Information society services provided by access networks

Transcription

1 Information society services provided by access networks JOUNI IKONEN AND JARI PORRAS Department of Information Technology Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O. Box 20, Lappeenranta FINLAND Abstract: True information society requires citizens to be able to access services easily. We propose that people should be able to access public information society services from home without the requirement of purchasing an Internet connection. In this paper modern operator neutral access networks as well as the traditional network approaches are studied and a proposal is made how they can be used to offer information society services for all users. The work includes security, service and business aspects. Keywords:, information society, basic services, networking 1 Introduction Information society has been a hot topic, even though the meaning of the term has not been clear. In [1] the information society has been defined to be the new socio-economic and technological paradigm that is likely to occur. This process is expected not only to alter human interaction with information, but also to affect individual behaviour and collective consciousness. Whatis.com [2] further defines information society as a term for a society in which the creation, distribution, and manipulation of information has become the most significant economic and cultural activity. Thus the information society is heavily tied to the information and its usage. The objectives and operations of the Information society has been clearly defined in the eeurope project [3]. The realization of the information society consists of several parts and the technology is seen only as one part of this development. In this paper the information society is looked from the technological view and thus the term information society is used in the meaning of using computer networks to interact with the surrounding society. Here the most interesting point is how the changes in networking technology will allow better usage of information society services. eeurope 2005 [4] lists 20 government services, which should be available online for citizens and businesses. These services include e.g. tax services, job search, social security and marriage licenses. The document states that in % of governmental services were already available online. Use of these services requires users to have access to them. Currently the public information society services are usually located in the Internet. This is quite handy as this way any Internet connection can be used for accessing the services. Access to the services requires Internet connection, terminal device and possibly some electronic identification card. For the access purposes the users can own the equipment or use the public Internet terminals, which are often available in libraries. Commonly users access these services via the Internet by using relatively slow telephone modem or broadband access for faster and continuous usage. Use of the public terminal is usually available only for limited hours, may locate far from the user, and must be shared with other users. Technologies for accessing the information society services may vary a lot. Telephone, data and TV networks can be used as the access network. eeurope 2005 [4] states that

2 the key services must be available not only via personal computer but also via interactive digital television, third generation mobile phones and cable networks. From the technological point of view the networks look the same. The change from vertical to horizontal level access has equalized the networks [5] which makes the use of services independent of the used access technology. From the services point of view the network connections can be broadband or narrow band. From the operations point of view it would be good if the connections are persistent and the users are continuously connected to the network. True information society requires citizens to be able to access services easily. In transition stages to information society access to services has been made via the public Internet access terminals in libraries, commercial Internet access providers and by using employers facilities. are located in the Internet to allow everyone to access the services. However, access to the governmental services should not be dependent on facts that you share an Internet terminal in public library or buy a commercial Internet connection. In this paper we propose that people should be able to access public information society services without requirement of purchasing an Internet connection. In this paper the usage of access networks for information society services are proposed. Basic difference to the traditional Internet services is that the user is not required to purchase an Internet connection. Users can access the services directly by connecting their terminal device to the network. In practice this should mean that user will have immediate access to the services after plugging computer to a network connector. 2 Proposal We propose that people should be able to access information society services simply by connecting their computer to the network plug or to some local wireless infrastructure. This requires access networks to be information society enabled. In practice this means that all or at least most of the access networks must be publicly open, so that anyone can connect to the network. In practice the information society enabled networks should allow the same kind of operation as with the emergency numbers in mobile networks. However, it should be remembered that the information society enabled connection to the network does not mean that the user would receive commercial grade services from the network. Some approaches already exist for allowing information society enabled services through the access networks. These are called open networks. One example of these is the community networks, which provide access for ideological reasons. Users can communicate with each other in the network, or use the services provided by the network. However, the Internet access can be unavailable in some of these networks. Examples of this type of networks are Seattle Wireless, NYCwireless, and NoCat [6]. Another approach is the operator neutral networks. In these networks the infrastructure is open to all operators. There are currently multiple approaches for creating operator neutral networks, like Stockholm Open [7] or Wireless Lappeenranta [8], but also the traditional access networks could accomplish the task with some fundamental attitude changes. This however requires that in the network some part is always reserved for the information society services. There are multiple ways for the technical approach to our proposal. The two basic approaches are: Information society services are located in the same places where they are currently, but each access provider allows all users (not only their own paying customers) to access information society services for free. are mirrored to the access networks. A simple way to accomplish the task is to require Internet service providers (ISPs) to allow free access to the selected governmental Internet service servers. This is illustrated in

