Is the CAMEL standard stranded in the desert? - Technology Information

CommunicationsWeek International, May 7, 2001 by Joanne Taaffe

An older mobile protocol that helps interconnectivity has been overlooked by operators: a lesson for those delaying other services?

One of the early mobile roaming standards that promised to offer GSM users greater roaming applications has struggled to get off the ground in Europe.

GSM operators have been singularly slow to adopt the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's (ETSI) Customized Applications for Mobile Network Enhanced Logic (CAMEL) standard, which sets out to ensure that an operator's intelligent network applications follow customers when they leave their home networks. Indeed, its slow roll-out has led some proponents to wonder whether the standard will ever be widely adopted.

"CAMEL phase 1 as far as I can see is not very well used," said Stefan Arpath, chairman of the CAMEL Working Group at the GSM Association.

Later phases will arrive too late

Phases 2 and 3 of CAMEL will add more features including prepaid roaming. While some say this could be the real catalyst to wider implementation by operators, Arpath is not so sure. Operators are under pressure to introduce data roaming services, particularly based on short messaging, and cannot wait for CAMEL phase 3 to become available one or two years from now, he said.

According to Jonathon Bell, vice president, product strategy, at billing software company Geneva Technology Ltd., of Cambridge. England, manufacturers will not ship equipment with CAMEL 3 software until mid-to-late 2002. In the meantime, operators unable to wait will turn to hybrid approaches and proprietary software, he said, a view shared by Arpath.

"SMS [short messaging service] will be the killer application for CAMEL phase 3, as you don't need a new mobile, but [CAMEL phase 3] will be a bit too late," said Arpath. "Operators will have proprietary SMS roaming for prepaid subscribers [by the time phase 3 is available]."

Mobile operators might have been expected to jump at the chance to offer value-added services such as letting pre-paid customers top up their credit when roaming, or offer corporate customers voice services such as mobile virtual private networks (VPNs). Yet despite the initial promise of CAMEL, few operators have deployed the first phase agreed by ETSI back in 1997.

One of the problems is that CAMEL demands a certain amount of cooperation by GSM network operators with their competitors. CAMEL becomes particularly useful to an operator when it is run on competitors' international networks to which its own customers roam. The standard automatically sorts out the exchange of call record details and billing settlement between operators once it has been implemented on their network.

"You install CAMEL and you help others. [But] what you want is others to install CAMEL. You need a critical mass of operators to install it," said Bell.

Works with muliple networks

CAMEL may find an important role in providing interoperability between different vendors' equipment. If GSM operators use equipment from different manufacturers for 2G and 3G networks, CAMEL may prove the easiest means to ensure intelligent network (IN) interoperability between 2G and 3G IN platforms, because it works across GSM, GPRS and 3G networks in the same way, according to Keijo Palviainen of Nokia Oyj, Helsinki, Finland, and a leading member of the ETSI Camel Working Group.

"The CAMEL standard works fine in 2G and 3G; there are practically no differences," he said.

But putting further pressure on CAMEL, competition is set to increase when third-generation mobile services arrive. For example, when it comes to supporting interactive multimedia services, said Palviainen, "the role of CAMEL is somewhat open within the 3GPP [the 3G Partnership Program which co-ordinates 3G standards]."

"Currently, there are three competing candidates that may all be specified: CAMEL, OSA [open systems architecture] and SIP [the session initiation protocol]. The future will show which one will win," said Palviainen. "Vendors and operators must start to place theit bets now," he said.

However, Palviainen remains optimistic about CAMEL phase 2, which a handful of operators are beginning to deploy in their networks, and the upcoming CAMEL phase 3.

Whereas with the first phase of CAMEL services included only call screening, forwarding, redirection and basic VPNs, phase 2 will support prepaid roaming, freephone calls, location dependent discount, reverse charging and premium rate calls. Phase 3 will add more features including service numbers, mutiple subscriber profiles and prepaid GPRS data roaming facilities.

Prepaid roaming is CAMEL phase 2's biggest selling point. In China, operators are using phase 2 software for prepaid roaming, said Palviainen, and a smattering of European operators are also believed to have begun deploying it.

Since pre-paid subscribers make up 60%-80% of mobile users in European countries such as the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, "GPRS pre-pay is a must," argued Palviainen. "We...see at Nokia that CAMEL phase 3 will be the main solution for GPRS prepaid services," he said.