Enriched service over converged Wi-Fi and cellular

The latest whitepaper from the GSMA 5G Voice over Wi-Fi Task Force (5GVoWiFi TF) promotes and facilitates the building of an inter-operable 5G VoWiFi ecosystem and boosting the adoption of 5G VoWiFi across the industry. The 5GVoWiFi TF is led by China Telecom. 

Whilst VoWiFi or Wi-Fi Calling has been deployed by numerous operators worldwide over the past decade, the advent of 5G has resulted in the emergence of new requirements for Wi-Fi calling including:

• Convergence of Wi-Fi Calling with both 5G/4G core networks and seamless interworking with Voice over New Radio (VoNR) as well as VoLTE.
• Providing voice/video/SMS using satellite backhaul for maritime and in-flight scenarios.
• Supporting additional IMS services (such as IMS Data Channel) via Wi-Fi.

Key takeaways

• Wi-Fi Calling will evolve to provide seamless interworking with 5G VoNR as well as 4G VoLTE,  as well as support other IMS services (such as Data Channel),
• Wi-Fi Calling will play an important role in providing voice/video/SMS using satellite backhaul for maritime and in-flight scenarios,  
• Operators have initially deployed legacy ePDG to access the 5G Core (5GC) rather than the  native N3IWF, but it is recommended that MNOs migrate to deploying N3IWF to  take advantage of the 5G security architecture and common 3GPP and non-3GPP authentication framework.
• There are still significant challenges for the obtaining of location information of a WLAN network where the  WLAN access network belongs to another operator or is connected via a satellite,
• It is noted some UEs and consumer WLAN access points do not support DSCP, which is recommended to be used as part of the end-to-end QoS solution,
• Wi-Fi Calling is and will continue to be a key component of 5G for delivering converged services over heterogenous and complimentary wireless networks.

The paper also identifies a number of issues where there are gaps which need to be addressed to further facilitate the deployment and usage of Wi-Fi Calling.

Contributors

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