VoWiFi or Wi-Fi calling offers Telcos a new service opportunity and a service differentiator. With VoWiFi, the operators can now extend reach of VoLTE in spotty indoor or remote uneven coverage areas, offer uniform service experience, increase ARPU along with reducing 3G/LTE congestion and no-coverage instances with the traffic offload to Wi-Fi.
The Wi-Fi calling service can be bundled along with its existing services, with the ease of a regular mobo service for the subscriber. While the OTT players also offer VoWi-Fi but it needs an additional application download. CSP VoWiFi circumvents the need of creating a separate entity, additional log-ins or availing separate credit plans altogether. On the contrary, a user now gains a seamless experience, better coverage, service quality, freedom from roaming charges and experience higher bandwidth for rich communication services.
However, Wi-Fi calling needs to support a smooth handover between trusted and untrusted networks and a secure Authentication to match the security of Trusted networks. AAA plays critical role in enabling a secure Wi-Fi calling with 3GPP AAA offering a standardized reference call flow to securely authenticate users using their SIM details or the trusted credentials. AAA also plays a key role in proper encryption of information to protect instances of DoS or spoofing.
EliteAAA V6.8 is 3GPP compliant version supporting Wi-Fi calling and enabling Authentication of the user crossing between the zones. As a user enters the Wi-Fi zone a request is sent to the ePDG which needs to perform the activity of Authentication with AAA facilitating this communication between the ePDG and P-GW.
EliteAAA V 6.8 supports the following next generation Wi-Fi Calling use cases:
- EAP SIM / AKA Authentication over 3GPP enabled SWm
- Authentication for Devices that do not support the EAP-SIM/AKA method
- Authentication of Wi-Fi devices that don’t use SIM cards
- Policy based information fetching and decision making from existing PCRF
- Enables support via HLR and HSS both
- Complete control for configuring a 3GPP work flow
- Multiple service handlers to customize service policy/work flow for business requirement
