KDDI: Wi-Fi Offload to Reach 65%; LTE Capex Dropped by 50%

Joseph Waring reports to Mobile World Live that "Japanese operator KDDI’s push over the past year to boost WiFi offload has resulted in a sharp increase in the amount of data moved off macro sites as well as huge savings in wireless capex".

KDDI started with its offloading project more than 4 years ago, announcing its plan to deploy Ruckus' 120,000 Wi-Fi access points (here). They now have 3,000,000 access points. At the end of March 2015, KDDI had 43,478,000 mobile subscriptions. 

Fumio Watanabe [pictured], chairman of KDDI’s R&D Laboratories, spoke at BROADBAND ASIA, SINGAPORE and said that "WiFi offload was stuck at about 30 per cent three to four years ago when users faced frequent connection issues with WiFi and because flat-rate plans didn’t give them much incentive to use WiFi. 

It was only after the company distributed three million free WiFi access points that the percentage jumped from 30 per cent to 57 per cent .. We hit the 57 per cent target last fiscal year, which ended 31 March, and aim to expand the offload to 65 per cent this fiscal year, which will further reduce our LTE capex”.

Source: KDDI 2014 annual report 

Watanabe told Mobile World Live that "with more than half of its macro traffic offloaded to WiFi, its LTE capex has dropped by a similar percentage".

Source: KDDI 2014 annual report 

See "KDDI aims to offload 65% of mobile data to WiFi this year" - here.

KDDI Explains Data Outage and Actions

A recent presentation by Takashi Tanaka (picture), President, KDDI, explaining the network service outages and the action taken.

• A reset bug related to fragmentation processing (April 27) caused 6:17 hours of service loss, affecting 590K subscribers.
  
• Hardware failure occurred when uploading to one MME port a correction file to resolve the failure that occurred on April 27. caused two days later 18:43 hours of outage, affecting 560K subscribers
  
• Trying to fix it again, on April 30, caused 9:58 hours of outage, affecting 640K subscribers. 

KDDI and Ipanema Team to Offer Business-Aware Network Services

  

KDDI and Ipanema Technologies, are teaming up at Interop Tokyo 2012 exhibition and conference to offer "..New generation of business aware Network Services: you will see how a network knows the Application Content to better serve Business" (see "Research Shows the Need for Application-aware Networking" - here).

Yoichi Ide, General manager of Global Sales & Marketing Department, KDDI said: "Business aware networking, Business continuity and Cloud Services are really an integral part of KDDI Global solutions that ensure seamless communication for our customers in emerging markets of Latin America, throughout Asia, and around the world”.

Few months ago KDDI deployed a DDoS prevention solution from Arbor (here) also targeting enterprise customers.

See "KDDI application optimization service powered by Ipanema technologies at Interop Tokyo" - here.

Security Deployments [123]: KDDI [Japan] Uses Arbor for DDoS Prevention

Arbor Networks announced that "Japan’s KDDI .. has deployed Arbor’s Peakflow SP platform .. among the first providers in the world to include the new ATLAS Intelligence Feed (AIF) in a service offering. The AIF provides automated, up-to-date protection against the growing threat of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks ensuring that KDDI is offering leading edge security solutions".

"Peakflow SP combines network-wide anomaly detection and traffic engineering with TMS’s carrier-class threat management capabilities. When Peakflow SP identifies an attack, customer traffic is diverted to the Arbor Threat Management System where it is scrubbed, and network and application-layer attack traffic surgically removed, while legitimate business traffic is passed through to the customer without interrupting services. This powerful combination of visibility and security helps enable KDDI to maintain availability, reduce support costs and optimize current or future business service .. A new feature within the Peakflow platform is the ATLAS Intelligence Feed (AIF) which delivers deep DDoS signatures in real-time to keep networks protected against hundreds of botnet-fueled DDoS attack toolsets and their variants".

See "Japan’s KDDI Deploys Arbor Networks’ Peakflow SP Platform" - here.

Major ISPs will Participate in 2012 IPv6 Day

 

The Internet Society announced that "Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012 [here] ..Organized by the Internet Society, and building on the successful one-day World IPv6 Day event held on 8 June 2011, World IPv6 Launch represents a major milestone in the global deployment of IPv6. As the successor to the current Internet Protocol, IPv4, IPv6 is critical to the Internet’s continued growth as a platform for innovation and economic development"

"ISPs participating in World IPv6 Launch will enable IPv6 for enough users so that at least 1% of their wireline residential subscribers who visit participating websites will do so using IPv6 by 6 June 2012. These ISPs have committed that IPv6 will be available automatically as the normal course of business for a significant portion of their subscribers. Committed ISPs are: AT&T, Comcast, Free Telecom, Internode, KDDI, Time Warner Cable and  XS4ALL"

See "The CTOs of Arbor and Sandvine Analyze "World IPv6 Day" here.

See "World IPv6 Launch Solidifies Global Support for New Internet Protocol" - here.

KDDI to Deploy 120,000 Wi-Fi Offload Hotspots

  
While AT&T does not believe in Wi-Fi offloading (see "Wi-Fi Offloading - Booming in India but Failing For AT&T?" - here), Sarah Reedy reports to Light Reading that "KDDI Corp. has selected Ruckus Wireless Inc. to deploy more than 120,000 Wi-Fi hotspots throughout Japan, sources tell Light Reading Mobile. Ruckus will provide KDDI with dual-band 802.11n devices to blanket enterprises, starting in Tokyo in the small-and-medium size business sector.. KDDI plans to roll out 10,000 Wi-Fi locations initially in Tokyo then move nationwide with 120,000 devices by the middle of 2012, sources said"

See "Ruckus Makes Over KDDI With Wi-Fi Offload" - here. See below a short video from Ruckus explaining the advantages of "Carrier Wi-Fi". 

"KDDI accelerated deployment following the earthquakes in Japan when a Wi-Fi public access network proved easier to set up than wireless, says a source close to the deal"

Skype: Cooperating with Operators is Good; [Some] Net Neutrality is also Good

  

MBB (Mobile Business Briefing) reports on a presentation made by Russ Shaw, VP of Mobile at Skype, during the Planet of the Apps 2010  in London - "Shaw.. used his keynote presentation this morning to position the company as a partner for mobile network operators, rather than a competitor intending to capture lucrative voice revenue .. However, in order for relationships to succeed, three key areas need to be addressed from the outset: who owns the customer data, how access to the network is governed, and who controls the user experience. “If you can't agree this up-front, it won't work,” he warned."
See "Skype trumpets co-operation, not competition, with operators" - here.

Shaw mentioned the cooperation with 3 UK (here), Verizon Wireless (here) and its new relationship with KDDI [Japan].

See also "Skype: Operators' Tiered Services will Replace Our 3G Surcharge Plans" - here and "Frost & Sullivan: Mobile Operators Should not Impose Bans or Surcharges to VoIP" - here.

Nevertheless, "Shaw also used his speech to highlight the need for net neutrality, in order to drive product and service innovation which will ultimately benefit customers – with Skype also standing to benefit if operators do not block competitive voice services ... Working together is key. Customers will end up with a better experience, and I think that networks will end up with more revenue and less churn"

It seems that the attitude is - we like Net Neutrality if it prevents non-partners to block us, but once we have a partner - it is no longer needed, and discrimination (or prioritization) is good.

Related post - "Skype's $100M IPO: "Our business depends on our users having continued and unimpeded access to the Internet" - here.