Communications Technology Group

1
Communications Technology Group

• Status Report to the Commercial Mobile Service
  Alert Advisory Committee
• May 16, 2007
• Brian K. Daly, CTG Leader

2
CTG Mission

• The primary mission of the Communications
  Technology Group (CTG) is to develop and submit
  recommendations for relevant technical standards
  for devices and equipment and technologies used
  by electing commercial mobile service (CMS)
  providers to transmit emergency alerts to
  subscribers (see WARN Act 603(c)(3)).
  Furthermore, per WARN Act 603(c)(6), the CTG
  will develop recommendations for a process under
  which CMS providers can elect to transmit
  emergency alerts if
• A) not all of the devices or equipment used by
  such provider are capable of receiving such
  alerts or
• B) the provider cannot offer such alerts
  throughout the entirety of its service area.
• Furthermore, the CTG will support development of
  technical standards for priority transmission of
  alerts by electing CMS providers to subscribers
  (WARN Act 603(c)(2)).
• Finally, the CTG will support the development of
  recommendations for the technical capability to
  transmit emergency alerts by electing CMS
  providers to subscribers in languages in addition
  to English, to the extent feasible and
  practicable. See WARN Act 603(c)(4)).

3
Status - CTG Issues to Address

• Recommendations for technologies and methods
  permitting the efficient transmission of messages
  to potentially the entire subscriber base of an
  operator First reported in March
• The CTG is defining Service Profiles which
  prescribe the underlying delivery attributes
• Goal is to define service profiles and not
  specific delivery technologies
• If an Operator elects to transmit alerts they
  should have the option to use any available
  technology that supports a given profile
• Permit the distribution of alerts with the
  appropriate priorities as indicated by the AIG.
• Messages will be delivered in the order received
  prioritization and sequencing to be performed at
  the Interface or Gateway
• Recommendations on methods permitting the
  targeting of alerts to specific geographic
  regions or locales, thereby enabling use of this
  important emergency service by other alerting
  authorities, including state and local
  governments.
• CTG has developed working assumptions on
  geo-targeting to be presented in this briefing

4
Status - CTG Issues to Address

• Recommendations on handset and device
  technologies appropriate for alerting services
  First reported in March.
• CTG Device Ad Hoc is addressing key issues
  surrounding the handset and device technologies
• The needs of non-English subscribers as well as
  people with special needs, including people with
  disabilities and the elderly.
• CTG is addressing issues surrounding the support
  of multi-languages further details provided in
  this briefing

5
Status - CTG Issues to Address

• To ensure that this critical emergency service
  continues to evolve with technology supporting
  it, the CTG should also consider recommendations
  permitting the incorporation of planned service
  improvements, such as expected multimedia and
  broadband services, into their CMS alerting
  capability First reported in March.
• CTG is in the process of defining service
  profiles for audio, video, and multimedia for
  broadband multimedia networks of the future
• The CTG will develop recommendations to
  facilitate eventual alignment of the Advisory
  Committees recommendations with relevant
  standards organizations focused on the
  development of mobile communication standards to
  support its continued evolution and adaptation.
• Standards recommendations will be provided after
  all technology recommendations are known

6
CTG Status

• Monthly multi-day face-to-face meetings with
  interim conference calls
• Since last report, held 2 face-to-face meetings
  and 3 conference calls
• First draft of CTG Requirements Architecture
  document has been developed by the CTG for
  internal review
• Coordinating with the other working groups
• Liaisons being sent to other working groups
• On track for making recommendations to the
  Project Management Group per the project schedule
  and assignment of responsibilities

7
CTG Statistics (Totals)
As of March 12th Current
Number of Assigned Doc Numbers 109 145
Number of Docs with Revisions 158 236
Number of Liaison Docs 8 23
Number of Action Items 10 20
Number of Face-to-Face Meetings Days 2 meetings over 4 days 4 meetings over 9 days
Number of Conference Calls of CTG Ad-Hocs 15 18
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CTG Participants

• Substantial work effort with over 30 CMSAAC
  delegates and subject matter experts
• Cingular (Leader)
• Sprint-Nextel (Deputy Leader)
• Alltel
• American Association of Paging Carriers
• Rural Cellular Association
• T-Mobile
• Verizon
• Ericsson
• Motorola
• Nokia
• Nortel
• Qualcomm

