Ofcom review UK mobile broadband spectrum
bbc.co.uk reports that UK regulator Ofcom looks set to change the way it sells off the airwaves freed up by the shift to digital TV.
It is planning to make a wider band of spectrum available for mobile broadband services than originally proposed. A move that has been welcomed by mobile operators who say it will make for cheaper and more flexible services.
Originally Ofcom promised to safeguard spectrum in the 800Mhz band for wireless microphones and digital terrestrial TV services, but now it proposes to make the whole 800MHz band available for mobile broadband and related services and find "alternative spectrum" for wireless microphones and digital terrestrial TV.
For digital terrestrial TV viewers, it will mean that set-top boxes will have to be retuned, something Ofcom described as "a simple procedure that usually takes a few minutes to complete".
"Ofcom has realised that there is momentum in Europe for mobile broadband so has had to co-operate," said Matthew Howett, an analyst with research firm Ovum.
Finland, France, Sweden, and Switzerland have already decided to release the wider block of spectrum for mobile broadband services and if the UK follows suit it will mean lower equipment prices for consumers.
T-Mobile's head of regulatory affairs, Robyn Durie, welcomed the move. "It is good news for us. Mobile broadband needs a big chunk of spectrum and previously we didn't have that," she said. "It means that consumers will be able to use the same services abroad that they can use at home."
Read the full article here.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband
UK's first LTE 4G mobile broadband trial network tested
Motorola has launched the first LTE (Long-Term Evolution, 4G) next generation Mobile Broadband trial network and testing lab in Swindon. The new lab began its life today with a live, standards compliant LTE call during which high-speed data services were streamed using Motorola's LTE infrastructure operating in the 2.6GHz spectrum and a prototype LTE device.
"Motorola is at the forefront of 4G development which will address the mobility demands of today's consumers who are looking for personalized media experiences and operators looking to lower their cost per bit and gain a competitive advantage," said Joe Cozzolino, senior vice president and general manager, Motorola Home & Networks Mobility, EMEA & Asia Pacific.
LTE is currently believed to be the most likely candidate to replace existing HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) based 3G Mobile Broadband services, which can only operate at up to a theoretical 14.4Mbps (HSPA+ can take this to 42Mbps) downstream.
By comparison LTE has the potential to reach 160Mbps downstream. Meanwhile, the big question remains over how mobile operators will afford to deploy a backbone network that will support the extra capacity.
Labels: LTE, mobile broadband, quick-news
HSPA+ rollout likely prior migration to LTE
A significant number of mobile operators will be upgrading from HSPDA to HSPA+ technology as an interim stop gap before eventually migrating to LTE, according to the latest report from EJL Wireless Research entitled "3GPP Release 7 HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA) Network Migration Analysis."
"LTE technology remains on the longer term horizon but HSPA+ is here and now. The increase of UMTS downlink speeds of up to 21Mbps peak will significantly improve the consumer's mobile broadband experience." said founder and President Earl Lum.
"Given the economic uncertainty through 2009 and 2010, it is clear that mobile operators will upgrade to HSPA+ technology during 2009-2011." said Lum.
The full report is currently available for purchase and information can be downloaded at
ejlwireless.com.
Labels: haspa+, industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband
3G/4G convergence a reality in the US
In the 'States, Franklin Wireless and Beceem Communications have partnered to revolutionize the mobile broadband user experience with the introduction of the world's first dual-mode 3G CDMA/4G WiMAX USB Modem, the Franklin U300.
The U300 was commercially released by Sprint on December 17th 2008 and is the first USB modem that can be used on Sprint's existing 3G CDMA network and on Clearwire's 4G WiMAX network. The U300 incorporates Beceem's high-performance Mobile WiMAX chipset alongside an EVDO-Rev A chip.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband, quick-news
Huawei to deliver first commercial LTE network in Oslo
Following on from the announcement that it will build an Ericsson supplied LTE network in Sweden's Stockholm, TeliaSonera has also announced that it will tap Huawei for another LTE network, this time in Norway's Oslo.
Under the agreement, Huawei provides an end-to-end LTE solution including LTE base stations, core network and OSS (Operating Support System) covering Oslo. Huawei also provides services including network design, implementation, systems integration and support.
"We are excited to help TeliaSonera to construct the world's first commercial LTE network", says Chengdong Yu, President of Huawei European region. "Huawei always focuses on addressing the challenges of operators and the needs of its customers. With our leading LTE technology, we are confident to provide TeliaSonera with winning solutions for their businesses and help them provide the fastest mobile broadband experience for their customers."
Labels: huawei, industry insight, LTE, quick-news
WiMAX Vs LTE - which will win through?
