2G or not 2G, that is the question...

As you will no doubt have heard rumblings about, the 900MHz spectrum is being opened up globally for 3G use and some manufacturers are already shipping devices that are able to take advantage of this. But what does that actually mean?

Currently, mobile devices are typically referred to as either ‘tri-band’ or ‘quad-band’ and either ‘single mode’ or ‘dual mode’.
The terms tri-band and quad-band refer only to the bands which the device is able to use for GSM/GPRS service: tri-band = 900/1800/1900 MHz and quad-band=850/900/1800/1900 MHz.
The terms single mode and dual mode refer to whether the device is a GSM/GPRS-only device, or whether it is both GSM/GPRS and UMTS capable.

The frequencies that a device is capable of using for GSM/GPRS service tend to be referenced specifically, because different parts of the world use different bands, therefore it is important to know that a given device will work in your part of the world.
However, UMTS-capable handsets are simply referred to as ‘dual mode’ because UMTS uses the same frequency globally: 2100MHz, so there is no need to be any more specific (although having said the implementation of UMTS in North America only uses 2100MHz for downlink, the uplink channel differs in North America from the rest of the world).
The recent announcement that 900MHz is now being made available for UMTS service means that it will now be necessary to refer to devices as being both quad-band (GSM) and dual-band (UMTS).

NOTE - when devices are referred to as being ‘900MHz-capable’, they actually operate within a range of different frequencies around 900MHz, depending on which mobile operator the SIM is with. 900MHz is used as an umbrella term.

Why is this happening?

This decision is a global one, made by the ITU, the International Telecommunications Union, part of the UN, which is responsible for managing the global interoperability of mobile networks, and approved by the EU for implementation within Europe.

As you’ll know from my guide to mobile data technologies (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/introduction-mobile-data-technologies), 3G network protocols are attractive not only to the customer because they provide higher data rates, but also to the mobile operators because they enable them to cram higher numbers of users onto base stations and make more efficient use of the available bandwidth, enabling simultaneous voice and data transmissions, etc.
The physical properties of the 900MHz spectrum from a radio perspective mean greater coverage and less signal attenuation than the 2100MHz band. It therefore makes sense to use 3G network protocols in preference to the older GSM standard wherever possible.
Essentially, GSM is now ‘old hat’ and this is the first step in the move to retire it altogether.

In the UK this has caused some controversy among the operators due to the fact that when mobile networks were first launched in the UK, backed by the government, the 900MHz spectrum was effectively given away to Vodafone and O2 for nothing.
Orange and T-Mobile rolled out later using the 1800MHz band.
Network-sharing agreements between operators mean that these distinctions are no longer as clear-cut in places, and Vodafone also own a small amount of frequency in the 1800 MHz region.
Tri-band and quad-band devices are able to use both of the frequencies so it is not a problem: both frequency-selection and cell hand-over happen transparently to the user.
The important bit is that when the 2100MHz frequency band was auctioned off by the government for 3G services, all networks (including Hutchison 3G, or Three) paid for their chunk on the understanding that this was the only frequency where 3G services would be permitted.
The news that the 900MHz band is now going to be allowed as well, means that Vodafone and O2 can effectively increase their 3G coverage for nothing. Well, not ‘nothing’ – it will cost billions and take years to update the network, but these operators have the option to do this – the others do not, and this is why they’re now complaining.
OFCOM are considering levying a charge to Vodafone and O2 to be able to use the 900MHz spectrum for 3G service, despite the fact that they already own the bandwidth.
Whatever the decision arrived at by the operators and OFCOM – this is happening from a technology standpoint and financial squabbles bear no impact on the technology or its deployment globally.

So what?

As with current services all of the clever radio stuff will happen in the background: if your device is a dual-band UMTS device, it will ‘know’ itself what frequency to use automatically.
When the 900MHz frequency allocation is 'turned off' for GSM use by the operator, then users will have no choice but to use a UMTS-capable device - which the networks will no doubt offer as part of the upgrade process. Although operators may decide to further divide up the chunk of the 900MHz spectrum allocation they own and run both 2G and 3G service concurrently while 2G handsets are slowly phased out.

As the networks deploy 3G services using the 900MHz band instead of 2100MHz, we may start to see older single-band 3G-capable devices similarly being replaced as they won't be able to fallback to GPRS service, and won't be able to use the 900MHz band for 3G service.

For reference, if you’re interested, the global radio frequency map for mobile phone usage looks like this:

At some point in the future the 1800MHz band will also be replaced as we head towards a 2G switch off entirely in Europe.

Checking data usage on a BlackBerry

In order to check the amount of data you have sent and received over your mobile network operator from your BlackBerry Smartphone, open the Options menu.
Select Device
Select Device and Status Information

You will see your status screen for signal strength, battery charge, memory, etc.
Although there is no text field to type into, just type BUYR and press enter.
Scroll down to the bottom of the screen.
Your voice and data counters will be displayed:

NOTE - these counters are not reset following a device reboot.

Checking data usage on an Android device

In order to monitor the amount of data you send and receive over your mobile network operator from your Android device, Stats is a free application available from the Android Market which displays call and data usage, both cellular and WiFi, as well as SMS usage:

Alternately Onavo is another useful application which can provide real-time usage information by application:

Checking data usage on the iPhone

In order to check the amount of data sent and received over your mobile operator from the iPhone, select Settings.
Tap on General:

Tap on Usage:

Tap on Mobile Usage:

Your call and data counters will be displayed.

NOTE - these counters are reset when the iPhone is powered off.

Choosing a Device Management solution Q3 2010

As PDAs become increasingly powerful and the need to access and store larger amounts of data rises, so does the need to secure that data. When deploying mobile devices and granting users remote access to local network resources, be it email, an intranet site, file shares or specific line of business applications, the administrator needs to know that those devices are doing so securely, will automatically lock themselves if left unattended and can be remotely wiped if they are suspected of being lost or stolen.

In this article I shall look at the foremost products available today, in the author's opinion, as well as the features that should be considered when evaluating a device management solution. If you are interested in knowing more, or have any questions relating to any of the information in this article, call Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225.

When choosing a device management solution, there are a number of approaches that you can take: you may have decided a client device type and wish to know what solutions are compatible; you may have a specific feature set that you need to be available to your users; or similarly a set of features you don't want to be available.
In this article I shall look at the foremost device management solutions available currently, in this author's opinion, providing support for Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, Android, Windows (ie, desktops) and the iPhone.

Features

When considering a device management solution, there are a number of guidelines that should be taken into account:

• All communications between the client and the server should be secure.
• The solution should not tie you into a particular client platform or device, nor a particular mobile network operator - the solution should be "agnostic" of the client device type as well as the means of connecting to the Internet.
• The solution should be available abroad.
• The solution should offer, at the very least, the ability to enforce password usage on client devices as well as the ability to remotely wipe or 'kill' devices in the event that they are reported lost or stolen. The ability to remotely install and uninstall applications, collect device inventory information and generate usage reports for mobile cost management should preferably also be available.
• Should the solution require a specific client application, this client should be deliverable over the air without the need for the device to be brought to the IT department.

The Players

In this article I shall look at the following products:

• Microsoft Exchange
• IBM Lotus Traveler
• Google
• Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager
• EveryWAN Mobility Manager
• SOTI MobiControl
• Perlego
• DME by Excitor
• Fromdistance
• Sybase Afaria
• RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Server

Technologies

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is a standards body responsible for developing and ratifying open standards for the mobile phone industry and currently maintains a number of protocols providing device management functionality adopted by a wide range of device manufacturers, including:

• OMA-CP: Open Mobile Alliance Client Provisioning
• OMA-DM: Open Mobile Alliance Device Management

The OMA Client Provisioning protocol enables the remote configuration of device settings by the sending of specific SMS text messages, including such elements as:

• Internet Access Points (IAPs)
• Browser Bookmarks
• Device Management (OMA-DM) Server address details
• POP / IMAP email account settings
• VoIP settings

Provided that the handset supports the standard OMA-CP protocol, it can be configured with the necessary settings to enable it to be able to connect to the Internet and connect to a OMA-DM server, with no need for any additional software or user expertise, simply by sending the device a specific SMS message. All that is required from the user is to accept the message and, if configured, enter a security PIN code.

The OMA Device Management (OMA-DM) protocol is an open standard enabling the configuration of a wide range of device parameters. XML-based configuration files are delivered to client devices from an OMA-DM server, these files containing virtually every setting you can think of that can be configured, including Exchange ActiveSync, VoIP, Certificates, VPN, Intranet and VoIP parameters.
I have written about these technologies previously in a separate article (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/what-oma-dm)

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2

Although a messaging and collaboration platform primarily, Exchange 2003 is worth a mention in this article as it does possess limited device management capability and thanks to its widespread adoption, companies looking for basic remote wipe and password enforcement features may find that they have the necessary tools already.

The Server ActiveSync protocol introduced with Exchange 2003, not only provides bi-directional mailbox data synchronisation, but can also be used for the enforcement of a password policy on any device that supports Server ActiveSync, including Windows Mobile 5 or later, the Nokia E and N series, HTC Android-based devices, as well as the iPhone:

All of the devices mentioned above have the corresponding Server ActiveSync client built in. In the case of Nokia handsets updates to the Mail For Exchange application are released regularly and can be downloaded free of charge from the Nokia web site: http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/nokia-for-business/software/email-...

Dataviz RoadSync is a third party client application that enables Server ActiveSync functionality on devices with no native client, including Android, Palm and Symbian UIQ devices. This client application does not require any additional configuration on the Exchange server and can extend the device management capabilities of Exchange 2003 to a wider range of devices.

Any device, provided that it has a Server ActiveSync client installed, can also be remotely 'killed' from the Exchange server by the administrator by the installation of a free update to Exchange 2003 from Microsoft, called the Mobile Device Administration update. This tool adds a web interface to the Exchange server, accessible at https://(exchange_server)/mobileadmin:

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1

The release of Exchange 2007 added several device management features to the Server ActiveSync protocol, all of which have now been carried over to Exchange 2010. The full range of features is only available to Windows Mobile devices, running version 6.1 of the WM operating system or later, but a varying degree of functionality is also available to other devices depending on how much of the EAS protocol the device manufacturer has been able to implement on their hardware.
New features include:

• Application blacklisting
• Ability to prevent users from installation applications (this can be further divided into signed and unsigned applications)
• Ability to prevent users from synchronising locally with a desktop PC
• Ability to prevent users from using the device as a modem (tethering)
• Ability to disable:
  • Browser
  • Camera
  • Bluetooth
  • WiFi
  • SMS / MMS
  • POP / IMAP email
  • Memory card

These settings can be saved as policies and be assigned to individual users or groups, meaning that different types of users can be assigned more or less control over their devices as required.

In addition to these new features, Exchange 2007 can still enforce password usage and remotely kill all Server ActiveSync-capable devices, with the addition of the ability of users to remotely kill their own devices via Outlook Web Access (OWA).

With both Exchange 2003 and 2007 / 2010, client devices need to be able to contact the Exchange Server directly, therefore the server must be Internet-facing. A front-end, back-end deployment is supported, as is Microsoft's ISA server product.
Client-Server communications are secured via SSL. Ideally the Exchange server should have a root-trusted certificate installed on it to simplify client setup. Self-issued certificates can be used, but can require on certain devices that the corresponding client certificate be installed onto devices manually.
Device Management policies are applied to devices automatically when they authenticate against the Exchange server to synchronise mailbox data, therefore users do require Exchange mailboxes and at least one mailbox folder must be successfully synchronised (be it Mail, Contacts, Calendar or Tasks) for the device management policy to be applied to the device.
Server ActiveSync connections require that the user know and enter the following information: server address, username, password and domain.

IBM Lotus Traveler

As with Microsoft Exchange 2003, IBM Lotus Traveler is a remote email synchronisation product primarily, but version 8.5.1 of the product does provide limited device management functionality for the Windows Mobile platform as well as Symbian and the iPhone. Therefore, companies using Lotus Domino as their email platform who are looking to deploy, or already have deployed, a remote email solution and require basic device management tools to enforce password usage on client devices and the ability to remotely kill lost or stolen devices, should consider Louts Traveler.
I have posted about this product previously in the Domino section of the blog: http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/lotus

Google

Google has added a number of device management features to its Premier Apps service, enabling businesses that pay to have their email service hosted by Google to perform the following actions on their devices remotely via group policy, or by the administrator via a web browser:

• Encrypt data on device
• Remotely wipe all data from lost or stolen mobile devices
• Lock idle devices after a period of inactivity
• Require a device password on each phone
• Set minimum lengths for more secure passwords
• Require passwords to include letters and numbers
• Allow synchronisation while roaming
• Allow camera

Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager

SCMDM is part of the Microsoft System Center suite of products and is designed to enable the administrator to manage a fleet of Windows Mobile client devices using Active Directory Group Policy. Devices are 'enrolled' into the domain and any device configuration or usage policies are applied automatically, depending on the user's group membership, in exactly the same way that desktop PCs and user permissions are managed. Only Windows Mobile devices running version 6.1 of the WM operating system or later are supported.
I have posted about this solution in detail in a separate article here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/microsoft-system-center-mobile-device-ma...

As the Microsoft advertising tagline goes, System Center products are designed for "big". The solution requires a separate server running 64-bit architecture as well as a Microsoft SQL 2005 Server.
Client devices connect to the SCMDM server directly, therefore as with Exchange, there must be one Internet-facing server secured with an SSL certificate, ideally a root-trusted certificate to avoid the need to install self-issued certificates manually.
Pre-defined policies allow the administrator to automatically enable or disable:

• Bluetooth
• WiFi
• SMS / MMS
• Infrared
• Camera
• POP / IMAP email
• Memory card slot

But, unlike Exchange, users do not necessarily need to have an Exchange mailbox or synchronise mailbox data in order to have corporate device usage polices applied to their handhelds automatically.