3 Figure 1. In this approach each user can connect to the ISP s access network. The access network has a list of allowed Internet services (i.e. white list), where the users can connect to, without being required to buy the ISP services. In traditional IPv4 networks all information society services could be placed to same IP address block. This way all ISPs would have to allow connections only to that IP address block. Good description of the operation of TCP/IP and IP addresses can be found from [9]. Connection from ISPs to services can be done by normal IP routing or by using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). It should be remembered that the centralized services are vulnerable to denial of service attacks and security implications must be considered carefully. xdsl modem WLAN Ethernet Access network Core Internet Public Information Society Figure 1. Public information services accessible via Internet connection. Users are required to have Internet connection to access the services. For example applying the idea to the existing cable access networks is quite simple. Users access shared access medium (cable network) and are online all the time. Basically everyone who has cable TV plug could connect to this network with a right kind of a modem. After that the access to the governmental information society is reduced to a routing problem (not quite, but close). Users who have not bought Internet access would not be allowed to access any other services but selected information society services. Similarly other shared IP networks could allow nonpaying users to access the network, but limit the access only to the Information Society (IS) services. These services could be located in the Internet as described in Figure 1 or directly in the access networks as illustrated in Figure 2. in the local access networks could be very likely to support also localized information society services. xdsl modem WLAN Ethernet Access network Core Internet Public Information Society and/or Local services Figure 2. Public information services accessible in local access network. Users are not required to pay for Internet to access public services. The second approach is to place all or some of the services directly to the access networks as illustrated in Figure 2. This can be useful when providing localized information. It can also be quite meaningful e.g. when the information has no sensible meaning if read from outside of the region. These local access networks may be standalone hotspots or extensions to the core Internet. Access networks can be traditional local telephone networks, xdsl-services build on telephone networks, cable TV-networks, wireless local loop, etc. Accessing of the information society services in access networks require very little changes to the existing access networks. For example, the cable networks are generally open and users with suitable hardware can access the network. However, without a contract with the operator the user does not get any services from the network. Adding information society service servers to this environment is easy. The actual question is how the users find the services. Service discovery can be made via general well know information society DNS names, like local.info. However, there are no well known addresses that the users would know for these services. Another way is to detect non-customers and force them to information society portal, which tells what is

4 correct address and guide to different services. This can be done e.g. by transparent web proxy which redirects unregistered users to the portal. white listed Internet services, which users can access even they have not purchased Internet connection. Third option could be the use traditional telephone modem environment. This can be realized by the use of toll free phone numbers to access the services. This still does not provide always on service as usually the phone line is required to be ready to receive traditional voice calls. Even if users could use their phone line for always on service, this does require sufficient modem pools to support always on users. This approach does not even require Internet and could be realized with pre Internet bulletin board systems. ISP ISP ISPs Wireless Lappeenranta network 3 Wireless Lappeenranta network and its influences An open network infrastructure has been studied in the communication s engineering laboratory of the Lappeenranta University of Technology. The research has produced a public open operator neutral network. This network is public in sense that anyone with appropriate end equipments can use it This type of network structure is going with name of Lappeenranta-model. Network is open in sense that ISPs can join to the network and offer their services to the users. Users can also offer services to each other in the network. The network is built by using IEEE b wireless access points and wireless and wired backbone. The network structure is illustrated in Figure 3. The network covers many important areas of the city of Lappeenranta. Users do not have to register to be able to access or use the network. However, if the users try to surf outside of the network s address space they are forced to a web page where they are shown the usage philosophy of the network and given choice of ISPs which can be used to access Internet services from the network. Example of the network selection is shown in Figure 4. ISPs can sell Internet or other services to the users. The network has also local services which are free to the users. These services include communication services like instant messaging, chat systems, games, positioning and city portal. There are also I n t e r n e t Figure 3. Lappeenranta model of operator neutral network model Previously presented Lappeenranta model can be used to offer information society services. Current model supports both local services and services provided from the Internet via white pages. The model does not require network to be based on wireless systems as also wired systems can be used. In wireless environment position services can be used. Our model of the network can provide position based info flashes. Example of info flash could be notification of network maintenance or accident on a certain road blocking traffic. Figure 4. Unregistered users trying to access addresses outside of local network are forced to ISP selection page. The traditional ISP-driven networks and modern community networks have their own benefits and drawbacks. However, it is

