CableLabs is striving to keep up with the times, unveiling a new set of MVNO architectures designed to meet the needs of increasingly common hybrid deployment scenarios.
Omkar Dharmadhikari, CableLabs’ MVNO Interconnect Technical Working Group Lead, told Fierce the “new architectures are needed because the industry landscape is changing.” In particular, he said access to shared spectrum is significantly reducing the barriers to entry for new players and existing operators who want to build out their own networks.
In a traditional scenario, an MVNO would rely entirely on a mobile network operator’s (MNO's) wireless assets. But now “with private networks and shared spectrum getting traction, more smaller operators are thinking of deploying their own radio infrastructure along with operating their own core network,” Dharmadhikari explained. That means in many cases these so-called hybrid MVNOs now have to contend with managing three different wireless networks: their Wi-Fi network, their own mobile infrastructure and that of their MNO partner.
Cable operators Comcast and Charter Communications have notably been pursuing hybrid MVNO strategies, initially combining Verizon's wireless service with their respective Wi-Fi networks and later purchasing spectrum licenses with an eye toward deploying their own mobile infrastructure. The latter is planning to launch a wireless field trial using shared CBRS spectrum (3.5GHz) in a full market area in early 2022.
“Enforcing uniform and personalized policies, ensuring a consistent user experience and maximizing usage of their own wireless assets becomes very important” in hybrid MVNO scenarios, Dharmadhikari said.
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CableLabs formed a working group to tackle the issue in December 2020. Dharmadhikari said work focused on addressing options for dual-SIM and single-SIM architectures. The group also looked at how a hybrid MVNO might handle voice service if they want to deploy a data-only platform.
Rather than developing its own specifications for the new architecture models, Dharmadhikari said CableLabs’ team “tried to leverage as much as possible the standardized 3GPP interfaces” and the new features 5G brings.
“All these architectures that we’ve developed can be looked at as evolutionary in nature where you could start with one architecture to begin with and as you grow your deployment, as you start offering more services, as you explore and grow within this space you could move on to different architectures as well,” he said.
The group published a technical paper outlining the different architecture options it came up with in October. CableLabs is now working to flesh out those models with additional detail about call flows, how these architectures can be realized and what features are needed to support them, Dharmadhikari said.
This story has been updated to correct the word "core" to "call" in the last sentence.