On-device encryption can be enforced, Internet access points can be configured automatically on client devices, and devices can also be remotely wiped.
Software updates can be delivered to client devices by integrating the SCMDM server into an existing WSUS deployment.
The solution also provides extensive inventory collection and reporting capabilities, as well as a mobile-optimised VPN solution enabling access to LAN-based resources from the remote client device. Applications can be delivered to client devices and installed automatically.

Client devices can be configured for access quickly and easily using the Device Enrollment feature, pre-installed on Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. Users are assigned a password by the administrator on the SCMDM server. Users need then simply enter their email address and the password issued to them by the administrator. The device will 'know' from the domain entered in the email address, the address of the SCMDM server to look for. This does require that the administrator add an entry for the SCMDM server in external DNS along the lines of 'mobileenrol.domain.com', but does enable devices to be automatically configured without the need for the user to know complicated server and domain information as with Server ActiveSync as we saw earlier.

SOTI MobiControl

SOTI are considered by many to be the safe choice when evaluating device management solutions for the Windows Mobile platform only. MobiControl is a fully-featured solution offering real-time remote control and screen-sharing, file synchronisation, registry editing, screen capture and video recording, application installation, whitelisting and blacklisting, hardware control, you name it - if it is Windows Mobile-based, then SOTI MobiControl can achieve what you need to accomplish from a device management perspective, be it for a large corporate or a small IT helpdesk.

I have blogged about this solution in detail here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/soti-mobicontrol

Requiring Windows Server 2000 or 2003 for the server component, the solution also requires a Microsoft SQL server database to store configuration information. For smaller deployments, the free MSDE SQL Desktop Engine can be used. A client application must be installed on devices, which are 'built' on the server with the necessary connection settings and require no configuration by the user, which can be downloaded from a web site the link to which can be SMS'd to the user's device. The server itself needs to be Internet-facing for client connectivity and uses a single, administrator-defined, TCP port for client-server communication.
The solution also offers extensive inventory collection and reporting capabilities, and can also be integrated with GPS to provide real-time device tracking and location history:

EveryWAN Mobility Manager

For those companies looking to manage a fleet of devices running only the Windows Mobile platform, then alongside SOTI, EveryWAN Mobility Manager should also certainly be evaluated. Offering a similar feature set to SOTI in terms of device management, it also has the benefit of supporting Linux as the server platform and can use a wide range of database back ends including PostGRE SQL, MySQL and Oracle as well as Microsoft SQL Server.
I have blogged about this solution in detail here: http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/everywan-mobility-manager

As with SOTI, the EveryWAN solution offers real-time remote control and screen-sharing, file synchronisation, registry editing, screen capture and video recording, application installation, whitelisting and blacklisting and hardware control. The one element that EveryWAN does not offer currently is the GPS integration.
The server itself needs to be Internet-facing, and a client application needs to be installed on client devices, which communicates with the server using a single, administrator-defined, TCP port secured by TLS. The client installation package itself is 'built' on the server containing all the required connection information, requiring no further configuration by the user, and can be downloaded from a web server either within the device browser and or can sent via SMS as a link.

Perlego

Extending the umbrella beyond solutions that only cater for Windows Mobile, Perlego is a completely hosted, web-based device management solution requiring that no server hardware be deployed by the customer. Because the solution is hosted, there is also virtually no lead-time to get the solution up and running. I have posted about this solution in more detail here:

http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/perlego

Supported client platforms include:

• Symbian S60
• Symbian S80
• Windows Mobile 5 / 6 / 6.1

A client application needs to be installed onto the device, but is this downloaded simply by browsing to the Perlego web site. As the solution is hosted, there is no configuration required on the client - the user simply needs to enter a license key which they can get from the company administrator.

The administrator can then upload applications and documents to the Perlego servers and specify which clients should have access to those files.
Script-based routines can be configured on the server that can deploy a wide range of configuration settings to devices. This does require that the administrator know what format these scripts need to be in, but provided you know your way around OMA-DM XML configuration, the solution quickly becomes quite powerful.
The solution also provides a full or selective device backup and restore feature.

DME by Excitor

Excitor is a Danish software development company specialising in device management and cost control solutions for the enterprise. DME is a modular suite of applications enabling remote management of Windows Mobile and Symbian devices as well as an optional email synchronisation application for Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and the iPhone.

The device management capabilities of the solution include the ability to deliver initial Internet connectivity, email and VoIP configuration settings via SMS, after which a full client application can be downloaded to the device to enforce password usage policies, collect inventory information, disable specific hardware and software elements on the device and deliver applications and documents.

The solution also features a number of additional tools including an on-device encryption utility and a tool for recording voicemail messages.

I have blogged about the solution in detail here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/excitor-dme-mobile-device-management

The solution uses a server-client model, requiring an Internet-facing server that can run either Microsoft Windows Server or Linux as well as a database installation (either MS SQL or MySQL).

Fromdistance

Fromdistance is a device management solution for Windows Mobile, Symbian and more recently BlackBerry devices, using the OMA-CP and OMA-DM protocols.
Again using a client-server model, the server uses the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) platform and can be deployed very quickly and cheaply. Client devices can be configured for Internet access via SMS using the OMA-CP protocol, and a link to the full DM client can also be sent via SMS. Once downloaded and installed, the DM client can then connect to the DM server and perform further device management tasks.
SMS messages can be sent from the server to client devices using Fromdistance's own SMS application, FromSMS (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/fromsms).
The solution supports a wide range of hardware and software control policies, inventory collection and reporting, file and application package delivery.
The solution also provides VNC-based remote control of supported client devices.
I have blogged about this solution in detail here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/fromdistance-mobile-device-manager

The decision to support BlackBerry does not offer any features that the BES solution cannot, which I will look at in a moment, but it does mean that administrators managing a mixed environment can choose to manage BlackBerry devices from within Fromdistance alongside their Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server

Because the BlackBerry server solution and handset devices are all developed by RIM, the solution features extensive device management capabilities: but only on Blackberry devices.
Virtually any element of the device's hardware and software functionality can be enabled or disabled through policy settings on the BES, including:

• Camera
• Memory card slot
• Phone
• Browser
• SMS / MMS
• POP / IMAP email
• VoIP
• Bluetooth
• WiFi

Because all data requests issued from BlackBerry handhelds go via the BES, any DNS restrictions applied on the LAN are automatically applied to the handheld devices, so if Facebook or MySpace, etc have been blocked on the LAN these sites will also be unavailable on the remote devices, by virtue of the fact that they sit "behind" the BES. The same applies to firewall restrictions: any ports blocked between the BES and the Internet will be unavailable to client devices.
The installation of third party applications can be blocked, and updates to existing applications can be delivered OTA from the BES using the Mobile Data Service (MDS).

Due to the architecture of the BlackBerry solution, which involves a middleware server deployed by RIM with the mobile network operator, known as the 'RIM Relay', the BES server does not need to be available from the Internet; it simply needs outbound access on TCP port 3101.

Detailed articles on the whole BlackBerry product family can be found in the BlackBerry section of the blog: http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/blackberry

Sybase Afaria

Sybase Afaria can be regarded as the "Gold" device management solution. I have posted about this solution in detail in a separate article here:

http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/sybase-afaria

Afaria requires a separate server running WIndows 2000 or 2003 Server, and again that server needs to be Internet-facing for the client devices to be able to access it.
Afaria supports a wide range of client device platforms including:

• Windows (2000 / XP / Vista)
• Windows Mobile (2003 / 5 / 6 / 6.1)
• Symbian (S60 / S80 / UIQ)
• Palm
• Java
• BlackBerry
• iPhone

The solution requires that a client application be installed onto client devices. The client can be pre-populated with the server address details and a variety of authentication mechanisms are supported. New to version 6 of the solution is the ability to deliver the client via SMS OMA-CP configuration messages onto to supported clients (Symbian S60 currently).

All client-server communications are secured using SSL on a single TCP port (3007 by default, but this is customisable by the administrator)

Afaria is a modular product, with the solution being divided into a number of optional ‘Channels’, each Channel being independent of the others and being enabled or disabled based on the license key used to install the product:

• Software Manager – deliver and install commercial or custom-built software packages on client devices
• Inventory Manager – interrogate and report on the hardware and software resources available on client devices
• Document Manager – publish and deliver groups of documents to client devices, be they text files, images, HTML web pages, etc
• Configuration Manager – enable, disable and configure hardware and software elements on the client device, delivering connection settings, blacklisting applications, disabling camera and Bluetooth features, for example
• Backup Manager – backup and restore specified files from the client device to a specified location on the corporate network
• Session Manager – the most powerful feature of the solution, enabling automation of file distribution, directory management, registry management.
• Data Protection Manager – define and enforce security settings on the client device, including power-on passwords, encryption settings. Users can be allowed a set number of attempts to enter the password correctly, after which specific events can be triggered automatically, including removal of specific PIM data and/or files and applications, or a complete device hard reset
• Patch Manager – deliver operating system patches and security updates to clients automatically (Windows 32 only)

NOTE – not all Channels are available on all client platforms.

Multiple channels can be configured, with each channel having one or more of the supported client types associated with it, or specific users or groups subscribed.

The most powerful feature of the solution is the Session Manager. This component allows 'worklists' to be created using script-based commands and variables which effectively allow the administrator to query any element of the device's hardware or software configuration and have specific actions carried out based on the results returned. Email alerts can be generated automatically should any element of the worklist fail and extensive reporting capabilities are available.

Miscellaneous

For administrators who do not require a server-based device management solution, but who would like to make their lives easier by having access to template-driven tools enabling the bulk configuration of devices simply by connecting them to a PC and applying a pre-defined template to those devices, tools are available for both Nokia and Apple devices, read these articles for more information:

Apple - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/apple-iphone-configuration-utility-30
Nokia - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/nokia-enterprise-configuration-tool

Summary

It is important to bear in mind that whilst I have looked at a number of device management solutions in this article, that support a number of different platforms, this is by no means an exhaustive summary of the solutions available. In this article I have made no reference to the Palm platform. This is not to say that there are no solutions available for this platform, simply that demand has caused me to exclude it at this time. The Afaria solution supports Palm, as is reflected in the chart below.

For a summary of the current features offered by the products discussed in this article, view the chart below, and as always, if you need any further information or require anything clarified contact Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225

Choosing a remote email solution Q4 2011

When choosing a remote email solution there are a number of approaches that you can take: you may have decided on a client device type and wish to know what solutions are compatible; you may have a specific feature set you need to be available to your users; or similarly a set of features you don't want to be available. You may have specific security concerns or may have a policy regarding which manufacturers you are able to consider.
There is a lot of information to convey, much of it interconnected. In this article I shall run through the products available by manufacturer, but it is important to consider that when discussing products such a Nokia's Mail For Exchange application, this obviously requires that Microsoft Exchange be installed, so if considering Nokia, bear in mind that everything I have said about Microsoft Exchange should also factor into your choice. It's also important to bear in mind when considering BlackBerry as a remote email solution that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server itself is not an email solution in its own right: it requires an email platform be deployed already (be it Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino).
It's complicated, but I like to think I have included all relevant information. As always, if you want further information on anything you read here, then contact Brightpoint on 0870 849 0225: we are uniquely placed to be able to advise on any aspect of your plans for deploying an email solution...from any perspective.

Features

The features that a remote email solution should offer as standard remain unchanged. When evaluating products, should any of the below not be met, unless you are confident that they are superfluous to requirements, then that solution should be excluded from your pilot.

• All communication between the client and the server should be secure
• The solution should not tie you into a particular client platform or device, nor a particular mobile network operator - the solution should be "agnostic" of the client device type as well as the means of connecting to the Internet
• Users should have the ability to read, forward and edit email attachments
• Users should have the ability to access the Global Address List (GAL) or company contact list
• Users should have the ability to choose whether or not to download full email messages and attachments
• The solution should ideally use the native PIM application on the client device to minimise the need for additional staff training, unless the alternative offers superior features
• The solution should offer "push" functionality so that devices are updated in real time as opposed to schedule-based synchronisation or SMS-based "wake-up" messages
• The solution should offer the ability to remotely "wipe" client devices and enforce password usage on those devices
• The solution should not rely on "Desktop Redirectors" - applications which sit on a PC on the local network, monitoring the mail server for changes in the user's mailbox and redirecting them when they are detected. These solutions require that a PC remain switched on in the office at all times, defeating the object of having a "remote" email solution.
• The solution should be available abroad

The Players

The key players in the remote email space are currently (in this author's opinion):

• Microsoft
• Research In Motion (RIM)
• IBM
• Google
• Nokia
• HTC
• Motorola
• Apple

Microsoft

At the time of writing, Microsoft Exchange currently accounts for approximately 65% of the corporate email market and is the de facto standard for "behind the firewall" email deployments. That product alone nets Microsoft over $2 Billion annually. If Microsoft Exchange alone was a separate company, it would still be the 9th largest software company in the world!

Ever since the release of the Microsoft Mobile Information Server (MMIS) product back in 2000 it has been possible to synchronise email, contact and calendar mailbox data with an Exchange server from a Windows Mobile device. MMIS was a separate middleware product which provided the synchronisation functionality and was effectively incorporated into Exchange Server 2003 when it was first released. Synchronisation was only schedule-based and was only possible from Windows Mobile devices running Pocket PC 2003 or later.
Microsoft added push functionality to Exchange with the release of Service Pack 2 for Exchange Server 2003, a free update available via Microsoft Update. To enjoy push functionality you had to be using a PDA running Windows Mobile 5 (version AKU-2) or later.
The protocol that provides this push synchronisation capability is known as Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) and Microsoft has subsequently licensed it to third party manufacturers including Dataviz, HTC, Nokia, Apple, Google, Dell, Motorola, Samsung and others.
Today it is therefore possible to receive push-based synchronisation of mailbox data on a wide range of client devices, not only Windows Mobile PDAs...provided that you are running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or later in your corporate environment, which in turn requires a Microsoft Server operating system to run on, so it's a win-win situation for Microsoft.
Exchange ActiveSync also enables users to search for contacts in the Global Address List (GAL) from their device and also enables the administrator to require that devices have a password configured on them. Devices can also be remotely 'killed' from the Exchange server by the administrator.