Opposing technologies are a historical feature of the technological evolution of the World, take BetaMax Vs VHS, Blu Ray Vs HD DVD or Mac Vs PC as prime examples. Unsurprisingly, technical arguments are almost never the deciding factor in such contests; it almost always comes down to cost and simplicity or adoption of open standards.
With the tremendous impact of Broadband Internet over the last decade and the overwhelming success of the mobile phone, today is all about Mobile Broadband and therefore it is not all surprising that LTE (Long Term Evolution) and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), are the focus of interest and are fuelling a new breed of pundits arguing over which technology is best.
LTE and WiMAX are commonly referred as 4G (Fourth Generation) technologies. They are aimed at overcoming previous 3G (Third generation) technological and speed limitations. Within the framework of International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT-Advanced umbrella), 4G is broadly defined as any mobile technology that can deliver over 100Mbps (megabits per second) throughput over an 'all IP' based infrastructure.
WiMAX and LTE are officially recognized as IMT-2000 technologies while their respective evolutions, namely WiMAX 802.16m and LTE Advanced are expected to meet the IMT-Advanced requirements and therefore officially be referred to as 4G technologies. Using 4G to describe a technology today is essentially a marketing positioning.
With more than 100 commercial contracts worldwide and the first large scale mobile WiMAX deployment with Sprint in the USA, WiMAX has already been brought to market and the success of the Sprint roll-out will have tremendous influence on further adoption worldwide.
From a technical standpoint, LTE and WiMAX are very similar with IP and OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) as core component. Beside LTE and WiMAX, WiFi as well as DSL are also using OFDM technology. The standards themselves are still in specification phase and should be completed by 2010. However, WiMAX has a slight advantage as 802.16e has been standardize for some time while LTE standards are close to completion. Tere are however some other significant differences, such as the fact that WiMAX is based on IEEE while LTE is a 3GPP development. IEEE has a proven history of being more supportive of open standards than 3GPP although a lot of efforts have been made towards open standards in 3GPP.
The main practical difference between WiMAX and LTE is the deployment strategy. WiMAX requires a new network to be built whereas LTE is an evolution of existing WCDMA/HSPA networks and therefore has the footprint advantage with close to 80% of subscribers worldwide. Both CDMA and GSM operators are therefore naturally heading towards LTE.
The other key issue is with spectrum availability. More than fifty percent of the World's population now lives in an area where a license for WiMAX is available. But LTE, on the other hand, offers more flexibility than WiMAX and all 3GPP operators already have spectrum that can be used for LTE. In both cases, the amount of spectrum available and channelisation attached will strongly influence the quality and bandwidth they will be able to offer customers.
So, even if licenses suitable for both technologies are available, a technology choice may ultimately depend on which license affords the more attractive end-user service relative to cost. In the past year, the WiMAX industry has passed a string of key milestones including product certification, the launch of services by major operators such as Sprint Nextel, commitments by key internet players such as Google, and the long awaited arrival of WiMAX notebooks and other devices.
But despite early successes, WiMAX rival HSDPA has become a runaway success in many markets worldwide, and emerging technology LTE has accelerated and gained the backing of most of the world's major mobile operators, including Vodafone and China Mobile.
Mobile WiMAX also faces challenges because it is entering its capital intensive deployment phase in the midst of the global financial crisis, which will make it harder for operators to secure funding for new deployments.
However, Mobile WiMAX still has a significant head start over its OFDMA rival LTE, which will launch commercially in 2010. The bottom line is that WiMAX will take a significant share of the converging broadband market in some regions, but will struggle in others due to competition from HSPA and LTE.
According to a recently published report by Dell'Oro Group, the worldwide mobile WiMAX infrastructure revenues nearly quadrupled in the third quarter of 2008 (the most recent quarter with available market information) over the third quarter of 2007.
"With LTE still a couple of years away, WiMAX has, in fact, become the first next generation technology with commercial service," commented Scott Siegler, Senior Analyst of Mobile Infrastructure research at Dell'Oro Group.
"Mobile WiMAX revenues were very strong in the third quarter of last year, and we anticipate revenue for the fourth quarter to set another record. However, as we look into 2009, we expect the WiMAX market to be hit rather hard by the economic downturn. Building out brand new networks from scratch requires tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of capital. Compounding the tightening in the credit markets, the increasing cost of capital and the decrease in demand for broadband data as consumer spending weakens, we anticipate many network buildouts will be put on hold or delayed into 2010. With initial LTE rollouts coming in the 2010 to 2011 timeframe, these delays will shorten the time to market advantage WiMAX currently has over LTE," Siegler continued.
The report also shows that the top four Mobile WiMAX vendors in the quarter - Samsung, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent and Alvarion – represented nearly 90 percent of the total market.
Meanwhile in the UK, Ofcom will auction 2010-2025 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz bands on a technology and service neutral basis. In total, 205 MHz will be available when Ofcom open up this spectrum next year. It was originally scheduled for this summer, but was delayed. Current WiMAX operations in the UK use the less ideal (and less mobile) 3.5GHz band.