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Project Timelines Milestones

• Next 3 months
• Complete service profile definitions
• Address special needs requirements
• Address battery life issues
• Define recommendations for handset and device
  technologies
• Complete gateway to wireless interface definition
• Finalize use cases
• Address UNG comments to handset and device
  technologies
• Address OAMP recommendations
• Evaluate security requirements
• Define technology evolution path to multimedia
  and broadband
• Address alignment with standards

• August
• All technical issues resolved
• Final delivery of CTG requirements to the PMG
• September
• Address final comments from all working groups

10
Service Profiles

• The CTG is continuing the process of defining
  service profiles
• Service Profiles define the underlying delivery
  attributes
• Include text, audio, video, and multimedia
• Text is underlying common denominator service
  profile
• Defined Audio service profile and underlying
  working assumptions for future multimedia
  broadcast technologies
• Work on video multimedia service profiles in
  progress

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Draft Conclusions for Audio, Video Multimedia

• The CMAS service profiles for text, audio, video,
  and multimedia messages are for the transmission
  of text data, audio files, video files, and
  multimedia files and not for the presentation of
  real-time content
• Sending audio files (e.g. wav files) via cell
  broadcast is not efficient, practical, or
  feasible.
• In the future, more advanced multimedia broadcast
  technologies for mobile devices may provide the
  capabilities to support audio based alerts

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Draft Conclusions for Audio, Video Multimedia

• Alignment is necessary between alert origination
  capabilities and CMAS capabilities
• CMAS is not capable of providing the real-time
  audio broadcast of a Presidential alert
• Presidential alerts could be delivered over CMAS
  using text-based messaging.

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Draft Conclusions for Audio, Video Multimedia

• The Alerting Gateway is responsible for
  collecting and assembling all text, audio, video,
  and multimedia components of the CMAS messages to
  be given to the wireless operators for
  transmission
• If the CAP includes a Resource Element that
  includes an URI, it is not expected that the
  wireless service provider will be required to
  retrieve the file specified by the URI
• The Alerting Gateway will retrieve the associated
  file during the collection and assembly process
  for the CMAS alert message and deliver it to the
  wireless service provider
• Any audio, video, and multimedia files collected
  for the CMAS alert messages must be provided to
  the wireless service provider in a standard set
  of formats which are to be jointly defined by the
  CTG and AGG
• Transcoding and transmission of audio, video, or
  multimedia files into the formats supported by
  the mobile devices is the responsibility of the
  Wireless Service Provider Gateway and/or the
  Wireless Service Provider Infrastructure

14
Battery Life Concerns

• Mobile device battery technology has progressed
  to provide significant standby and talk times for
  mobile devices
• Subscribers expectations are set
• Technologies which provide broadcast capability
  may have an impact on these expectations

15
Battery Life Concerns

• ETSI TR 102 444 V1.1.1 (2006-02), Analysis of the
  Short Message Service (SMS) and Cell Broadcast
  Service (CBS) for Emergency Messaging
  applications
• A MS (i.e., handset) normally has to be
  specifically enabled by the subscriber to receive
  CBS messages. Once enabled, mobile manufacturer's
  report a considerable drain on battery life,
  although there are techniques in the
  specifications (DRX) to reduce this problem.
  Concerns have been raised by mobile manufacturers
  on the effectiveness of DRX, as any enabling of
  CBS, with or without DRX can reduce the "talk
  time" of their products, which is a key marketing
  differentiator. For this reason, MS's (i.e.
  handsets) are normally shipped with the Cell
  Broadcast feature switched off.

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Battery Life Concerns

• June 3rd 2004 the following statement from the
  GSM Association (GSMA) to 3GPP T2 working group
  on mobile devices
• ..When cell broadcast monitoring of a channel
  is enabled, there is significant battery drain on
  the terminal device, as it continually monitors
  for incoming CB pages on that channel. For some
  handsets this can reduce the standby time by up
  to 50. (This is especially inefficient if the
  page data on the channel never changes or is
  seldom changed) ..