The release of Exchange 2007, and later Service Pack 1 for Exchange 2007, added further functionality to the Server ActiveSync protocol, including the ability to set an out of office status and message, as well as allowing the administrator to remotely disable hardware elements on client devices such as the camera, WiFi, Bluetooth etc.
Although the EAS protocol supports this functionality when used with an Exchange 2007 server, the degree to which this functionality has been implemented by the different manufacturers varies, meaning that different devices have different capabilities when used with the same Exchange server. The features available on the different client platforms are summarised at the end of this article.

Today, if using a Windows Mobile device running version 6.1 of the operating system in conjunction with a server running Exchange 2007 SP1, the following functionality is available to the user:

• Full mailbox synchronisation, including Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Mail folders (including email subfolders on a per-folder selection basis)

  

• A maximum message size limit and attachment size limit can be specified
• A date range can be specified during which email and calendar items will be synchronised
• A schedule can be defined during which mailbox changes will be "pushed" to the device, outside of which synchronisation can be initiated manually or will run automatically every x number of minutes
• When composing a new email from the device, the user can select contacts from their own Contacts folder, or from the Global Address List on the Exchange server
• Users can also search their entire mailbox for a specific mail based on certain criteria should they have lost track of it
• Users can set and edit their Out Of Office status and message from the client device

It is only possible to configure one Exchange email account on the Windows Mobile platform, multiple concurrent Exchange accounts are not supported.

The following functionality is available to the Administrator:

• Individual ActiveSync policies can be defined on a per-user or per-group basis:

  

• Password usage can be enforced on client devices:

  

• Message size limit and attachment size limits can be defined as well as controlling whether users should have access to email while roaming abroad:

  

• The hardware and software elements on the client device that should be available to the user can be defined:

  

• Specific applications can be blocked by the administrator, and users can be prevented from installing new applications on devices themselves:

  

• In the event that a device is lost or stolen, it can be remotely 'killed' or wiped by either the user or the administrator, either via Outlook Web Access or the Exchange Management console:

  

Exchange 2003 SP2 also offers the ability to remotely wipe client devices, but requires that the Exchange ActiveSync Web Administration Tool be downloaded and installed separately:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e6851d23-d145-4...

and is accessed via https://(exchange_server)/mobileadmin/:

Exchange 2003 SP2 does not offer the ability to define a per-user activesync policy, or the ability to remotely control hardware or software elements on client devices. Besides remote device kill, the only device management feature available is the ability to enforce a password policy on the client Windows Mobile device.

Microsoft's decision to license the EAS protocol to third parties means that a wide range of devices can also synchronise mailbox data with an Exchange server running Exchange 2003 SP2 or later in exactly the same way as a Windows Mobile device, with no additional changes required on the Exchange server. I will look at the features supported by the most common of these in this article. A summary of the capabilities of the different platforms is available at the end, but it is important to be aware that deploying a Microsoft Exchange server does not limit you to using Microsoft's client devices.

Exchange 2010 adds further functionality for the administrator, such as the ability to allow and disallow access to the Exchange server via Exchange ActiveSync based on device type. This provides a level of peace of mind to the IT department, reassuring them that making their Exchange server accessible from the Internet to devices that support the Exchange ActiveSync protocol does not have to mean opening the server to ALL devices; they can define further rules to only allow access to, say, Windows Mobile and Nokia devices and deny access to Android and iPhone devices.
Further rules can be configured to simply quarantine all devices and email the administrator indicating that a device has requested access, which the administrator(s) can choose to unblock or reject on a per-request basis.
Read this article for more information - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/restricting-access-exchange-2010-activesync

It is also perhaps relevant to point out that Microsoft's Small Business Server (SBS) products, which include Exchange, offer the same functionality as Microsoft Exchange standalone installations: SBS 2003 includes Exchange 2003, and SBS 2008 includes Exchange 2007. Microsoft's new Small Business Product, SBS7, now includes Exchange Server 2010.

Installation and Configuration

Provided that you are running Exchange 2003 SP2 or later, then EAS functionality is "built-in" with no need for any additional hardware or software. Having said that, there are a few things you should be aware of when deploying Exchange with a view to providing push email functionality:

• The Exchange server, or at the least the "Client Access Server" in a multi-server deployment, must be Internet-facing with a public IP address. This may sound obvious, but if you use a third-party mail relay service or an anti-virus server to accept incoming SMTP traffic before passing it onto the Exchange server, then the Exchange server itself may not be Internet-facing. EAS operates as a web application on the Exchange server, running within IIS. Therefore, any firewalls between the Exchange server and the Internet will need to be configured to allow TCP port 443 through to Exchange, or TCP port 80 if running the web site in HTTP rather than HTTPS mode (not recommended). If you are already running Outlook Web Access (OWA) on your Exchange server, then you are already good to go although you may have to adjust authentication settings on the specific EAS web site within the IIS manager.
  If exposing the Exchange server to the Internet sounds like a security risk, then it is possible to deploy Exchange server roles across multiple servers: a 'front-end' server living in the DMZ, accepting client requests and relaying them to the mailbox server located on the LAN.
• In order to secure client-server communications via TLS/SSL, the Exchange server will require a valid SSL certificate to be installed on it. Ideally this should be a 'root-trusted' certificate from the likes of VeriSign or Thawte, which will involve additional ongoing costs. It is possible to use a self-issued certificate with no reduction in functionality using Microsoft Certificate Services, but it is important to bear in mind if adopting this approach that the corresponding CA root certificate must be installed on all Windows Mobile and Windows Phone client devices manually before they will be able to connect. This issue does not affect Nokia Symbian devices (from the E75 and onwards), not does it affect Android devices nor the iPhone, which will warn users that the certificate used by the Exchange server is not root-trusted when the email account is first configured, but will allow the user to continue regardless.
  When generating a certificate request, it is vital to use the Internet-facing name of the Exchange server, ie 'mail.domain.com' rather than the server's machine, or NetBIOS, name such as 'MAILSERV1'. This is a relatively common stumbling block.
• For detailed information on how to configure Exchange 2003 SP2 for Exchange ActiveSync using a self-issued SSL certificate, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/configuring-exchange-2003-activesync-usi...
  
  Exchange 2007 is much easier to configure!
• If you are running Exchange 2003 SP2 in a "front-end / back-end" deployment, a web site for EAS should be created on both front and back end servers and the same authentication settings should be applied to both - by default the back end server will not have 'integrated windows authentication' enabled which will cause connection requests to fail.
• Finally, it is useful to be aware that EAS is not a true push technology - the client device will poll the Exchange server for changes at a regular interval, known as the 'heartbeat interval', that is defined by the cellular network operator. If the client device does not have a cellular connection to the Internet, such as a WiFi connection, then the client will sync on a schedule and mail will not arrive strictly 'in real time'. In practice, however, the user experience will not differ significantly regardless of the means of connecting to the Internet.

Besides the SSL certificate, because Exchange ActiveSync is a standard protocol, regardless of which client device you are using, the same information will be required to set up access on all devices:

• Server address
• Username
• Password
• Domain

The server address will be the same address used by Outlook Web Access (OWA), normally in the form 'mail.domain.com'.
The Domain will be the same value that is configured on your Windows desktop PC in the office, assuming you have one, when you log in - the contents of the "Log Into" field underneath the password field.

For detailed information on troubleshooting all aspects of the Exchange ActiveSync protocol, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/troubleshooting-exchange-activesync

Additional Features

Besides the ActiveSync functionality we have seen here, when using a Windows Mobile 6.1 device in conjunction with Exchange 2007 SP1, users can also remotely access file servers from their devices without the need for a separate VPN connection. For details on how to configure this functionality, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/configuring-remote-file-share-access-exc...

Outlook Anywhere

In addition the features available to PDAs, it is perhaps important to mention the features available to the laptop offered by Microsoft Exchange. Outlook Anywhere is the friendly name for the "Remote Procedure Call over HTTPS" protocol that enables Outlook clients to securely access Exchange remotely as if they were connected locally via the LAN, without any change in configuration required on the PC when in or out of the office. This functionality is supported on Exchange 2003 SP2 or later. For more information on how to configure this feature read these articles:

Exchange 2003 - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/enabling-rpc-http-single-exchange-2003-s...
Exchange 2007 - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/enabling-rpc-http-exchange-2007

For more information on the features available with Exchange 2007, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/exchange-2007-features

Windows Mobile 6.5 and Exchange 2010

Exchange 2010, when used in conjunction with a Windows Mobile device running version 6.1 or later, whilst there are no new features in terms of device management, this release of Exchange includes the ability to synchronise SMS text message folders between the device and Exchange (and therefore with Outlook), the ability to view free/busy information for fellow Exchange users from your device as well as support for message reply status.
For more information on the features available in Exchange 2010, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/exchange-2010-features

Windows Phone 7

It is perhaps important to point out that Microsoft's new mobile device platform, Windows Phone 7, is a complete departure from Windows Mobile and as such should not be presumed to provide the same level of Exchange ActiveSync support as Windows Mobile: it doesn't.
It is possible to access an Exchange Server via Exchange ActiveSync from a Windows Phone 7 device - you can in fact add multiple Exchange accounts and access them concurrently - but from an administrative point of view the platform does not support the device management functionality that Windows Mobile does: you cannot define ActiveSync mailbox policies restricting access to the device hardware and software as I have described above. It is possible to remotely wipe devices and to enforce a password usage policy, but that is all. For more information read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/windows-phone-7-exchange-activesync-support

Additional Comments

As this article is intended to discuss remote email functionality, I have not looked at the other features available in Exchange from a mobility perspective, such as the other features available in Outlook Web Access and the Unified Messaging features of Exchange 2007 and 2010, but these are worth looking into if you are undecided about upgrading from a previous version of Exchange or looking into alternatives.
It is perhaps important to point out that whilst Microsoft Exchange may offer 'remote email nirvana', you should be prepared to pay a premium for the functionality it offers, especially when deploying the solution across multiple servers, all requiring 64-bit hardware and 64-bit Windows Server operating systems to run on them.
For those on a budget, a hosted Exchange service may be worth considering, such as that offered by Outsourcery, or an open source alternative to Exchange such as Zimbra (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/zimbra) or Scalix (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/scalix), both of which enable desktop use of Microsoft Outlook meaning that users do not need to be re-trained or lose out on functionality.

RIM BlackBerry

The BlackBerry solution is developed by a Canadian company, Research In Motion (RIM), and is largely regarded as the 'safe' choice for remote email solutions, largely thanks to a huge adoption in North America and some impressive PR coups not least of which was the President of the USA's insistence that the NSA allow him to use his beloved BlackBerry PDA.

BlackBerry comes in a number of 'flavours': the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) for corporates, the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) for prosumers and now BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express for small businesses. There are also solutions such as BlackBerry Unite for the home/family market - read the BlackBerry section of the web site for more information (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/blackberry)

The BIS service operates by users being assigned their own email address by their network operator, and being able to add third-party POP or IMAP email accounts to their service so that they can enjoy 'push' email from consumer email providers. This is an email-only service and users can sync contact and calendar data with their desktop PC using the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software, although there are clients available for the BlackBerry device platform for services such as Google. In this article I shall limit my examination to the products aimed at the business market: BES and BES Express.
In all cases, the BlackBerry family of products can only be used with BlackBerry client devices, or on a more limited basis with "BlackBerry Connect" devices (which have the BlackBerry messaging client installed), although at the time of writing this author does not know of any manufacturers actively promoting this software.

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server, or BES, is available for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell Groupwise. It is important to understand that the BES is not an email platform in its own right: an email solution is still required; the BES enables bi-directional synchronisation between the email server and BlackBerry handhelds. What the BES does offer, is very powerful device management features: thanks to the fact that RIM manufacturer both the server software and the handheld devices the solution is capable of granular device control functionality that is simply unparalleled.

At the time of writing, the BES software is at version 5.0.2.
New to version 5 is a web-based administration console that can be accessed either by Active Directory or BlackBerry's own authentication mechanisms and can have multiple administrative roles created - useful for helpdesk environments.
Also new to version 5 is the ability to deploy the BES solution in a High Availability configuration, clustering individual BlackBerry services and providing for automatic failover of services between servers in the event of any problems.

If using this release of the software for Microsoft Exchange in conjunction with a handheld device running the latest version of the handheld operating system, the following functionality is available:

• Full mailbox synchronisation, including Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Mail folders (including subfolders on a per-folder selection basis)
• A maximum message size limit and attachment size limit can be defined
• A date range can be specified during which mail and calendar items will be synchronised
• A schedule can be defined during which mailbox changes will be pushed to the device, outside of which synchronisation can be initiated manually
• When composing a new email message from the device, the user can select contacts from their own contacts folder, or from the Global Address List
• Users can also search their entire mailbox for a specific mail based on certain criteria should they have lost track of it
• Users can set and edit their Out Of Office status from the client device
• Users can view and edit email attachments
• Users can access remote file shares from their devices (requires version 5 of the handheld operating system)

As with Exchange and Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry solution enables the administrator to define per-user or per-group policies governing what hardware and software elements should be available to users, including features such as the camera, Bluetooth, WiFi, SMS messaging, web browser, etc:

Options range from the relatively simple:

to comprehensively detailed:

Password usage can be enforced on client devices and devices can be remotely 'killed' by the administrator:

The BlackBerry Mobile Data Service (MDS), part of the BES software, also enables the administrator to remotely push applications down to client devices.
An added benefit of the BES solution is that all client web browsing requests (unless being accessed via a WiFi connection) are routed via the BES. Therefore, if any URL-filtering, access restriction policies or proxies are deployed at the corporate environment, any browsing restrictions that apply to the BES server are automatically applied to client devices by virtue of the fact that they sit 'behind' the BES.

