ipv6 summit - june 2003 ipv6 and cellular telephony phil karn vp technology qualcomm, inc 26 june...

IPv6 Summit - June 2003

IPv6 And Cellular Telephony

Phil KarnVP TechnologyQualcomm, Inc26 June 2003


Safe Harbor (QUALCOMM Disclaimer)

Before we proceed with our presentation, we would like

to point out that the following discussion will contain forward-looking

statements from industry consultants, QUALCOMM, and others

regarding potential market size, market shares, and other factors which

inherently involve risks and uncertainties.

These and other risks and uncertainties relating to QUALCOMM’s

business are outlined in detail in our most recent 10-Q and 10-K forms

filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Please consult those documents for a more complete understanding of

these risks and uncertainties.


My Disclaimer

This talk includes my personal opinions.I am not speaking for Qualcomm.

Qualcomm may or may not agree with me.(But they should.)


The State of Cellular Telephony

• A plethora of incompatible physical layers– AMPS (analog)– IS-54 TDMA– GSM– CDMA (IS-95/IS-2000, 1x, 1xRTT, 1xEVDO, etc)– WCDMA– even 802.11 b/a/g/etc

• Cheap, mass produced phones• Expensive, inflexible base station equipment


Interoperability

• There's an increasing realization of the need of cellular users to roam between dissimilar cellular networks– Administrative barriers– Technical barriers

• Users don't want to be bothered by the details


A Brief Internet History

• ARPANET started in 1969• Ethernet in mid 1970s• DARPA Packet Radio in 1970s• The need quickly appeared to join these dissimilar

networks in a uniform way• TCP/IP and the Internet were the result• Sound familiar?


The solution to the cellular interoperability problem is IP!


Other Useful Properties of IP

• End-to-end architecture– recently rediscovered and hyped as "peer to peer"– place application-specific mechanisms at end points– keep network simple and general purpose– easy to add new features

• Open standards– promotes interoperability

• Highly cost-effective network hardware– compared to traditional telephone switches


But...

• As of 5/2003, there were 1.2 billion cell phone subscribers in the world– up 200 million in one year

• There are ~4 billion IPv4 addresses, so in theory there's room– but allocation issues make this impractical


What About NATs/DHCP?

• NATs preclude servers, or at least make them very cumbersome– and we want to promote end-to-end architectures, not

just wireless websurfing and mail reading

• DHCP only helps when most nodes are off– yet everybody leaves their cell phones on

• Abolishing NATs and DHCP is what IPv6 is all about!– and restore the original end-to-end architecture


My Vision

• All cellular networks become generic IPv6 ISPs• Voice traffic transitions to IPv6 using open

standards (SIP, freely usable codecs)• Transparent interoperability and mobility between

different wireless and wired technologies• End-to-end encryption becomes routine • Carriers compete on price, coverage, reliability,

latency, etc– may the best physical technology win


Cellular VoIP Obstacles

• Political• Technical

– Security


Political Obstacles

• Telephone companies have always hated the Internet model– they don't like being dumb-pipe providers

• they invented the buzzphrase "integrated services"

– they like captive customers (why do they fight number portability tooth and nail?)

– they still haven't grokked the end-to-end model (or maybe they have...)

• Their vendors like selling them expensive hardware


Technical Obstacles to VoIP

• Link Efficiency– easily solved with header compression

• Standards/Interoperability– VoIP world is still a mess (H323 vs SIP; many proprietary

voice codecs)

• Security– denial of service; spam; worms, trojans– potentially the biggest problem


The DoS Problem

• In a true IP architecture, every phone will be an Internet server with a global (IPv6) address– any host anywhere can send it packets

• Wireless is inherently slower than wired• Denial-of-service attacks would be too easy

– already pandemic in the wired Internet– excess capacity keeps them from being more

destructive than they already are


Blocking DoS Attacks

• Filters in the phone won't work– the damage is to the wireless link, not the phone

• I.e., filters have to be in the network– but under the control of the end-user– open standards are required

• This problem isn't unique to wireless hosts– they are simply the most vulnerable– we need a general solution for all hosts if IPv6 is to

restore the end-to-end model


Blocking Spam

• Special class of denial-of-service attack– attacked resource is user's eyes, not his link– already a serious problem with SMS in some areas

• Best solution so far: content-based filtering, e.g., Bayesian analysis, performed upstream under user control


Summary

• IP is the answer (IHMO) to the cellular telephony interoperability problem

• Only IPv6 will scale while keeping the end-to-end architecture that made the Internet great– cellular phones could be IPv6's 'killer ap'

• Security is the biggest challenge, and will require a lot of careful, up-front attention


Thank You

ipv6 summit - june 2003 ipv6 and cellular telephony phil karn vp technology qualcomm, inc 26 june...

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