Vodafone Global M2M APN Guide & FAQs

m2m.vodafone.com Vodafone Global M2M APN Guide & FAQs

Introduction APN Product Options The APN Value proposition

An Access Point Name (APN) is a point of entry onto an IP network for a Customers purchasing a corporate APN have the liberty to choose the i) Billing models The features and benefits of APNs are: mobile device. An APN can be either private or public. Private APNs are name of their APN with the following constraints:  a) Subscriber billed APNs(also called forward-billed APNs offer all the also known as corporate APNs within the South African industry. features and benefits of a private APN with the main difference being a) Configurability – Private APNs offer customers the ability to configure a) The APN name may not contain any special characters that each individual subscriber is billed separately for the usage on various settings such as IP address ranges, static or dynamic addressing as A public APN is typically associated with all subscribers by default, for b) The APN name must be in lower case and be 30 characters or less. the APN. well as authentication techniques. example Vodacom’s public internet APN allows all subscribers access to the internet by default. For a subscriber to be able to access a particular The diagram below illustrates the traffic flow in a typical use case of a b) Reverse billed APNs allow customers to aggregate all the data usage b) Security – Subscribers that are connected via a private APN are only APN, the subscriber’s SIM must be provisioned on the APN. corporate APN. In this example, the corporate APN’s traffic flows directly of all users that are provisioned onto the APN. This model affords visible to other devices on the same APN. This makes APNs a superior from the user’s device via the GSM network to the corporate network into customers the convenience of many users consuming from a pool of solution in terms of data security when compared to using the public Corporate APNs are typically set up to terminate their traffic onto a which it terminates. This traffic does not traverse the internet hence this data rather than each user having its own individual data usage. Reverse internet APN or any other shared internet access. When an APN is used customer’s network. Once a corporate user has established a connection solution offers more security than a soft VPN client on the Internet. APNs billed APNs come in two flavours – Corporate APNs (with bundles) and in conjunction with fixed-line backhaul terminating at a customer’s on the corporate APN, the GSM device will be able to exchange data with thus afford users a secure mobile connection when off-site. Channel APNs (usage-based). data centre, the organizations data remains on the customer’s private the customer’s corporate network. data network between the remote terminal and the data centre. The ii) Reverse Billed data bundles (Corporate APNs) APN solution thus offers a secure mobile VPN. This architecture offers For reverse-billed APNs with bundles, customers will purchase a monthly considerably more security than the typical VPN solution that uses a VPN recurring bundle of data which will be shared by the subscribers that are server in conjunction with a software VPN client since the VPN session provisioned onto the APN. Each bundle has an inbundle rate and an out data traverses the public internet and it is hence more vulnerable. of bundle rate. The in bundle rate is the data rate that the customer is paying when consuming a bundle. The out of bundle rate is the rate that c) Cost effectiveness – APNs offers a cost effective mobile VPN solution the customer charged (per MB) when the customer has depleted the due to the ability to aggregate usage as well as the competitive data Customer IP recurring data bundle. Any unused portion of the data bundle that is not pricing. In addition APNs applied as part of a mobile VPN solution benefit Network consumed within a given month is lost at the end of the month. from having mobile users conform to security and usage policies – this feature limits abuse and improves cost effectiveness. GSM Network d) National Coverage – Vodacom’s extensive 3G coverage and network reliability means that mobile users will have fast and secure access across the country.

e) Global Coverage – Vodacom’s extensive global partner network offers APN users access to their APN across the globe. For VPN applications it translates into seamless access to all the organization’s applications and data, conveniently and securely virtually anywhere in the world.

f) Complementary products – Vodacom business offers extensive products to complement the APN solution, these include internet access, Traffic flow between remote device and corporate network access solutions (fibre, diginet & microwave), hosting and SAAS. Our extensive product range allows Vodacom to provide a one-stop shop to our customers to provide a complete end-to-end service.

g) Design Support – Our Vodacom Business sales team include dedicated solutions specialists to advise and assist customers with a complete solution design.

h) After Sales Support – Our dedicated support teams offer specialized support and assistance for APNs

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Frequently asked questions

Q. What is the minimum APN contract term? Q. Is a Radius Server included in the APN pricing? Q.  How will the initial APN authentication request (to a RADIUS Q. Does the APN service include DNS? A. APNs run on a month to month contract and there is no cancellation A. Vodacom Business does not supply RADIUS servers – the customer server) be presented i.e. username and password or SIM number A. DNS must be supplied by the customer in the APN settings. If the penalty. Once must however consider the impact of cancelling always provides its own RADIUS server if it is required. as the username? customer is using DIA then they could provide VB’s DNS settings. For other services that are used with the APN which may have a A. All standard 3Gpp and standard radius attributes are supported. For APNs that terminate into a customer’s network, the customer must cancellation penalty. Essentially there are two uses of radius, either for authentication and/ basic authentication “Username” and password attribute needs to be provide their own DNS resolution. An alternative to setting DNS on the or to hand out IP address to client devices. If radius authentication configured on radius server. The RADIUS server can also be configured APN, one could configure the DNS setting into each client device. Q. Is a corporate APN available to a subscriber when option is set to yes (regardless of whether radius is being used for IP to use “Calling-Station-Id” as well. This attribute is always populated roaming internationally? addressing), then the GGSN will query the specified radius with the with MSISDN value. If customer wishes to use User-name attribute to Q. Is it possible to have both dynamic and static IP addressing A. Yes. The customer must first have the international roaming service username and password. Otherwise the GGSN will ignore the authenticate and wants to use MSISDN as user-name, then we can on an APN? loaded on the MSISDN in question before leaving the country. username and password. configure this on the GGSN to populate the user-name attribute A. It is not possible to have both static and dynamic IP addressing on the with MSISDN value. same APN. An “inbetween” solution would be to use RADIUS to assign Q. Do I deplete my APN bundle when roaming internationally? Similarly the option of using radius to assign IP addresses is IP addressing – this will allow a customer to control IP addresses via the A. No, when the customer is roaming out of the country and accessing independent of the authentication option; hence the GGSN will only Q. Can more than one IP address be assigned to a SIM? RADIUS server. their corporate APN, they are charged at the applicable roaming query the radius for the MS IP address if this option is set. Otherwise A. A SIM may only establish a single packet data session at a time and data rate. the IP addresses as assigned at the GGSN (in the case of dynamic hence it may only have one IP address. In addition the IP address that is IP addressing). assigned to a particular MSISDN is assigned by the GGSN or by a radius Q. Is there any way that I can get notification of their APN bundle server and each device on the network (i.e. each MSISDN) can only be usage during the month? allocated one IP address. It would be possible to have a subnet (with A.  Vodacom Spend manager can be used to monitor APN bundle NAT) existing behind each IP address on an APN by using a router like consumption. the Huawei B970.

Q. What steps are taken to ensure that no unauthorized connections are made to a company’s private APN (corporate APN)? A.  Only SIMs that are authorized by the customer may be provisioned onto the APN and the APN is not accessible to any other subscriber since it is private network that can only be accessed by the customer’s SIMs.

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