The type of email attachments that users should have access to on their handhelds can also be defined as well as size limits:

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

The BES Express software is essentially a scaled-down version of the full BES, designed for small company deployments, free to download and install and not limited to any set number of users. BES Express replaces the older BlackBerry Professional Software (BPS) which is now end of life. Offering full email and PIM synchronisation, but only a limited number of IT policies, BES Express can be installed directly onto an Exchange (or Small Business) Server. A version of BES Express is also available for Lotus Domino 8.0.2 or later.
For more information on the BES Express software as well as detailed setup guides, read the BES Express section of the blog - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/blackberry-enterprise-server-express

Architecture

As you probably already know, the BlackBerry solution requires that a specific tariff be enabled on the user's SIM: a tariff that is billed at a flat monthly rate regardless of how much email that user receives. This is viewed as a double-edged sword by many: on the plus side you know exactly how much you will pay each month and won't get any nasty surprises; however the amount you are paying can actually be more than an 'all you can eat' tariff anyway. All other email solutions simply require that 'data' be enabled on user's SIMs.

Part of the reason for this expense is to cover the cost of maintaining the architecture that enables the BlackBerry solution to work as it does. Unlike Exchange ActiveSync where clients communicate directly with the server, requiring that the Exchange server be Internet-facing, BlackBerry handhelds register against a middleware server maintained by RIM, known as the "RIM Relay". The BES server also registers with this Relay enabling end to end communications between the server and handhelds. One benefit of this approach is that the BES only needs outbound access to the Relay on a single port (TCP 3101) and no inbound access needs to be configured on any firewalls. There is also no need to mess about configuring or renewing SSL certificates, all client-server communications being secured by AES encryption automatically.
This approach does, therefore, mean that you are entirely reliant on third-party hardware and services being available.

Installation and Configuration

The BES software will require a separate server to run on, and therefore a separate Windows Server operating system to run on. BES Express can be installed directly on the Exchange server or Small Business Server, but in this deployment, RIM recommend only running a maximum of 75 users before you consider using dedicated hardware.

The software also uses a Microsoft SQL server database to store configuration information. By default the solution will install a copy of SQL Server Express (or MSDE) locally, which is recommended for deployments up to 500 users, but for larger installations a separate Microsoft SQL server can be specified. This would also obviously need to be licensed.

The BlackBerry solution requires that a user account be created within the Active Directory, and that user account be assigned Exchange Administrator permissions to be able to send and receive messages on behalf of any users added to the BES server. For full details on how to configure the environment for both Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007, read these articles:

Exchange 2003 - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/bes-41x-50-exchange-2003-pre-requisites
Exchange 2007 - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/bes-41x-50-exchange-2007-pre-requisites
Exchange 2010 - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/bes-501-exchange-2010-pre-requisites

The way that handheld devices are configured is one of the attractive USPs of the BlackBerry solution. Known as the "Enterprise Activation" feature, it operates by assigning a user an activation password on the BES server. To set up their device, all users need to do is enter in their own full email address and the same activation password. This process does not require that the user be in the office and the feature is available on all BlackBerry handheld devices, meaning that users can configure their own devices quickly and easily with minimal interaction with the IT department. For full details on how this process works read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/how-does-bes-wireless-activation-process...

BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager

Available as a separate component for BES 4.0.6 and later and incorporated into BES 5, the Web Desktop Manager enables users to access and edit settings relating to the content that is delivered to their handheld, directly from their web browser. The web application runs on the BES itself and can be enabled or disabled by the administrator as required. Users can also backup and restore device configurations and can activate new handhelds themselves by issuing an activation password. Read this article for more information - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/bes-5-web-desktop-manager

BlackBerry Mobile Voice Service (MVS)

BlackBerry MVS is a relatively new product available from RIM that it is worth mentioning if you are looking to integrate your client devices with a VoIP deployment as well as email. A separate server installation, the MVS allows BlackBerry handhelds to effectively remotely register as extensions of your IP PBX, enabling users to ring office-based staff free of charge and to 'break out' from the corporate PBX for local numbers. For more information read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/blackberry-mobile-voice-system-mvs

Additional Comments

For some, use of a BlackBerry device has nothing to do with the fact that they have a BES deployed within their business - some simply like the phones. It is of course, possible to use the BIS service to access a corporate Exchange server via HTTPS directly but this is beyond the scope of an article dedicated to corporate email use (and only provides access to email, rather than contacts and calendar), for information on this read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-new-blackberry-internet-service-....
However, I shall be looking at ways to use BlackBerry devices without the need for either a BES (and the BES tariff) or an Exchange server...

It is only possible to activate a BlackBerry device with one BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

IBM

IBM Lotus Domino accounts for perhaps 10% of corporate email deployments but is still regarded as a specialist or niche email platform, Domino being a database platform first and an email platform second. Indeed many companies that use Domino for its database functionality will also have an Exchange server for email.

Domino has pretty much always provided webmail access to users, and supports the ubiquitous POP and IMAP email protocols, but for a long time the only means of enjoying push email synchronisation with a client device was either via a BlackBerry deployment or with Nokia's Intellisync Mobile Suite solution, which has now been retired.
BlackBerry still supports Domino, but IBM have relatively recently launched their own push email application for Domino: Lotus Traveler.

Traveler enables bi-directional push-based synchronisation of mail, contacts, calendar, journal and to do folders with Windows Mobile and Symbian devices and also the Apple iPhone. The latest version, 8.5.2.1 adds support for Android devices running Android 2.x or later.
The Traveler component needs to be installed on an Internet-facing server, and a single TCP port allowed through to that server from the Internet. The port used for client-server communication can be specified by the administrator, and all communications can be secured using TLS/SSL encryption.

Traveler 8.1 was released alongside Domino 8.0.1 and provided support for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices. The release of version 8.5 extended this support to the Symbian Series 60 platform (including the Nokia E and N series range of devices), and version 8.5.1 more recently adds support for the iPhone. 8.5.2.1 is required for Android support.

System Requirements

Traveler 8.5 can only be installed on a server running version 8.5 of the Domino software. User mailboxes can themselves be stored on a Domino server running version 7.0.2 or later. Domino 8.5 is only supported on Windows Server 2003.
From a licensing perspective, all Lotus Notes users are automatically enabled for the Traveler service, they simply need to download the client from the Domino server.

Traveler 8.5 includes limited device management functionality on the Windows Mobile platform, including:

• Require a power-on password
• Require password to be a specific length
• Allow users x number of attempts to enter their password correctly
• Require that devices undergo a hard reset should allowed password attempts be exceeded
• Require that data on external storage cards be encrypted
• Remote device wipe
• Rich text support for emails
• Support for mail encryption and signing

Client Installation

Client devices can be configured simply by downloading and installing a single client application. This client can be downloaded via a web browser either from the Domino server itself (requiring that the server be accessible on TCP port 80) or from a server of the administrator's choosing. The web site could also be customised to include downloads for any other software packages such a VPN clients or certificates if so desired.
The client installer package reads its configuration from an XML-based "bootstrap" file which allows the administrator to pre-populate the client with required settings including the server address and port number among other variables.

For more information on the Traveler installation process and features, read these articles - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/lotus

Google

Google's online search portal is now only a fraction of its service and product portfolio: with the launch of the Android platform it is a mobile phone operating system developer and content-delivery platform, and with the launch of the Google Voice service it is also a telco. The Google Chrome browser and operating system see the company poised to rival Microsoft for the desktop applications market, and the Google Apps service is reducing Microsoft's hegemony with the Office/Exchange combination.

Google Mail, or GMail, is a free-to-use email service that can be accessed from any web browser. Google also have their own client application for a variety of platforms, including Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry and of course is also integrated into the Android platform. Alongside Mail, Google also offer free contacts and calendar synchronisation services.
Should users prefer to use the native client on their PDA rather than the Google client, Google have also licensed the EAS protocol meaning that Windows Mobile, Symbian, iPhone and Android devices can access Gmail using their native clients. Google have also implemented remote device wipe to their support for EAS meaning that administrators can remotely 'kill' devices that have been reported lost or stolen directly from their web browser or from the Exchange server, as detailed above.

Gmail also supports both POP and IMAP access from clients that only support these protocols (such as Symbian S40 devices) and contacts and calendar directories can also be accessed via the SyncML (OMA-DS) protocol. In short, then, if you have a Google account, you can access your data from pretty much anything.
GMail also has a nice feature whereby you can add third party POP accounts to your Google profile (such as a Sky or TalkTalk account) and have mail sent to those accounts delivered directly to your GMail client.

Besides consumer services, the Google Apps service, which is a chargeable service businesses pay for to host their corporate email in Google's cloud, offers additional features such as the ability to delegate access to your mailbox to others, provides numerous tools to migrate your existing Exchange email infrastructure to Google's servers and also offers a level of device management and security by offering administrators the ability to enforce on-device encryption, password usage and strength as well as the ability to remotely disable device camera usage:

I have posted a number of articles on how to configure access to Google's services:

Symbian S60 - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-google-sync-nokia-e71
http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/google-mail-symbian-s60
Windows Mobile - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-google-sync-windows-mobile

Following the release of the Google BES Connector software, corporates can now leverage the comprehensive device management capabilities of the BES solution with BlackBerry handhelds without the need for a local Domino or Exchange server (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/google_apps_connector_bes)

For the office environment, it is possible to access Google's mail service from Microsoft Outlook, meaning that users need not necessarily know that a change has occurred in the back office environment and will not need additional training. Of course it should be taken into account that your data will no longer be stored locally, you may need to increase the bandwidth of your Internet feed and will be at the mercy of your ISP's resilience...

Android

Google's own mobile device platform, Android, is taking the handset world by storm and the break-neck pace of development performed on the platform is adding new functionality all the time, although Google are taking pains to slow down this pace to prevent "fragmentation" in the marketplace - having to support multiple versions of its own operating system when releasing new services and applications.
Android 2.1 brought to Android the ability to synchronise with an Exchange email server via EAS.
Now in version 2.3, Android supports multiple concurrent Exchange email accounts, a unified email Inbox, the ability to access all mailbox folders including Contacts and Calendar information as well as the ability to specify how many days' worth of email should be synchronised.
The Global Address List can be accessed in "real time" as you compose email recipients, and Android 2.3.4 adds the ability to set an out of office message and status. Device management features are supported by the EAS implementation including the ability to remote kill the device from the Exchange server as well as the ability to set a password usage policy.
For more information on the Exchange capabilities of the Android platform, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/quick-look-android-23s-exchange-support
It is important to note that this information applies to the standard Android email client, as used by "pure" Google Android handsets such as the Nexus range. Individual device manufacturers may choose to implement their own email clients offering differing functionality. This is certainly true of HTC and Motorola. I will be looking at these devices in a moment.

Nokia

Nokia have also recently jumped on the cloud bandwagon with the launch of their OVI portfolio of services - so called as 'ovi' is the Finnish for 'doorway', presumably to give the impression of the Ovi platform as a one-stop portal to a wide range of services...if you speak Finnish.
I have blogged several times about the features available in Ovi, such as web-based access to contacts, calendar, Ovi mail and documents, but as this article is intended for the corporate market I shall not be looking at it here. The OVI Maps service should perhaps be investigated by those looking to deploy Nokia handsets for their email capability but looking for that 'something extra'.

Nokia acquired Intellisync for a not inconsiderable sum a few years ago, the Intellisync Mobile Suite being a remote PIM synchronisation and device management solution to rival BlackBerry, available for a wide range of platforms...but unfortunately decided after only a short period to cease all development and retired the product.
Whilst a shock to many (including according to my sources the Intellisync product team themselves), Nokia has very much thrown its lot in with Microsoft and has amalgamated its licensing of the EAS protocol with the capabilities of the Intellisync platform to produce a client application that can rival the capabilities of Windows Mobile 6.1 when used in conjunction with Exchange 2007.

The Mail For Exchange software, Nokia's implementation of the EAS protocol, is only available for the Symbian S60 platform (the E and N series of handsets as well as the Xpress Musics) and is now preloaded on most handsets, providing access to Exchange 2003 SP2 or later. The software is also available for download from the Nokia Business web site: http://europe.nokia.com/get-support-and-software/download-software/mail-...

Although not able to provide the device management capabilities of the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, the Nokia E75, E72 and more recently the N8 and the C7, when used with Exchange 2007 can synchronise all mailbox folders, including subfolders, can set and edit out of office status message, can access the GAL and perform message searches as well as the ability to enforce password usage and remote device wipe.

For detailed instructions on how to configure the Nokia E71, E72, E75, N97, N8 and C7 as well as information on the Ovi service, view the Nokia section of the blog - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/nokia

The Nokia N8 and C7 handsets can access multiple Exchange email accounts concurrently.

Perhaps also worth mentioning is the Nokia Messaging Service (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/nokia-email-service) which provides BIS-style email delivery to prosumers, in fact using the architecture of the Intellisync platform behind the scenes. This feature allows users to access a consumer POP or IMAP email account and define more advanced settings than the native POP or IMAP protocols themselves support, such as the ability to define attachment size limits and attachment file types. Read the article above for more information.