5 possible to extend the community network architecture to ease the network management problem and still allow public access to the network. This next generation Wireless Lappeenranta network model uses a specialized solution between the wireless regional access network and the ISPs. The solution works with any existing network technology, such as WLAN, Bluetooth, Ethernet, ATM etc. Opening of the regional network to the public offers new usage possibilities. ISPs can concentrate on their main businesses, end users get an affordable network connection and new services, service providers and local authorities get new service provisioning concepts and lots of potential users. The centralized management eases network managers workload and brings maintenance costs down. The openness will attract a larger number of users than the traditional closed networks. The large number of users in the network will boost the technical development on the local area and give everyone the opportunity to have a network connection that is always available. Communication between people is made easy and reliable. Wireless Lappeenranta network has been implemented in the city of Lappeenranta in Finland as by product of WLAN-project. Wireless Lappeenranta network consists of wireless WLAN access points, wired access hubs, connected by wireless and wired backbone forming a regional network. Wireless Lappeenranta network is open for everyone and allows developing and implementing local services for everyone. Wireless Lappeenranta network allows testing the Information Society concept and the network will be used to research and implement new local services and concepts. Figure 3 illustrates the available network model. Local access network can offer services and multiple Internet service providers share the access network. It is evident that there is a clear demand for the public networks. There is also a clear demand for the centralized management in these networks as it binds together the requirements of all the participants and brings out also the ISP's viewpoint. Network users want free and easy access; ISP's need to ensure network functionality and controllability, and service providers want to offer their services to a broader group of users. 4 Economical considerations of requiring operators to allow free access to information society services It is expected that the commercial access providers are not too exited to pay costs to allow everybody to access information society services. There are costs e.g. for: Possible new infrastructure; routers and servers. Management of servers, DSN, routing, security. Larger capacity requirement as number of peak users and bandwidth can be larger. Operators should also be concerned that nonpaying users do not lower quality of service for paying customers. This requires probably shaping of traffic and inspection of response time, delays, etc. These requirements can be difficult to realize in some of the access network types. We should also consider the positive effects. Access to the information society services with the home PC requires the user to have an Internet capability. The proposed scheme will probably increase the base of possible customers. It can be expected that the basic information society services are not sufficient for many of the users and they will later on upgrade to commercial connections. Free access can be seen as get to know, learn to use environment and lowers the threshold for purchasing commercial services. Temporal users, like tourists, are unlikely customers, but likely customers in their residential areas. We assume that the best practice for acquiring large commercial base is to supply an easy access to the network for all the potential users. This access can be provided with many

6 different access network technologies. For example, new apartment flats could have built in Ethernet networks, which are connected already to the (access) network. User moves to the apartment, connects his PC to the wall outlet and receives an IP address when switching the PC on. When he surfs to some arbitrary IP address he is redirected to a page which provides link to free services and suggests purchasing an Internet connection to continue to the address he was trying to surf to. The previous example is quite sensible case for a city, but not so easily seen to happen in a countryside where distances are large and broad band connections are not too easily acquired or even possible to provide. In countryside modem connections, large wireless cells or satellite services need to be considered. 5 Conclusions We propose the usage of access networks for providing information society services for people. can be placed directly to the access network, relay from Internet or made from combination of the previous. The main idea is that the operators will reserve some part of the connection to the free information society services. Wireless Lappeenranta network was used as an example of the concept. Providing the services for no charge makes the access to the information society socially more equal for the people. The approach can also accelerate the technological advancement of the society. References [1] Stephanidis C. et. al, Toward an Information Society for All, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 10(2), 1998, pp [2] whatis.techtarget.com's definition of Information society. sid9_gci213588,00.html (visited ) [3] eeurope An information society for all, [4] Towards a knowledge-based Europe: The European Union and the information society, Manuscript for information brochure for the general public, European Commission, Directorate General for Press and Communication, October ewsroom/documents/catalogue_en.pdf (visited ). [5] Martikainen O.: All-IP Trends in Telecommunications, International Workshop NGNT, October 2002, Rousse, Bulgaria. [6] Free networks web pages. (visited ). [7] Pelletta E., Lilieblad F., Hedenfalk M., Pehrson B., The design and implementation of an Operator Neutral Open Wireless Access Network at the Kista IT-University, 12th IEEE Workshop on Local and Metropolitan Area Networks August 2002, Stockholm Sweden [8] Ikonen, J. and Oksanen, J., Wireless LANs and regional networking, Emerging Personal Wireless Communications, IFIP TC6/WG6.8 Working Conference on Personal Wireless Communications, 2001, Lappeenranta, Finland. [9] Stevens, W.R., TCP/IP Illustrated: The protocols, Addison-Wesley, 1994.