The fixed-mobile convergence
(
FMC) market is about to explode: It's a business imperative for
both fixed-line and cellular carriers, and enterprises can realize
big cost and productivity benefits.
As with all hot new business technologies, security can get
short shrift. Businesses will be eager to start reaping the
benefits of FMC; carriers are at a crossroads in an intensely
competitive market.
The
convergence of IP-based and mobile phone technologies is
starting to draw the attention of mainstream information security
companies, in addition to a handful of start-up players. Check
Point Software Technologies recently jumped into the infant FMC
security market, shared with start-up companies like Sipera Systems
and Reef Point Systems.
The stakes for carriers are incredibly high. Mobile operators
could lose $3.3 billion a year by 2011, according to Indian market
research firm iLocus. Fixed-line carriers, eager to reverse the
loss of business as customers depend less on land lines in favor of
ubiquitous, feature-rich mobile devices, are offering mobile
applications from voice to video and music, to email.
"It's the next natural evolution for mobile companies," says
Bill Jensen, Check Point product marketing manager. "They need to
get more customers and expand services. For fixed-line carriers,
it's total survival, a way to expand through agreements with cell
carriers."
For enterprises -- and consumers -- FMC technology will offer
attractive savings by allowing users with dual-mode devices to
switch transparently between cell and WLAN VoIP connections,
reducing cell charges. Using
Unified Mobile Access (UMA) technology, mobile workers will be
switched at a coffee shop hot spot; employees who blithely make
international cell calls from the office lunchroom even though
their desk unit is down the hall will use cheaper WiFi in spite of
themselves.
"A lot of people see it as a cost savings, but the main driver
is productivity," says Luc Roy, vice president of product planning
for Siemens Communications, which recently announced its FMC
solution, HiPath MobileConnect. "It's targeted to any industry, to
anyone using mobile phone technology in an area using wireless
access. Growth will be exponential in the near future."
Although dual-mode devices can currently run in either cellular
or Wi-Fi mode, transparent roaming between the two technologies is
as close as a firmware update when it becomes available, and sales
of the versatile devices are growing rapidly. While iLocus
estimates that there were only 436,000 FMC subscribers at the end
of 2006, analyst firm Infonetics Research predicts dual-mode
devices will show a five-year compound annual growth rate of 198%
between 2006 and 2010.
With this explosive growth, the still-small threat of attacks on
cellular devices takes on much greater significance, making them
more attractive targets, as FMC gives them access to IP
networks.
"The stakes are high for carriers; the same set of services,
with the same core network now are also Wi-Fi," says Seshu
Madhavapeddy, Sipera president and CEO. "Unless they have strong
VoIP security, they are subject to attack that not only damages
VoIP, but the core cellular network."
Sipera's IP Communications Security (IPCS) appliances secure
unified communications such as VoIP, IM, multimedia and
collaboration applications.
"The first security concern is the sheer number of new customers
that are entering the IP network through a new medium; particularly
worrisome is the introduction of malware through a data terminal
now easily connected via GSM or other types of wireless
interfaces," says Scott McComas, a senior product manager in the
Security & Mobile Connectivity business unit within Enterprise
Solutions at Nokia.
Nokia, which provides an FMC solution featuring its Eseries of
dual-mode business handsets and Intellisync Device Management
software, will deliver Check Point's new VP-1 MASS (Multi-Access
Security Solution) FMC security product on its IP560 appliance.
"There's also the rising potential of spreading viruses through
peer-to-peer networking, because of customer demand for
applications such as online gaming and multimedia services," says
McComas. "With mobile connectivity there is no longer any concept
of a perimeter. We need to take particular pains to ensure that
transactions between mobile terminals are secure."
Traditional security solutions don't scale well for this
environment. The sheer number of users, the rich mix of
applications and the diverse types of carriers require highly
customized solutions. Envision tens of thousands, even millions, of
concurrent users tapping into a smorgasbord of services, including
voice and text messages, music, video clips -- even transmitting a
TiVo'd program to your mobile device, and you get a sense of the
complexity.
"UMA puts severe constraints on the security gateway; the cost
per tunnel is high," says McComas. "The business case for operators
needs to be addressed to be profitable."
That's why the Check Point/Nokia offering, for example, is more
than just a Check Point firewall/VPN on a high-performance box.
Each box is built to handle up to 35,000 concurrent VPN connections
and can be clustered to increase that exponentially. The next
release will enable hardware-based encryption acceleration for the
AES-XCBC standard adopted for UMA.
"The wide range of access networks now established offer an
opportunity and a dilemma for carriers in expanding their footprint
to reach more users and enable users to get the right bandwidth for
voice service and multimedia services," says David Heyward,
director of corporate marketing for Reef Point.
"The dilemma is that each type of access network has QoS service
issues," he says. "Legacy security solutions don't lend themselves
to work with all those networks. A universal appliance applies to
all security networks in one device."
Reef Point offers carrier-grade appliances designed to manage
and secure FMC. The Universal Convergence Gateway supports up to
1,000,000 concurrent sessions for a half-million users.
Check Point is banking on its high profile to attract carrier
business to its VP1-MASS solution.
"The security in place is mostly directed at the data center; it
doesn't cover UMA or VoIP," says Jensen. "They are looking to major
players to provide the elements: UMA gateway, infrastructure; for
security, they come to players like us."
Sipera, which is trying to carve out market share with its
appliance-based VoIP security solutions, sees opportunities among
enterprises, as well as carriers.
"As FMC grows, enterprises are becoming more concerned. On
laptops, you have all these do's and don'ts and can sanitize what
employees are downloading," says Madhavapeddy. "Workers are
traveling all the time, downloading ring tones, games. It's much
more difficult to enforce policy."