Additional Comments

Nokia also have a number of enterprise deployment tools available for the S60 range, including the ability to define Exchange ActiveSync and VPN settings, roll them up into a single configuration file and apply that file to any number of handsets. Read this article for more information - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/nokia-enterprise-configuration-tool

HTC

Although in terms of Exchange ActiveSync functionality, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone devices are largely standard regardless of device manufacturer (the EAS client being part of the Windows Mobile operating system), HTC's Android-based devices do feature a proprietary email client that offers superior features over the standard Android one.
Prior to the release of Android 2.1 (Eclair), Android devices could not natively connect to an Exchange Server using EAS (POP and IMAP was of course supported). HTC's Hero and Tattoo devices were able to provide this functionality using HTC's own licensed EAS client. This proprietary client has been developed further and is incorporated in all HTC Android devices. The latest HTC Android devices offer a very feature-rich experience when used with an Exchange server. Multiple Exchange email accounts are also supported.

All email folders can be synchronised, as well as contacts and calendar data and also Tasks beginning with the release of the HTC Rhyme. Synchronisation schedules can be defined for peak and off-peak hours, so your device won't poll for new mail during the night if you don't want it to.
Out of office status and message can be set from the device.
For full details on how to configure the HTC Android client on HTC Android models, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-exchange-email-htc-desire-hd

Besides the device management features offered by the Exchange email client, HTC Android models can also be managed online using HTC's HTCSense.com service, which allows users to remotely lock and wipe handhelds from any web browser, as well as configure a lock message to be displayed on the device screen. Users can also synchronise contacts, calendar and SMS text messages with their online HTCSense account - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/htc-announce-htcsensecom

For information on the capabilities of HTC devices, visit the HTC section of the blog - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/htc

Motorola

As with HTC, Motorola also develop their own Exchange email client for their Android devices, which offers superior functionality over the stock Android client. Their range of business-focused devices, such as the Pro +, supports a wide range of Exchange ActiveSync management protocols including the ability to not only enforce password usage, but password complexity, history, recovery and login attempts. Hardware control is also implemented, so use of the device camera, WiFi and storage card can be enabled and disabled by EAS policy.

For full details of the Exchange capabilities of the Pro +, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/introducing-motorola-pro-0

Apple

Apple licensed the EAS protocol, which they released in version 2.0 of the iPhone software, enabling access to any Exchange server running Exchange 2003 SP2 or later. Now in version 4.2 of the iOS software, which now includes the iPad, functionality has not changed hugely with the exception that multiple concurrent Exchange email accounts are supported as well as a unified email inbox.
Synchronisation of Tasks is not supported, but a password policy can be enforced on devices and iPhones can be remotely wiped from the Exchange server. For information on how to configure the iPhone for access to Exchange, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-server-activesync-apple-iphone

As with Nokia, Apple have also developed an Enterprise deployment tool for the iPhone which enables the bulk deployment of Exchange and VPN settings in a single configuration package. Read this article for more information - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/apple-iphone-configuration-utility-20

It is perhaps also important to note that the release of Snow Leopard, or MacOS 10.6, features built-in access to Microsoft Exchange 2007 via Apple's Mail, iCal and Address Book applications, significant when you consider that Windows does not by itself provide access to Exchange, requiring that Microsoft Outlook be installed (and purchased) separately.
For details on how to configure Snow Leopard for Exchange access read this article - (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/configuring-macos-snow-leopard-access-ex...)

Dataviz RoadSync

Dataviz (www.dataviz.com) is a software company that has also licensed the EAS protocol from Microsoft. Whilst not a hardware manufacturer as with the other companies looked at in this article, what DataViz have done is to create client software, know as RoadSync, for devices that do not inherently have Exchange ActiveSync capabilities, such as Symbian S40 devices, Symbian S80 devices (the Nokia Communicator 93xx and 95xx devices), Java MIDP 2.0 devices and Windows Mobile 2003 devices.
RoadSync is also available for non-HTC Android devices and also offers functionality for the Symbian S60 platform that is not available to the Nokia Mail For Exchange client for devices prior to the E71 (such as support for subfolder synchronisation).
Visit the Dataviz web site for more information.

Hosted Services

I have touched already on the subject of hosting your corporate data in the cloud, but it is perhaps important to note that an Exchange or BlackBerry server can offer the same features to users regardless of its physical location: EAS and Outlook Anywhere services mean that both field staff and office workers can access Exchange even if that server is not located locally - provided that you have adequate bandwidth.
A hosted solution also removes the headaches of managing backups, security certificates and availability and, depending on the service, anti-spam and anti-virus measures.

If you are interested in considering a hosted solution, consult Outsourcery (http://www.outsourcery.co.uk/)

Old School

For companies that have an existing email infrastructure that cannot be mobilised natively (Exchange 5.5, 2000 / Domino 5,6,7) and do not wish to consider upgrading or having their data hosted, there are low-cost solutions available, such as the solution offered by Openhand. Visto and Seven should also be investigated as options.

Summary

Whilst I have focused on the new features available from the major email providers available today, it is important to note that virtually all email server platforms and device clients support the venerable POP and IMAP protocols. Therefore if you are not bothered with push delivery or device management but simply want rock solid, user-initiated mail retrieval, then none of the above is necessarily relevant to you. Call Brightpoint today for more information.

I have also not mentioned the Palm platform in this article, do not take this to mean that there are not solutions available for this platform, merely that demand has driven me to exclude it at this time.

For a summary of the current features offered by the email platforms discussed in this article, view the chart below. Do not, however, take this chart to mean that these are the only options available to you...

* - When used with Microsoft Exchange 2007

If you require any further information on any of the products or services you have seen outlined above please contact Brightpoint on 0870 849 0225.

Introduction to mobile data technologies

Today the mobile phone has evolved from a simple voice device, to a fully-functional personal organiser conveniently containing important information including contacts, calendar appointments and notes. It can be used to access the Internet while on the move, especially for email, and is also a portable radio, music player, camera and photograph album.
The same technology (the Internet-connectivity part at any rate) can also be used in a data card or USB device in conjunction with a laptop computer, or can even be embedded within the PC itself. It is also used in other, newer devices, such as portable wireless access points and cellular terminals.
So what do all the acronyms surrounding this subject stand for? What is the difference between HSDPA and EDGE?
In this article I will look at the development of mobile data technologies from their first inception to the present day and beyond.

In the beginning…

Before networks became “cellular”, people who needed mobile communications could use a vehicle-mounted radio telephone services by one large central antenna in a major city. This communication was not “personal”: you simply broadcast on a particular frequency and anyone listening on that same frequency could hear you. These networks typically covered approximately 50 miles.

A cellular network employs a number of radio masts and can theoretically service an infinite area. The first generation, or 1G, of mobile networks was entirely analogue and only serviced a small number of users with low growth projections. Networks were usually state-owned, coordination between countries was minimal and roaming between countries with the same handset was impossible.
Several different technologies emerged:

• The United States opted for AMPS, the Advanced Mobile Phone System
• The UK implemented TACS, the Total Access Communications System
• The Scandinavian countries implemented NMTS, the Nordic Mobile Telephone System

The systems all worked on different radio frequencies, devices were bulky with limited battery life and coverage was, at best, adequate.
These networks could transmit data, but demand for such services was virtually non-existent.

Second Generation Systems (2G)

2G mobile networks were launched in Europe in 1992. The motivation in Europe was to adopt a single technology for the EC, replacing the patchwork of incompatible analogue systems with one digital system that would enable European citizens to make and receive calls anywhere in Europe.

The technology that was adopted was GSM, the Global System for Mobile telecommunication.

Digital technology provided improved call quality, security and data capability at 9.6kbps!

GSM networks were also rolled out in the US, however deployment was slow due to the prevalence of the AMPS system. It was cheaper for operators in the US to upgrade the existing infrastructure from AMPS to D-AMPS (Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System), also known as TDMA, or Time Division Multiple Access, which I will look at later.

Why is digital better than analogue?

Both analogue and digital systems use analogue radio waves to transmit information from the mobile device to the nearest radio mast (or cell tower). However, digital systems use the analogue wave to send binary information in 1s and 0s rather than an analogue radio signal.
Analogue signals have a tendency to lose their integrity because of “noise” or interference. The amount of noise picked up during transmission is known as the “signal to noise ratio”. When an analogue signal is passed through an amplifier to boost the signal, the noise that has been picked up along the way is also amplified. The further a signal travels, the more noise it will pick up until the original signal is indistinguishable from the noise. This is known as “signal attenuation”, and is the reason why long-distance telephone calls used to sound so much worse than local calls.
Whereas analogue signals can represent a whole range of values, digital signals can only represent two: 1 or 0. Instead of amplifiers, digital signals are regenerated using a repeater. The incoming signal is examined, the repeater determines whether the value is 1 or 0 and transmits a new, perfect, signal. Therefore any noise that is picked up along the way is removed.

GSM was originally licensed for use on the 900 MHz band, but was soon expanded to include 1800 MHz as demand grew. The US implemented GSM networks using 1900 MHz instead. Thus you often hear of phones being either “dual-band” or “tri-band”. South American and Asian networks have subsequently deployed GSM networks on 850MHz, and modern phones are thus referred to as being “quad-band”.

GSM was not readily adopted in the US and other nations outside Europe, large operators selecting an alternate technology instead: CDMA, which I will look at later.

GSM network infrastructure

A GSM network is made up of a number of key components: the mobile device (this could be a phone, datacard, USB dongle, embedded module, etc) is referred to as the mobile station (MS).
Radio signals are sent to and received from the nearest cell tower, or base transceiver station (BTS).
BTS units are normally located every few miles, or closer together in densely populated areas, or where the natural geography of the landscape requires it.
A handful of BTS units will be controlled by a base station controller (BSC), which monitors the performance of each BTS and handles the process of moving a subscriber from one tower to another (this process is known as “handover”).
The BSC units are in turn connected to the network’s mobile switching center (MSC), which is the gateway between the mobile network and the public switched telephone network (PSTN), or landline network.
Connected to the MSC is a large computer known as the home location register (HLR), which tracks and stores the location of each subscriber so that incoming calls can be routed to the correct BTS that the user is connected to at that time. The HLR also contains records on what services the subscriber is eligible for, such as MMS, Internet access, Blackberry, etc.
Linked to the HLR is the equipment identity register (EIR), which holds records on SIM numbers and IMEI numbers. If you’re not familiar with these terms, these will also be looked at later. The CDR database, or Calling Data Record, tracks how much use the subscriber makes of the network so that bills can be sent accordingly.

GSM network frequency usage

When a network is said to operate on 900 MHz, it actually uses different frequency bands for the uplink and downlink connections between the MS and the BTS. 905 MHz to 915 MHz is used for the uplink, and 950 MHz to 960 MHz does the downlink. This 10 MHz band is then further divided into 2 lots of 5 MHz, with each 5 MHz “passband” being allocated to a single network operator. Similar divisions are also made of the 1800 MHz passband. Therefore, for a long time, 4 network operators existed in the UK: 2 operating at 900 MHz and 2 at 1800 MHz. This has now changed with the licensing by the government of the frequency used by 3G, which I will look at later, and the emergence of so-called ‘virtual’ network operators, such as Tesco and Virgin mobile, who “piggyback” on the infrastructure of existing network operators.
You can find out information about the frequencies used by the different UK operators here:
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_gb.shtml

The network operator then subdivides their 5 MHz allocation into 25 sub-channels of 200 KHz each. Each of these channels is known as a “carrier”. 24 are available for customer use, 1 is reserved for network monitoring and signalling. Within this small frequency range, a specific frequency will be used for the actual transfer of data, and the “surrounding” frequency is used as “spacing” to prevent adjacent carriers from interfering with each other.

No two adjacent cell towers use the same carrier frequencies. This enables operators to cover a large area with only a relatively small amount of allocated bandwidth.

This technique of frequency usage is known as Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA).

To further maximise the number of subscribers who can use the network simultaneously, each carrier is further subdivided into 8 “timeslots”, with one timeslot assigned to each user. Each user then transmits for just 0.5 milliseconds before use of the timeslot is passed onto the next user and so on. This process happens so quickly that no loss in quality is noticed by the user. This technique is known as Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA).

The capacity of a cell is therefore based on the number of carriers used multiplied by the number of timeslots.

One weakness of the TDMA system is that data must be transmitted at all times to keep all 8 timeslots in sync with each other. Therefore even if no speech is being transmitted, “packing” data must be broadcast instead.

So how does it work?

All mobile devices have a unique code associated with them. This is a 15-digit number called an IMEI number (Individual Mobile Equipment Identifier) and can normally be located on a sticker under the battery.
The SIM card, or Subscriber Identity Module, also has a unique number associated with it, called an IMSI number (Individual Mobile Subscriber Identifier).
When a mobile device is turned on, it will search on the control carrier for a System Identity Code (SIC), a unique 5-digit identifier assigned to each mobile network operator by the local governing body. If it cannot find any codes at all, it will display “no service” on the display, or something similar.
When it does find an SIC, it will compare it to the number programmed on the SIM card. If they match, the device will then transmit a registration request containing its IMEI number. The mobile network will then update its location database with the details of the IMEI, IMSI and the BTS and send a message to the device over the control carrier letting it know what frequencies to use for uplink and downlink.
As the device moves towards the edge of a cell, the BTS will determine that the signal strength is diminishing. Simultaneously, the BTS toward which the device is moving, will determine that the signal strength is increasing. The two BTS units coordinate with each other through the BSC until a signal is sent to the device over the control channel telling it to change frequency, thus “handing over” from one cell to another.

