVNOs such as republic
wireless and Scratch Wireless.

While these are all examples of Wi-Fi Calling, they have very different
characteristics, raising a number of important questions:

Where does the voice session terminate?

In an IMS core, at a standalone SIP server/gateway, or on a MSC, does
the voice session have to enter an operators core network? If so, how
is the untrusted/trusted border transited?

What codec is used?

How is it encapsulated for transmission?

Is the voice session encrypted?

If so, what are the encryption endpoints?

Is the calling service integrated into the native dialer?

Or does it require a separate app?

Does the service support call handoff to and/or from a cellular service?
If so, does handoff work with Circuit-Switched networks, VoLTE/IMS
networks, or both?

While there are obviously a lot of possibilities to enable Wi-Fi calling, its also
encouraging that there are so many ways to support voice over Wi-Fi
underscoring Wi-Fis flexibility to support a myriad of IP-based services.

An in progress Wi-FI call made on a republic wireless handset

Whats REALLY changing with Apples iOS integration and mobile operators
lining up to support it is that Wi-Fi Calling will no longer be just a so-called
OTT service, or only be offered by upstart MVNOs like republic wireless or
Scratch Wireless. Wi-Fi calling is going mainstream.
The question now becomes: How do Enterprises, Operators, and Venues
optimize their Wi-Fi networks to support this service?

Voice as an IP Service
Voice is a low bitrate, but very finicky, data service because real-time,
bidirectional voice demands a narrow set of operating parameters from the
network in to ensure a high quality calling experience.
As such, the requirements for latency, jitter, and packet loss are much tighter
for voice than for standard business or Internet applications.

Wi-Fi Never Really Designed for Voice

Wi-Fi utilizes a shared medium (unlicensed spectrum in 2.4 or 5 GHz) for all
the stations in a service set (including the Access Point). Access to the
medium is not directly coordinated between the stations, but is performed
using mechanisms that seek to minimize simultaneous access attempts and
indicate to a transmitter if the intended receiver did not receive its frames. In
addition to the contention for access to the medium, Wi-Fi can also be
subject to interference by other uses of the same unlicensed spectrum.
While on the surface, Wi-Fi might not seem like an appropriate access
network for quality voice services, advances in Wi-Fi technology make it
possible.

Stronger Voice with Smarter Wi-Fi

Addressing many of these issues that can hinder good Wi-Fi calling, new
adaptive antenna technology was conceived for transporting delay-sensitive
video and voice traffic over Wi-Fi to enable a highly optimized signal for each
client.
A stronger signal equates to a better Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS).
Better MCS means higher data rates and higher data rate means it takes less
time to send a specific amount of data allowing client stations to spend less
time accessing or fighting for access to the Wi-Fi medium.
This also reduces contention for the RF channel as well as reducing the
likelihood of collisions (increased jitter), frame loss or packet retransmissions
(increased latency).
In other words, providing better signal at the receiver increases the overall
airtime efficiency of the service set for stations sending voice and those
sending other types of traffic.
Adaptive antenna array technology utilizes smart directional Antennas within
a single array, automatically controlled by fancy software that picks, for
every packet, the best antenna combination to focus the RF energy towards
the intended receiver. This results in a 5 to 6 dB of gain of signal on the
downlink connection.
In addition, smart antennas help mitigate interference from other access
points operating in the area by only directing RF energy towards the
intended receiver, not simply blasting it everywhere. The impacts from the
receiver gain and interference mitigation are cumulative and quite
pronounced in dense deployments such as office buildings or high capacity
public venues.
Looking ahead, 802.11ac Wave 2 introduces the concept of Multiuser MIMO
(MU-MIMO). Multiuser MIMO effectively allows concurrent Wi-Fi conversations
to occur for different clients. The grouping of clients into MU-MIMO sets will
be essential to maximizing the benefits of this innovation. Good grouping will
enhance the ability of a given set of clients to simultaneously receive a
transmission and effectively interpret their individual data streams.
Due to the uniform nature of Wi-Fi calling payload sizes, this will make Wi-Fi
calling clients prime candidates for grouping with each other (assuming they
meet other grouping criteria), benefitting the Wi-Fi calling experience by
servicing multiple downstream clients simultaneously.

Another important innovation benefiting Wi-Fi calling is the ability to

enhance the uplink signal from the client to the AP by receiving the clients
signal on both the horizontally and vertically polarized antenna elements.
Because they are able to implement polarization diversity with maximal ratio
combining (PD-MRC), smart antennas can provide up to 5 dB of uplink gain.
This is especially important when considering single stream/antenna mobile
devices (the vast majority of smartphones and tablets, including all models
of the iPhone), which transmit with a single polarization. Adaptive smart
antenna technology is able to effectively extract or construct the best
possible Wi-Fi signal regardless of the clients orientation relative to the AP.
Because real-time voice is inherently bidirectional, it is important that both
the downlink and uplink support the best possible MCS and highest data
rates.

Beyond The Antenna

Beyond antennas, recent technical advances have also been made in how
traffic is handled within Wi-Fi access points to ensure the best possible
quality of service for Wi-Fi calling.
Since traffic is often encrypted with Wi-Fi calling, the Wi-Fi access network
has no real visibility into the payload to determine what type of traffic is
being served.
With more innovative heuristics-based quality of service, different traffic
types can be automatically identified, prioritized, scheduled and queued
even without the ability to inspect the inner contents of the packets and
detect that they are part of a voice session. This is achieved through
sophisticated algorithms that constantly examine the characteristics and
behavior of the traffic such as the size and frequency of packets in a flow
(even an encrypted flow).
Such sophisticated traffic inspection, classification, and optimization
technology works in software to provide per-client, per-traffic-class queuing.
So traffic is mapped into the various queues based on existing L2 or L3 tags
received from the upstream network or these heuristic-based identification
algorithms.
Whats more, sophisticated schedulers implement advanced algorithms to
transmit the frames based on airtime and throughput potential or even
WLAN prioritization settings that have been configured. If a client doesnt
receive a frame, the scheduler ensures that the frame gets priority for
retransmission, eliminating head of line blocking issues.

The Holy Grail for Wi-Fi Calling?

Ultimately for Wi-Fi calling to work as everyone wants it to, the combination
of these technology innovations is essential to delivering a true low-latency
carrier-class Wi-Fi calling experience so good that youll be able to hear a pin
drop (over Wi-Fi).