5G is just the ‘tip of the lawful intercept iceberg’ – here are four steps to help
Experts from BAE Systems are shedding light on the lawful interception (LI) challenges faced by communications service providers (CSPs) and offering guidance to help the industry get ready for 5G and beyond.
30 Jun 2020
5G is just the ‘tip of the lawful intercept iceberg’ – here are four steps to help
Sponsored by: BAE Systems
Experts from BAE Systems are shedding light on the lawful interception (LI) challenges faced by communications service providers (CSPs) and offering guidance to help the industry get ready for 5G and beyond.
An obligatory part of telecommunication compliance, LI has a crucial role to play in protecting the public. Its purpose is to provide communications data that can be used as evidence in court, so it is essential in the fight against serious crime.
Meeting these obligations, however, is extremely difficult without a dedicated, state-of-the-art LI solution. Organizations such as ETSI and CALEA provide guidance to ensure the standardization of LI solution architecture, as well as for continual evolution to ensure compliance with changing network technologies. Almost all countries have LI implementation requirements for CSPs, and in many cases core LI capabilities are often complemented by regional/ local judicial frameworks.
Telecommunication networks are changing. Virtualization and software defined networks (SDNs) are driving migration from the hard-wired networks of the past to the next generation – cloud based and with a virtual core. This provides a pathway to 5G and the cloud-native era. Exploding bandwidth demands and growing requirements for low latency are propelling new applications for connected devices. Some market forecasts estimate that the number of IoT devices will reach 75 billion by 2025. Applications such as autonomous driving, gaming, messaging, entertaining, and many others are driving this rise.
While 5G brings its own challenges for LI, 2G, 3G and 4G will continue to co-exist for some time. This new, fragmented and virtualized network architecture increases the difficulty of meeting LI obligations. As a result, regulators around the world have become increasingly concerned about how they can support efforts to investigate organized crime.
Many LI standardisation programmes, especially from ETSI, seek to resolve these concerns. There is a greater need than ever for service providers, regulators and standards bodies to collaborate to ensure that next-generation LI solutions are able to guarantee compliance.
BAE Systems’ new telecommunications insight series, ‘Transforming LI for the virtual era’, explores current LI challenges and provides useful guidance to CSPs to make their LI solutions future-proof.
Access the company's on demand webinar and have a read of its new telecommunications insights series, ‘Transforming LI for the virtual era’, available free to TM Forum readers, it explains why 5G is just the tip of the LI iceberg…
What is LI?
An obligatory part of telecommunication compliance, LI has a crucial role to play in protecting the public. Its purpose is to provide communications data that can be used as evidence in court, so it is essential in the fight against serious crime.
Meeting these obligations, however, is extremely difficult without a dedicated, state-of-the-art LI solution. Organizations such as ETSI and CALEA provide guidance to ensure the standardization of LI solution architecture, as well as for continual evolution to ensure compliance with changing network technologies. Almost all countries have LI implementation requirements for CSPs, and in many cases core LI capabilities are often complemented by regional/ local judicial frameworks.
What’s new?
Telecommunication networks are changing. Virtualization and software defined networks (SDNs) are driving migration from the hard-wired networks of the past to the next generation – cloud based and with a virtual core. This provides a pathway to 5G and the cloud-native era. Exploding bandwidth demands and growing requirements for low latency are propelling new applications for connected devices. Some market forecasts estimate that the number of IoT devices will reach 75 billion by 2025. Applications such as autonomous driving, gaming, messaging, entertaining, and many others are driving this rise.
While 5G brings its own challenges for LI, 2G, 3G and 4G will continue to co-exist for some time. This new, fragmented and virtualized network architecture increases the difficulty of meeting LI obligations. As a result, regulators around the world have become increasingly concerned about how they can support efforts to investigate organized crime.
Many LI standardisation programmes, especially from ETSI, seek to resolve these concerns. There is a greater need than ever for service providers, regulators and standards bodies to collaborate to ensure that next-generation LI solutions are able to guarantee compliance.
How to get ready for the change
BAE Systems’ new telecommunications insight series, ‘Transforming LI for the virtual era’, explores current LI challenges and provides useful guidance to CSPs to make their LI solutions future-proof.
Want the whole story?
Join our exclusive webinar, Lawful Interception (LI) – Adapting to changing networks, and hear directly from our product experts who have been working in the LI space for more than a decade, bringing innovative LI solutions to the market.
Focus on four key areas right now to meet the challenge of network evolution and to support long-term LI compliance:
- Get 5G-ready: 3GPP is defining new LI standards for 5G, providing a standards-based path for evolution. Interoperability between 3G, 4G and 5G is important, as well elasticity and scalability of the LI solution to meet dynamic, on-demand performance requirements. Non-compliance can be a roadblock to launching new services. Are you aware of any new standards and releases?
- Consolidate your legacy LI platforms: A future-proof LI solution is aligned with both current standards and technology requirements, as well as legacy networks. Consolidation is key for securing cost efficiencies and to ensure rapid time-to-market. Have you taken steps to assess your legacy LI platforms yet?
- Analyse LI requirements for IoT: The rise of IoT brings a broader and richer set of devices and data sources which demands LI transformation. And while not all IoT devices will have LI requirements, we can still expect a significant increase in the number and type of devices covered under LI. There is a need to understand the complete device footprint of users in the context of an agile new network with volatile services. Is your LI solution ready to meet the challenge?
- Build flexibility for virtual, dynamic service models: The telco cloud brings new opportunities for CSPs but if you are a CSP moving to a cloud native architecture with slicing capabilities, you will also need to transform all of your network services, including regulated services such as LI. How can CSPs deliver LI within a dynamic, cloud-native environment that enables a host of virtual services to be allocated and decommissioned as required?
Explore these steps in more detail in the telecommunications insight series, ‘Transforming LI for the virtual era’ today.