CDMA

CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access and is another 2G cellular technology, not employed in Europe, but used extensively in the US.
CDMA was developed by the US military as early as the 1940s as a robust transmission system that could withstand jamming attempts. It was deployed in cellular networks in 1993.
It is a spread spectrum technology. Simply put, this technology still divides the available frequency into “carriers”, but instead of using specific individual carriers for each base station, the entire bandwidth is used and data is sent in small packets across all of it, “hopping” from one frequency to another pseudo-randomly (the transmitter and receiver agree on the algorithm to use before communication begins, to a potential eavesdropper the sequence appears random). Rather than assigning users a ‘timeslot’ to identify them, individual users are assigned a unique code to identify them and their data stream is sent over the network simultaneously with other users’ data-streams. This allows for a more efficient use of the available frequency spectrum as there is no need to transmit “blank” data when there is no speech to broadcast. CDMA also allows for data communication at up to 14.4 Kbps.

2.5G Systems

As demand for data services grew, “bolt-ons” to the existing GSM infrastructure were deployed. The term 2.5 G is used as they were effectively stop-gap solutions on the road to 3G.
With conventional GSM, data could be sent and received at 9.6 Kbps. This was a limitation of the network infrastructure and did not depend on which operator you used, or what device you were using.
Internet connections were all “dial-up”, which required firstly that you have an account with an ISP (Internet Service Provider). To connect to the Internet you would need to dial a PSTN telephone number from your computer and then wait for up to 30 seconds for the connection to be established as the modems went through the handshaking process.
Once connected, a “circuit” between you and the ISP was opened, and left open until you disconnected. This was known as Circuit-Switched Data (CSD).
This method of connecting to the Internet was slow and also expensive as the user was billed for the length of the call placed to the ISP, even though for much of that time they would not be sending and receiving any data. It also tied up the timeslot being used for the length of time that that user was connected: not an effective use of the network’s preciously limited resources.
One of the temporary measures deployed was the introduction of High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD). This was only implemented by Orange in the UK. This involved altering the encoding mechanism used, squeezing 14.4 Kbps into one timeslot instead of 9.6 Kbps, and allowing one user to have 2 timeslots simultaneously so that they could effectively connect at 28.8 Kbps.
The other measure was the introduction of the General Packet Radio Service, or GPRS.

GPRS

GPRS uses the same physical network infrastructure as GSM, that is why it is referred to as a 2.5G technology: it is still based on TDMA and users are still assigned timeslots. However, instead of dialling into an ISP and then establishing a circuit with that provider to send and receive data, with GPRS the method of sending and receiving data is different. The network operator effectively becomes the ISP, negating the need for an account with an external provider. When the (GPRS-capable) device is turned on, it is registered on the data network immediately and is able to send and receive data instantly in “packets”. It is therefore said to be “packet-switched” rather than circuit-switched.
GPRS connections are said to be “always-on”. Data can be sent and received at any time, with data transmission being paused should a voice call need to be placed.
This has a number of advantages both for the user and the operator:

• There is no 30-second delay before a connection to the Internet is established
• The user is only billed for the data that they actually send and receive, regardless of how long they remain connected to the Internet
• As there is no “dead time” during which the user is not sending and receiving data, the network resources are used more efficiently, allowing for more concurrent subscribers.
• Data speeds are faster

GPRS networks required additional hardware to be installed within the GSM infrastructure: each BTS is upgraded to include a Packet Control Unit (PCU) to handle the routing of data packets. Each PCU sends the data packets it receives to a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN), which performs a similar function to that performed by the BTS for voice communication. It is effectively a router that examines each packet and determines its destination and routes it accordingly.
A Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) is the router that sits between the mobile network and the wider Internet. This is also known as the Access Point Node (APN) and will record details on data transferred for billing purposes.
Each network operator will have its own APNs, some used for general Internet browsing, some dedicated purely to the sending and receiving of picture messages, etc. It is also possible for corporate customers to have their own hardware installed on the network that is dedicated to routing data from the mobile network to their own internal network. This is called a “Private APN”.
Therefore, when configuring a GPRS connection on a mobile device, rather than entering a telephone number to be dialled, you simply need to enter the name of the APN to be “attached” to.
GPRS uses a number of different means of encoding data for transmission across the radio link, which allows for faster data speeds: up to 13.4 Kbps per timeslot. Users can also be allocated up to 4 timeslots, allowing for up to 53.6 Kbps.
It should be noted, however, that the amount of timeslots allocated to data users will be controlled by the network operator: at times when there is a lot of voice traffic on the network, fewer timeslots will be made available for data usage than at times when the voice traffic is low.

3G

It is important to remember that the term “3G” does not refer to a specific technology, it refers rather to a type of service. As 2G refers to both GSM and CDMA, so does 3G refer to a handful of different technologies. Therefore, saying that you are “connecting over 3G” is not technically accurate.
3G technologies allow for the live streaming of media from the Internet, video conferencing, etc. There are several different technologies within this umbrella.
EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) is largely considered to be a 2.75G technology. It is also referred to as E-GPRS.
EDGE is a bolt-on enhancement to the existing GPRS network. It requires no hardware changes to the network, rather a software update to the BTS and BSC (and the mobile device) that enables a more advanced encoding algorithm that allows for a maximum of 129.6 Kbps (using 4 timeslots).

How is digital data sent over an analogue signal?

In a nutshell, mobile devices are able to send and receive data over the air by adjusting the physical properties of a radio wave to denote either a binary 1 or a 0 (all data is made up of 1s and 0s). Provided that both the mobile device and the cell tower it is registered with are configured to 'look' for the same changes to the carrier signal, data can be sent and received.
This is essentially the same principle used by all communication mediums: fibre optics use light pulses; Ethernet uses copper cables; cellular devices use radio waves.
It is beyond the scope of this overview to go into high-level physics, but essentially it breaks down like this.
The properties of a radio wave can only be altered so far - you can adjust its amplitude, its frequency or its phase - or a combination of all of them. Amplitude is the extent of vibration of a wave, measured in terms of displacement from the horizontal axis. If a carrier wave has a normal amplitude of x, then anything less than x could be said to represent 0, and anything greater than x could be said to represent 1.
Altering the amplitude of a wave to represent binary data is known as Amplitude Modulation. The key to achieving ever-faster data rates is to refine the extent to which a variation in a wave's properties constitutes a data value.
This is a massive simplification but essentially what this means is that whereas 2.5G systems might adjust a wave's amplitude by 1 measurement unit to denote a binary 1, 3G systems might refine the detection mechanism to mean that the wave can be altered by up to 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 measurement units. Therefore, whereas the 2.5G system can present a binary 1 or a binary 0 by changing the wave once, 3G can change the wave up to 4 times and therefore present 4 binary values between 00, 01, 10, and 11. This is achieved without needing to change the properties of the wave itself, just the processors at the sending and receiving units at each end of the wave. This also means that by changing the wave once to denote a value of 01, this is twice as fast as having to change the wave twice to denote both a 0 followed by a 1 - hence it's twice as fast.
The ability to assign 4 values to a single carrier wave is known as Quadrature Amplitude Modification, or QAM.

UMTS is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System. This is a theoretical umbrella term used to describe any technology that constitutes a global mobile network. In reality, the term UMTS is only used to describe, and has become synonymous with, W-CDMA, or Wideband Code Division Multiple Access.
W-CDMA uses the same underlying technology as CDMA, however utilises a different frequency: 2100 MHz. the important thing is that all W-CDMA networks that have been deployed globally all use the same frequency, from the US to Europe to Japan. It can therefore, be said to be a truly global mobile technology.
Handsets that can operate on both GSM / GPRS and UMTS are said to be “dual mode”.
WCDMA networks can support data speeds up to 1.8Mbps, thanks to the greater frequency used (and hence more wave cycles), and further improvements to the modulation scheme.
HSPA is the High Speed Packet Access service, comprised of HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access). HSPA is an upgrade to the WCDMA technology that allows for data rates of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 Mbps.
HSPA achieves these higher data rates by employing 16-QAM (16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation). As discussed above, altering the amplitude of a wave can be used to represent a 1 or a 0 per wave cycle, or baud. The higher amount of processing power contained in mobile devices today means that more precise variations of this amplitude can be achieved, allowing for more bits to be represented by each specific variation. 16 QAM allows for each wave cycle to represent 16 possible bit combinations:

0000
0001
0010
0100
1000
1001
1010
etc

The same laws of physics apply - the radio wave itself is the same and can only have its physical properties adjusted in the same way. What differs is the distinct degrees to which a change in the wave's properties can be interpreted by the sending and receiving equipment as a binary data value. HSPA can detect up to 16 different values (16 QAM) per wave cycle: 0000, 0001, 0010, etc et etc and is hence 4 times as fast: 0000 in one go rather than 0,0,0,0 in 4 goes.

The Future

HSPA Evolved is hoped to provide up to 42 Mbps in its first release. This technology will use antenna arrays supporting MIMO (Multiple In Multiple Out) packet transmission, effectively allowing a mobile device to simultaneously send and receive multiple steams of data to the network.
HSPA LTE (Long Term Evolution) is hoped to provide up to 200 Mbps for the downlink channel and up to 100 Mbps for the uplink channel by employing OFDMA technology (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access). This involves extremely precise signalling, controlling and processing capabilities on the part of the sending and receiving equipment and sends larger amounts of data over each wave cycle by employing 64 QAM - meaning that the carrier signal can be altered by 1 of 64 different values to represent a larger number of bit sequences.
It gets much more complicated when you realise that the values being broadcast are not even 0000, 0010, 0100 or 1000, but are symbol values to represent more commonly occurring, larger bit sequences. Essentially communications between the device and the cell tower are compressed, in a manner similar to how ZIP applications can compress large files into smaller archive files.

This same technology is in fact already in use in 802.11 WiFi equipment, providing up to 54 Mbps data rates in the 802.11g incarnation, and is used in the 802.16 WIMAX standard, which can deliver data rates up to 200 Mbps.

Performing a manual roam on Android

Should you be experiencing poor signal strength or no service, it is occasionally necessary to perform a manual roam on your device to de-register it from your network provider and then re-register it again.

To perform a manual network roam on an Android device, launch the Settings menu and select Wireless and Networks

Select Mobile Networks

Select Network Operators

Select the option to Search for networks

A list of available networks will be displayed after a few moments:

Select any other network that is not your home provider network. After a few moments you will see "No Service" on the display.
Now select your home provider network and change the selection back to Automatic.

For information on how to set an Android device to 2G only mode, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-android-phone-2g-only-mode

Performing a manual roam on BlackBerry

Should you be experiencing poor signal strength or no service, it is occasionally necessary to perform a manual roam on your device to de-register it from your network provider and then re-register it again.

To perform a manual network roam on a BlackBerry device, select the option to Manage Networks from the main menu

Select Mobile Network Options
Change the Network Selection Mode from Automatic to Manual

A list of available networks will be displayed after a few moments. Select any other network that is not your home provider network. After a few moments you will see "No Service" on the display.
Now select your home provider network and change the selection back to Automatic.

For information on how to set a BlackBerry device to 2G only mode, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-blackberry-smartphone-device-2g-...

Performing a manual roam on Windows Mobile Pocket PC

Should you be experiencing poor signal strength or no service, it is occasionally necessary to perform a manual roam on your device to de-register it from your network provider and then re-register it again.

To perform a manual network roam on a Windows Mobile Pocket PC device, tap Start and select Phone
Tap on Menu and select Options
Tap on the Network tab

Change the Network Selection option from Automatic to Manual

A list of available networks will be displayed after a few moments. Select any other network that is not your home provider network. After a few moments you will see "No Service" on the display.
Now select your home provider network and change the selection back to Automatic.

For information on how to set a Pocket PC device to 2G only mode, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-windows-mobile-pocket-pc-device-...

Performing a manual roam on Windows Mobile Smartphone

Should you be experiencing poor signal strength or no service, it is occasionally necessary to perform a manual roam on your device to de-register it from your network provider and then re-register it again.

To perform a manual network roam on a Windows Mobile Smartphone device, press Start and select Settings
Select Phone
Select Networks (you may need to select More to see this option)
Set the Network selection option to Manual
Press the Menu button and select the option to Find a new network

A list of available networks will be displayed after a few moments. Select any other network that is not your home provider network. After a few moments you will see "No Service" on the display.
Now select your home provider network and change the selection back to Automatic.

Performing a manual roam on Windows Phone 7

Should you be experiencing poor signal strength or no service, it is occasionally necessary to perform a manual roam on your device to de-register it from your network provider and then re-register it again.

To perform a manual network roam on Windows Phone 7, open the Settings view from the main menu and select Cellular
Tap on the option for Network Selection and change it from Automatic to "Tap to Select". A list of available networks will be displayed after a few moments.
Select any other network that is not your home provider network. After a few moments you will see "No Service" on the display.
Now select your home provider network and change the selection back to Automatic.

For information on how to set a Windows Phone 7 device to 2G only mode, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-windows-phone-7-device-2g-only-mode

Performing a manual roam on the Apple iPhone

Should you be experiencing poor signal strength or no service, it is occasionally necessary to perform a manual roam on your device to de-register it from your network provider and then re-register it again.

To perform a manual network roam on the iPhone, launch the Settings and select Carrier. The above screen will be displayed. Unselect the option for Automatic. A list of available networks will be displayed after a few moments. Select any other network that is not your home provider network. After a few moments you will see "No Service" on the display.
Now select your home provider network and change the selection back to Automatic.

For information on how to set the iPhone to 2G only mode, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/setting-iphone-2g-only-mode

Restoring HTC Android 3G connection settings

Should you change the SIM in your HTC Android device, or accidentally edit or remove your GPRS / 3G connection settings, you can restore the settings back to their default values quickly and easily.

Launch the Settings from the main application menu and select Wireless & Networks:

Select Mobile Networks and then Access Point Names:

A list of configured access points will be displayed:

Press the menu button and select Reset to default:

A list of available connection profiles will be displayed based on the SIM card inserted into the device:

Select the appropriate profile for your network operator and tariff (NOTE - "PAYG" stands for Pay As You Go).