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Battery Life Concerns

• In addition, CMAS parameters impact battery life
• Number of languages (open issue to be addressed)
• Number of unique messages
• Number of retransmissions
• Duration of Audio Alert Tone and/or Vibration on
  mobile device
• Additional handset and system capabilities to
  support CMA

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CTG Steps to Address Battery Life Concerns

• Review the existing studies and determine if they
  are still valid and applicable to CMAS
• Also identify if any similar studies are
  available for CDMA and paging technologies
• Evaluate battery life impact of user needs
  requirements
• E.g. battery life impacts to flashing and/or
  vibrating the devices every few minutes when an
  alert is received
• Understand the estimated frequency of CMAS alerts
  and how this impacts battery life

19
Steps to Address Battery Life Concerns (continued)

• CTG-member mobile device manufacturers and
  wireless operators asked to provide an analysis
  of the impacts of CMAS to mobile device battery
  life and identify any mechanisms to minimize
  impact to battery life (e.g., DRX in GSM)
• Investigate impacts to mobile device battery life
  from any trials or deployments of the technology,
  either commercially or for an alerting service
• Investigate using the Idaho National Lab Wireless
  Testbed to evaluate the battery life issue under
  various alerting scenarios

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Geo-targeting Draft Conclusions

• The minimum precision for geo-targeted geography
  for CMA will be the county
• A Service Provider may elect to target smaller
  areas if they chose and the technology supports
  it, but it will not be required
• The Service Provider is not required to
  dynamically match alert geography to RF coverage
  areas
• A Service Provider shall not be required to
  divulge cell site information, coverage
  information, or any RF properties of their
  respective networks
• The Service Provider shall be the sole agent
  responsible for determining which network
  facilities, elements, or locations are involved
  in transmitting a CMA to a mobile device
• A Service Provider could use either (or both) the
  latitude/longitude coordinates (e.g. circle or
  polygon) or the FIPS Codes or equivalent over
  reference point C
• Expectation is both will be provided

21
Draft Conclusions for Alerting

• Alert Type
• Audio
• Single Unique Audio Tone defined for all CMA
  message types
• Limited by audio safety limits
• Vibration Motor
• Suggested Single Unique Vibration cadence for
  all CMA message types for devices that can
  support vibration cadences
• Not all handsets support vibration patterns
• Force of vibration limited by hardware (including
  size)
• Incoming CMA will not Override Personal
  Audio/Vibration Settings on the Mobile Device
• CMA will follow the profile settings
• E.g. if user sets mobile device in Vibrate or
  Silent mode, the Unique CMA Audio Tone will not
  override that setting

22
Language Support

• CTG is evaluating feasibility and practicality of
  supporting languages in addition to English
• Fundamental technical problems to reliably
  implement languages in addition to English
• Alert source must provide CMA message in
  language(s) other than English if CMA
  recommendation is to support multi-languages
• Service providers will not be responsible for
  language translations
• Additional languages increases the cost and
  complexity in the handset and in the network
• Mobile Device may have character set limitations
• Additional Character sets limit the amount of
  data that can be transmitted
• For example, some character sets take 2 Bytes per
  character versus 1 Byte per character ? 70
  characters is now 35 characters

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Language Support (continued)

• Fundamental question How many languages other
  than English are feasible and practical for CMA?
• On a National basis, only Spanish exceeds 1 of
  households
• On a local basis, there are potentially more than
  37 languages that exceed 1 of households
• Would required gt16 different character sets to be
  supported in the mobile device

Per 2000 U.S. Census data
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Language Support (continued)
Fixed Number of Alerts Supported

• Radio Resource Limitations
• Text service profile is limited to approximately
  70 characters
• Each alert may be retransmitted
• Reducing the number of Alerts supported
• Multiple Alerts Types may occur simultaneously
• Reducing the number of Alerts supported
• Each added language will proportionally decrease
  the number of Alerts supported

CTG Is Evaluating Support for Spanish as a 2nd
Language for CMA
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Summary

• Several key issues are being addressed, including
• Battery Life
• Multi-language
• CTG is working well with other CMSAAC working
  groups
• CTG is on track for providing recommendations to
  the PMG by August, 2007