Once the settings have been installed, power the phone off and on again to re-register the device on the network. Your connection settings have now been restored.

Sending email via SMTP on Vodafone UK

UPDATE - The Vodafone 360 service will be terminated on December 31st, 2011. After this time Vodafone will not provide an SMTP service to customers. It is advised, if the below description applies to you, to switch to a free Google or Hotmail email account and use the SMTP settings for that service. Alternately there are paid SMTP relay services available, such as www.smtpauth.com

When you set up a POP or IMAP-based email account on your phone, to send email you need to also specify an outgoing SMTP mail server. Due to security concerns, most ISPs require that you use their Internet service in order to be able to use their outgoing mail server. Therefore, if setting up a Tiscali email account for example, whereas your incoming mail server would be Tiscali's, your outgoing mail server may vary depending on how you're connecting to the Internet. In the case of Vodafone UK, the outgoing mail server to use would have been "send.vodafone.net" - an SMTP server provided by Vodafone to allow their subscribers to send email messages when connected to the Vodafone data network.

This server now appears to have been retired, but it is still possible to send email via SMTP on the Vodafone UK network.

You will first need to sign up for a free Vodafone 360 account. This only takes a few moments and can be done online by browsing to www.vodafone360.com

The setting to use on your phone are then as follows:

SMTP (Outgoing) server - smtp.360.com
Username - username@360.com - where "username" is what you selected when you signed up for the 360 account
Password - your 360 password
Security - SSL / TLS
Port - 465

You should now be able to send email via SMTP.

This does not apply to BlackBerry or Exchange ActiveSync accounts which operate differently.

Setting a BlackBerry Smartphone device to 2G only mode

Should you be in an area of only intermittent or poor 3G coverage, you may wish to set your phone to 2G only mode to experience a better service until you are next in a better coverage area.

To do this, from the home screen scroll up so that the status bar is selected:

Press the action button to bring up the following menu:

Select Mobile Network Options:

Set the Network Mode to 2G

Revert the change to return to automatic mode.

For information on how to perform a manual network roam on a BlackBerry device, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/performing-manual-roam-blackberry

Setting a Windows Mobile Pocket PC device to 2G only mode

Should you be in an area of only intermittent or poor 3G coverage, you may wish to set your phone to 2G only mode to experience a better service until you are next in a better coverage area.

To do this, launch the Phone application from the Start Menu. Press the Menu button and select Options:

Tap on the Band tab:

Change the Network Type option from Auto to GSM

Revert the change to return to automatic mode.

For information on how to perform a manual network roam on the Pocket PC platform, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/performing-manual-roam-windows-mobile-po...

Setting a Windows Phone 7 device to 2G only mode

Should you be in an area of only intermittent or poor 3G coverage, you may wish to set your phone to 2G only mode to experience a better service until you are next in a better coverage area.

To do this, launch the Settings and select Cellular

Set the option for 3G Connection to Off

Revert the change to return to automatic mode.

For information on how to perform a manual network roam on the Windows Phone 7 platform, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/performing-manual-roam-windows-phone-7

Setting an Android phone to 2G only mode

Should you be in an area of only intermittent or poor 3G coverage, you may wish to set your phone to 2G only mode to experience a better service until you are next in a better coverage area.

To do this, launch the Settings from the main application menu and select Wireless & Networks:

Select Mobile Networks and then Network Mode:

Change the selection from Auto to GSM only.

Revert the change to return to automatic mode.

For details on how to perform a manual network roam on the Android platform, read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/performing-manual-roam-android

Setting an iPhone to 2G only mode

UPDATE - this article does not apply to the iPhone 4S: the option to disable 3G is not present.

Should you be in an area of only intermittent or poor 3G coverage, you may wish to set your phone to 2G only mode to experience a better service until you are next in a better coverage area.

To do this, launch the Settings and select General

Select Network

Set the option to Enable 3G to Off:

Revert the change to return to automatic mode.

For information on how to perform a manual network roam on the iPhone, view this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/performing-manual-roam-apple-iphone

Troubleshooting

hypertrm.exe

AT (enter)

ATE1 (enter)

AT+COPS? (enter)

AT+CFUN=1

AT+CPIN?  (enter)

+CPIN: READY

AT+CPIN=xxxx

+CPIN: SIM PIN

+CPIN: error

AT+CLCK=”PN”,2  (enter)

AT+CGREG? (enter)

AT+CGATT? (enter)

AT+CGATT=1 (enter)

AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”APN”  (enter)

ATD*99# (enter)

ping (server address)

telnet (server address) 110

USER SP (username)

PASS SP (password)

STAT

+OK n xxxx

LIST SP

RETR SP (message number)

DELE SP (message number)

telnet (server address) 25

helo (domain)

mail from:(sender_email_address)

rcpt to:(recipient_email_address)

data
(body of message)

nslookup

set type=mx

devicewire.com

AT (enter)

ATI (enter)

AT+COPS? (enter)

AT+FCLASS? (enter)

+FCLASS=0,1,2,2.0

+FCLASS=0

AT+FCLASS=2 (enter)

ATDxxxxxxxx (enter) 

"NO CARRIER"

AT+FCLASS=2 (enter) 

ATS0=2 (enter) 

UDP 500 (IKE)
UDP 4500 (ISAKMP)

UK Network Operator Service Settings

O2

WAP

APN (Contract) - wap.o2.co.uk
APN (PAYG) - payandgo.o2.co.uk
Gateway IP - 193.113.200.195
Username (Contract) - o2wap
Username (PAYG) - payandgo
Password - password
Session type - Permanent / Continuous
Authentication - Normal
Security - Off
Port Number - 8080

Internet

APN - mobile.o2.co.uk
Username - mobileweb / faster / web
Password - password

MMS
APN - wap.o2.co.uk
Port - 9201
Username - o2wap
Password - password
Server: http://mmsc.mms.o2.co.uk:8002
MMSC: http://mmsc.mms.o2.co.uk:8002
MMS proxy: 193.113.200.195

Optional
DNS - 193.113.200.200 & 193.113.200.201
SMTP Email - smtp.o2.co.uk

Vodafone

WAP

APN (Contract) - wap.vodafone.co.uk
APN (PAYG) - pp.vodafone.co.uk
Gateway IP - 212.183.137.12
Username - wap
Password - wap
Session type - Permanent / Continuous
Authentication - Normal
Security - Off
Port Number - 8799

Internet

APN (Contract) - internet
APN (PAYG) - pp.vodafone.co.uk
Username - web
Password - web

MMS
APN - wap.vodafone.co.uk
Port - 9201
Username - wap
Password - wap
Server: http://mms.vodafone.co.uk/servlets/mms/
MMSC: http://mms.vodafone.co.uk/servlets/mms/
MMS proxy: 212.183.137.12:8799

Optional
DNS - 212.183.137.12
SMTP Email - smtp.360.com (read this article - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/sending-email-smtp-vodafone-uk)

Orange

WAP

APN (Contract) - orangewap
APN (PAYG) - paygwap
Gateway IP - 192.168.71.35
Username - Orange
Password - Multimedia
Session type - Permanent / Continuous
Authentication - Normal
Security - Off
Port Number - 8080 or 9201

Internet

APN - orangeinternet
Username - user
Password - pass

MMS
APN - orangemms
Port - 9201
Username - orange
Password - Multimedia
Server: http://mms.orange.co.uk/
MMSC: http://mms.orange.co.uk/
MMS proxy: 192.168.224.010

Optional
DNS - 158.43.192.1 & 158.43.128.1
SMTP Email - smtp.orange.net

T-Mobile

WAP

APN - general.t-mobile.uk
Gateway IP - 149.254.1.10
Username - user
Password - wap
Session type - Permanent / Continuous
Authentication - Normal
Security - Off
Port Number - 8080 or 9201

Internet

APN - general.t-mobile.uk
Username - n/a
Password - n/a

MMS
APN - general.t-mobile.uk
Port - 9201
Username - user
Password - one2one
Server: http://mmsc.t-mobile.co.uk:8002/
MMSC: http://mmsc.t-mobile.co.uk:8002/
MMS proxy: 149.254.211.10

Optional
SMTP Email - smtp-t-email.co.uk

Three

Internet

APN - three.co.uk
Username - n/a
Password - n/a

MMS
APN - mms.three.co.uk
Port - 8799
Username - (blank)
Password - (blank)
Server: http://mms.um.three.co.uk:10021/mmsc
MMSC: http://mms.um.three.co.uk:10021/mmsc
MMS proxy: 217.171.129.2

Virgin

MMS
APN - goto.virginmobile.uk
Port - 8080
Username - user
Password - (blank)
Server: http://mms.virginmobile.co.uk:8002
MMSC: http://mms.virginmobile.co.uk:8002
MMS proxy: 193.030.166.001

Tesco

MMS
APN - prepay.tesco-mobile.com
Port - 9201
Username - tescowap
Password - password
Server: http://mmsc.mms.o2.co.uk:8002
MMSC: http://mmsc.mms.o2.co.uk:8002
MMS proxy: 193.113.200.195

BT Mobile

MMS
APN - mobile.bt.uk
Port - 9201
Username - user
Password - btmms
Server: http://mms.bt.com/servlets/mms
MMSC: http://mms.bt.com/servlets/mms
MMS proxy: 212.183.137.012:8799

Asda Mobile

MMS
APN - asdamobiles.co.uk
Port - 9201
Username - wap
Password - wap
Server: http://mms.asdamobiles.co.uk/servlets/mms
MMSC: http://mms.asdamobiles.co.uk/servlets/mms
MMS proxy: 212.183.137.012:8799

What is DLNA?

DLNA is the Digital Living Network Alliance, an open community of manufacturers in the mobile and consumer electronics space that aims to standardise the mechanisms by which connected devices can interoperate with each other in areas such as media playback and image transfer: for instance a DLNA-certified camera would be able to transfer images to a DLNA-certified PC which would in turn be able to display those pictures on a DLNA-certified TV without the need for any additional hardware or software - you get the idea.

DLNA capable devices communicate via a network connection, typically WiFi in the case of mobile devices. There are currently three main categories of DLNA device types, with each main category having its own sub-categories:

• Home Network Devices
  • Digital Media Server - stores media for playback on players or renderers, eg PCs and NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices
  • Digital Media Player - finds content on DM servers and offer playback capability, eg TVs, Hi-Fis
  • Digital Media Renderer - plays content received from a DM Controller, eg TVs, remote speakers
  • Digital Media Controller - finds content on DM servers and plays it on DM Renderers, eg WiFi digital cameras and PDAs
  • Digital Media Printer - provides printing capability for DM Players and Controllers, eg networked printers
• Home Infrastructure Devices
  • Mobile Network Connectivity Function (M-NCF) - provides bridge between mobile network and home network, eg wireless router
  • Media Interoperability Unit (MIU) - provides content translation service between compatible devices
• Mobile Handheld Devices
  • Mobile Digital Media Server - stores media for local or remote playback, eg mobile phones, PDAs and MP3 players
  • Mobile Digital Media Player - plays locally-stored or networked content on DM Server, eg mobile phones, PDAs and tablets designed for media playback
  • Mobile Digital Media Uploader - uploads content for display on DM Player or Renderer, eg WiFi enabled digital cameras
  • Mobile Digital Media Downloader - finds content on DM Server for playback, eg mobile phones, PDAs and MP3 players
  • Mobile Digital Media Controller - finds content on DM servers and plays it on DM Renderers, eg PDAs

So what? I hear you cry. A number of device manufacturers, including Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson, have already achieved DLNA certification for a number of their devices offering effortless synchronisation between your mobile phone / PDA and your other DLNA-certified home networked appliances, and more manufacturers are seeking certification all the time. Watch this space for announcements as they arrive.

Visit www.dlna.org for more information.

Update - HTC have joined the list of DLNA-certified device manufacturers with the announcement of the Desire Z and Desire HD Android-based PDAs.

What on Earth is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality (AR) is the term for technology that presents the user with a 'mixed' view of the physical world combining a video image of a location together with an overlaid computer-generated view providing information about that location.

A simple example would be the practice of artificially defining pitch lines during sports television broadcasts to enable the viewer to better appreciate team territory possession or possible penalty offences.

A number of manufacturers have developed applications for their handsets harnessing this technology: Google have released an application called Goggles for the Android platform that enables the user to focus on a geographical landmark using their PDA's built-in camera, upload that image to Google, and have information about that building / natural feature returned (provided that Google's image-recognition technology can determine what it is you're looking at). The service can also be used by taking pictures of book covers, albums, you name it:

And if you don't believe the video, here it is in action:

There are other very impressive applications available that provide similar functionality. Wikitude (http://www.wikitude.org/) can overlay real-time facts about a given location on your device's screen when that location is focused on via the device's built-in camera:

The application also integrates with Google Maps and can be used in GPS mode to show you items of interest based on your location. When I used the application on the HTC Tattoo it automatically told me about the Bournemouth International Centre sat right on my doorstep...as well as my nearest Tesco superstore:

TAT Augmented ID (http://www.tat.se) is a similar application but not for geographical locations or natural features, this application is for people: call up a picture of an individual and using face-recognition technology that's person's Facebook profile will be overlaid across that photo on your device's screen:

Nearest Tube (http://www.acrossair.com/apps_nearesttube.htm) is an application for the iPhone that allows you to focus on a location in London and have your nearest Tube station (that's the London Underground for non UK-residents!) displayed on-screen together with distance and direction information. A version is also available for New York.

Layar (http://layar.com) is an augmented reality application for the Android platform that allows developers to create overlaid content for specific locations, be it a 3D reconstruction of the Colosseum in Rome or the Beatles' Liverpool.

Layar's applications can be listed by most popular, or by relevance to your location. Using your device's built-in GPS capability you can take advantage of such applications as 'find my nearest pub':

TwittARound is an application for the iPhone that allows you to focus on a location using the camera and have people's tweets overlaid across the image, together with information about who tweeted...and from how far away:

Applications are also available for sporting events such as Wimbledon to assist members of the public find the correct court for the match they want to view as well as locate bars, restaurants and rest facilities.

The future is now, and it's bigger than the real thing!

What on Earth is LTE?

The world's first test public LTE networks have been deployed by the Scandinavians in Oslo and Stockholm (by TeliaSonera) offering up to 80Mbps download speeds (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/14/lte_deployment/) which gives rise to the question: what on Earth is LTE?

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and is the technology behind the next generation of cellular communications, or 4G. LTE promises to outstrip the data rates offered by 'fixed-line' broadband services, delivering a theoretical maximum of up to 200Mbps download speeds in its first iteration. As always, a theoretical maximum implies a certain coding scheme is being used, no one else is sat next to you, and it isn't raining (water in the atmosphere affects radio reception) - but the reality is still hugely impressive compared with current capabilities.

At the time of writing, in the UK at any rate, the mobile landscape is a mix of 2G, 2.5G and 3G services, all operating within very narrow, tightly-controlled, frequency bands. The frequencies used for these different services in Europe do not necessarily match those used for their counterparts in Asia-Pacific or the US. To fully understand the current architecture I recommend you read my introduction to mobile data here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/introduction-mobile-data-technologies

As with all cellular technologies, it is important to appreciate that the terms 2G, 2.5G, 3G and 4G refer to a type of service, NOT a specific technology. 3G services offer such features as media streaming, but encompass such technologies as EDGE and WCDMA. Therefore to say to a geek like myself that you are "connected via 3G", is akin to telling me you are watching television "through an aerial" and not whether it is an HD signal delivered via satellite, for example.
The same applies to the term 4G: it could equally apply to LTE as it might to WiMAX, but the two are different.

To understand how the faster data rates are achieved by LTE, it is necessary to understand how cellular data communications function.
In a nutshell, mobile devices are able to send and receive data over the air by adjusting the physical properties of a radio wave to denote either a binary 1 or a 0 (all data is made up of 1s and 0s). Provided that both the mobile device and the cell tower it is registered with are configured to 'look' for the same changes to the carrier signal, data can be sent and received.
This is essentially the same principle used by all communication mediums: fibre optics use light pulses; Ethernet uses copper cables; cellular devices use radio waves.
It is beyond the scope of this overview to go into high-level physics, but essentially it breaks down like this.
The properties of a radio wave can only be altered so far - you can adjust its amplitude, its frequency or its phase - or a combination of all of them. The key to achieving ever-faster data rates is to refine the extent to which a variation in a wave's properties constitutes a data value.
This is a massive simplification but essentially what this means is that whereas 2.5G systems might adjust a wave's amplitude by 1 measurement unit to denote a binary 1, 3G systems might refine the detection mechanism to mean that the wave can be altered by up to 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 measurement units. Therefore, whereas the 2.5G system can present a binary 1 or a binary 0 by changing the wave once, 3G can change the wave up to 4 times and therefore present 4 binary values between 00, 01, 10, and 11. This is achieved without needing to change the properties of the wave itself, just the processors at the sending and receiving units at each end of the wave. This also means that by changing the wave once to denote a value of 01, this is twice as fast as having to change the wave twice to denote both a 0 followed by a 1 - hence it's twice as fast. Make sense?
The ability to assign 4 values to a single carrier wave is known as Quadrature Amplitude Modification, or QAM.

LTE takes this approach much further. The same laws of physics apply - the radio wave itself is the same and can only have its physical properties adjusted in the same way. What differs is the distinct degrees to which a change in the wave's properties can be interpreted by the sending and receiving equipment as a binary data value - LTE can detect up to 16 different values (16 QAM) per wave cycle: 0000, 0001, 0010, etc et etc and is hence 4 times as fast: 0000 in one go rather than 0,0,0,0 in 4 goes. 64 QAM is also on the roadmap.
This takes increased complexity in the processors in the sending and receiving equipment - most notably in timing, and also in power (which is why early generation 3G handsets only lasted a few hours and got incredibly hot) - we are bound to see the same thing with early generation LTE kit.

Are you with me so far? Well it gets a bit involved from here on I'm afraid.

It gets much more complicated when you realise that the values being broadcast are not even 0000, 0010, 0100 or 1000, but are symbol values to represent more commonly occurring, larger bit sequences. Essentially communications between the device and the cell tower are compressed, in a manner similar to how ZIP applications can compress large files into smaller archive files.

So far we have looked at adjusting the properties of a wave's amplitude. It is also possible to adjust a wave's frequency at the same time as adjusting its amplitude.
"Carriers" are typically 20KHz each - meaning that any phone can transmit on any frequency within a 20,000Hz range to be identified as being on a specific carrier - this gives quite a lot of leeway for the wide variety of different phones available on the marekt to all work work properly on the network, and also provides for 'spacing' between carriers to identify them as being distinct from each other.
This is the approach taken by 2G and 2.5G systems - phones are assigned 'carrier' signals.
This involves a lot of frequency wasteage: if a phone is on a 20,000Hz range, it's only broadcasting on 1 of those Hz at any given time, meaning that 19,999Hz is being wasted. Again this is a huge simplification, but you get the idea.

What UMTS (3G) and now LTE (4G) do, is to assign all frequencies to all phones, at the same time. Each phone is assigned its own radio identifier and allowed to send and receive data across a wide range of frequencies using what is called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). In the same way that you can all use your company Internet feed at the same time and not get each other's traffic, the same is accomplished by OFDM. This means a hugely more efficient use of the radio network, and more concurrent users, and more speed. This is also why 4G services are referred to as "MIMO" (Multiple In, Multiple Out): they can operate across a range of frequencies rather than just one and often involve devices using multiple aerials.

How come more speed? Because each cell tower has x amount of radio to play with, if only 3 people are using that tower, they will get all of that x divided by 3. As more people join, their share of x will decrease. The important thing is that with LTE your radio allocation is now DYNAMIC. With 2.5G systems radio allocation was static: you'd get your share of x regardless of who was sharing your tower with you.

So what does that all mean for the user?

Apart from the higher data rates, not a huge amount. It is important to remember that these massive technological leaps extend between your phone and the nearest cell tower. As soon as your data hits the tower it goes down a cable into the ground and joins the landline network like everyone else. It is purely the efficiency of the radio link that is being tweaked. In terms of the setup and configuration process to be able to connect to the Internet from your LTE device, it will be the same as configuring a UMTS connection: you will need to enter the Access Point Name (APN) for your operator. Most devices can now determine the correct connection settings to use automatically based on the SIM card inserted.

Key to the development of LTE has been the ability to "hand off" from LTE networks to UMTS networks, meaning that your one device will be able to use LTE services where they are available, but will fall back to 3G service automatically when you roam outside of LTE coverage.

The future is now!

What on earth are 3G routers?

3G Routers are typically wireless access points with built in firewall and virtual server capability that take a SIM card and operate on high-speed 3G mobile networks. They can be used in a variety of scenarios to fulfil a number of different roles:

• To provide Internet access for mobile and temporary sites (such as building sites and exhibitions)
• To provide a backup Internet connection in the event of fixed-line failure
• To provide inbound access to remote sites and monitoring equipment

When used as an Internet router, the device connects to the 3G mobile network and shares its connection to devices sat 'behind' it, either via Ethernet or WiFi, or both. Acting as a DHCP server, clients can be granted access automatically, and a level of security can be added by restricting access to known network adapter MAC addresses as well as using WEP and WPA wireless encryption standards.

It is when these devices are used for inbound access that the devices become more 'interesting' from a geek perspective, and where a little extra knowledge is required about the type of mobile service required to enable this functionality.

When assigned a public IP address, connected 3G Routers can be accessed from any other machine on the Internet. Using their port-forwarding capabilities, multiple devices sat behind the 3G Router can be accessed on an individual application port without the need for multiple public IP addresses. This could be useful for a remote site where one or many device(s) has/have been deployed that need(s) to be monitored on a regular basis to retrieve sensor readings, for example.

Most 3G Routers also feature VPN functionality to provide site-to-site connectivity and add a layer of security to data sent across the Internet.

It is important to understand that in order for this remote connectivity to be possible, the SIM card in the 3G router must be assigned a public IP address. By default, when connecting to the Internet APN offered by the mobile operator, devices will be assigned a private IP address and a process known as NAT (Network Address Translation) occurs at the Internet gateway node. I have looked at this process in more detail in my article on Virtual Private Networks - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/what-do-you-need-your-mobile-operator-se...
This means that while connections to the Internet are possible if initiated by the mobile device, it is not possible to establish an unsolicited connection to that mobile device from another node on the Internet because it does not have an address on the Internet.

There are two principle ways of obtaining a public IP address. As we saw in my article on establishing a VPN from a mobile device, most network operators provide an APN for corporate users that assigns devices public IP addresses. There is no cost to use this service, but it does have to be requested specifically from customer services in some cases.
The one issue with this approach is that whilst the address assigned to you is public, and therefore accessible across the Internet, the address assigned to you will be one of a range addresses and therefore not always the same. This is not practical if you need to connect to a specific device on a specific address at any given moment.
Most 3G Routers therefore support a service called Dynamic DNS, or DynDNS (http://www.dyndns.com).
DNS is the Domain Name Service: the system that maps 'friendly names' such as www.bbc.co.uk to their corresponding IP address understandable by PCs and routers (212.58.251.195 in the case of www.bbc.co.uk). Normally these records are static and only change very infrequently. What Dynamic DNS does is to offer a similar service, but to addresses that are constantly changing.
A user would register for a free DynDNS account and will be assigned a unique 'friendly name' of 'myaccount.dyndns.com'. A piece of software on the 3G Router connects to the DynDNS service each time the device connects to the Internet and sends details about its IP address. Therefore, regardless of what address you have ben assigned, all you need to know in order to connect to the device across the Internet, is the friendly name of 'myaccount.dyndns.com'.

Should you require a permanent single IP address, another option is to purchase an address from a service provider such as WirelessLogic (http://www.wirelesslogic.co.uk). This service allows you possess a dedicated, real-world IP address on your Orange, Vodafone or O2 SIM for a flat monthly rate on top of your existing operator tariff. You can use your SIM to connect to the operator's own Internet APN for regular usage, or you can connect to WirelessLogic's own APN and be assigned the public IP address assigned to your SIM card by that APN. Very clever stuff.

Port Forwarding

Port Forwarding is the feature supported by all 3G Routers offered by Brightpoint that allows you to access multiple devices behind the router using the same single public IP address.
Rules can be configured on the router to forward requests on specific ports to specific 'internal' address on the local network behind the router.
Therefore, if you are assigned a public IP address of 62.189.60.254 you might access a web server behind the router by typing in http://62.189.60.254 in your web browser. This would require a rule on the router to forward incoming requests on port 80 (HTTP) to the internal address of the web server.
To access the Windows-based web server itself sat behind the router via Microsoft's Remote Desktop protocol, you would type 62.189.60.254 in the remote desktop client. This would require a rule on the router to forward requests on port 3389 to the same server.
This principle can be extended to any number of hosts and ports as required, be it VNC (5900), SSH (22), FTP (21), HTTPS (443), etc etc etc.

For more details on the range of 3G routers offered by Brightpoint, visit the

• Option
• Digi / Sarian
• Huawei
• Novatel

sections of the blog.

If you're interested in a low-cost VPN solution for mobile or temporary sites, then OpenVPN (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/openvpn) or an SSH-based solution (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/deploying-ssh-based-vpn-solution) may be suitable.

Contact Brightpoint's expert sales team today on 0870 849 0225 if you're interested in learning more on anything you have read here, or use the CONTACT FORM to request a callback.

What on earth is a Femtocell?

Vodafone in the UK are offering consumers and businesses the ability to purchase their own Femtocell devices. Great, but what on Earth is it and why would I want one?

A Femtocell is effectively a very small GSM base station that can be used to extend wireless coverage to mobile devices (by wireless we are talking CELLULAR service rather than WiFi) in areas either where there is no coverage, or where coverage is poor. The Femtocell device itself connects back to the MNO’s network infrastructure via a regular broadband Internet connection.
Which begs the question – if you have a fixed-line broadband connection in place already (presumably with a broadband router that the chances are has WiFi built-in), why do you need to make your GSM phone connect to a Femtocell device rather than just turn on WiFi instead? Vodafone are not bundling any additional minutes or gigabytes if you buy your own Femtocell, so all you are doing is providing them with free additional coverage entirely at your own expense. The ability to place and receive voice calls on your mobile in an area of otherwise poor signal is a benefit, but what about from a data perspective?

The key reason (and as far as I can see the only reason), is to be able to ‘hand off’ from your Femtocell to the rest of the Vodafone network when you leave home. If you are connected to the Internet via WiFi at home or at the office via your broadband connection, when you leave the coverage range of the WiFi access point, you need to break the connection and then reconnect to the 3G network. Admittedly most devices will do this automatically, but it will involve being assigned a different IP address and effectively dropping off the 'net and popping back up again somewhere else.
If you have an unlimited data tariff, then you can leave your device connected to the same service all the time, without having to worry about WEP keys, SSIDs, etc and remembering to turn off your WiFi when you’re not at home to preserve your battery life.

NOTE - you won't be able to pick up your Femtocell and plug it in anywhere you like. You will need to tell Vodafone the IP address that you will be connecting from. Attempting to connect from an unauthorised IP address will be blocked.

A Vodafone Femtocell costs £160.

You can read more on the Vodafone web site:
http://www.vodafone.com/start/responsibility/mpmh/mobiles_health/masts_h...