It will be the UK's single-largest release of radio spectrum to date, suitable for a range of new services such as mobile broadband and advanced wireless services delivered using WiMAX and 3G technology.
The incumbent telco, British Telecom, has no mobile arm, which makes it likely to bid for a license. If it does and it wins, BT is likely to adopt WiMAX rather than LTE to take advantage of the headstart WiMAX would provide, say some observers. Five mobile operators are potentially bidding to hoard WiMax spectrum (at 2.6 GHz).
Ofcom has allocated a certain amount of licensed spectrum for time division duplex (TDD), or unpaired spectrum, and a certain amount FDD, or paired spectrum. Analysts and WiMax players expect the UK's mobile operators to buy up the TDD spectrum to keep out new Mobile WiMax competitors.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, WiMax
The 100Mbps chip is here
NTT DOCOMO announced that it has successfully developed a trial large-scale-integration (LSI) chip that consumes less than 0.04 W of power yet supports multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal detection and decoding for downlink transmissions at 100 Mbps.
This is the speed required for the forthcoming mobile system known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), approved by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Compared with chips currently used in handsets compatible with DOCOMO's High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) service, which have a maximum downlink rate of 7.2 Mbps, the new chip will enable downlinks that are more than 10 times as fast.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband, quick-news
Embedded mobile broadband over-hyped but will grow
The near-term importance of new embedded-3G and embedded-WiMAX notebooks has been significantly over-estimated, according to a new research report published by Disruptive Analysis. Even in three year's time, laptops with built-in wireless access will only be used by 30% of total, active mobile broadband subscribers globally. External USB modems (or "dongles") will account for 58% - almost twice as many.
However, the report, "Mobile Broadband Computing: Device Market Forecasts & Business Model Scenarios" predicts that in the long term, embedded mobile broadband will indeed overtake separate modems, in terms of both shipments and the active user base. By 2014, there will be 150m users of notebooks and the smaller "netbooks" with embedded mobile broadband worldwide. In terms of device shipments, 100m wireless-enabled laptops will be sold annually by then although not all of them will actually be activated.
The study identifies numerous reasons for the slower-than-anticpated growth of embedded WWAN (wireless wide area networking). Key reasons include: the global recession impacting notebook purchases, unfavourable pricing differentials; the limitations of the sales and support channels for mobile-enabled notebooks; and the typical two-year monthly contract payment model, which does not fit with much of the target market for these devices. This makes comparisons with the rapid rate of adoption of WiFi in laptops appear over-simplistic.
Interestingly, the report also predicts that 2009 will be a much more difficult year for mobile broadband, compared with the huge growth experienced in 2008. The recession and non-availability of credit will drive a softening of demand for laptops generally, as well as a focus on value. For most people, built-in 3G or WiMAX is a "nice to have", not a "must have".
Despite upgrades to higher peak speeds for HSPA, the total capacity is still limited by a range of network bottlenecks - referred to as the "Capacity Crunch".
One outcome will be a shift to new business models for mobile broadband. As well as revised prices and bandwidth caps, Disruptive Analysis expects to see new payment mechanisms emerge. Prepay ("pay as you go") accounts are already popular in some markets and this will increase. In addition, new session-based, sponsored or "free" mobile broadband models will start to mirror the WiFi hotspot business especially where network congestion can be lowered by the use of new femtocell access points. Conventional, long-term, monthly contracts will account for only 40% of worldwide mobile broadband subscribers by the end of 2011.
The report, "Mobile Broadband Computing: Device Market Forecasts & Business Model Scenarios" is available to buy from Disruptive Analysis. It includes detailed analysis of new product sales (3G laptops, netbooks, dongles, MIDs), installed base and mobile broadband service uptake by device type, network technology and business/payment model. Details are available at
disruptive-analysis.com.
Labels: industry insight, laptop, LTE, mobile broadband
US to get LTE in 2009
USA's Verizon Wireless is taking a stand - in the race to deploy 4G LTE mobile broadband service, they don't want to come in second to AT&T or Japan's NTT DoCoMo, the latter of which said it would offer such a network commercially in 2010. According to executive vice president and chief technology officer of Verizon Communications, Dick Lynch, they plan to begin rolling the enhanced network capabilities out by about this time next year, ahead of the original 2010 timetable.
The original plan called for initial rollouts in 2010, with a wide commercial launch in 2011 and true mass availability coming shortly after. But according to an IDC analyst, Verizon’s new, more aggressive deployment schedule was likely inspired by the threat of launching after another company. Verizon wants to be first!
After introducing LTE, Verizon plans to offer subscribers small in-home base stations known as femtocells, which will extend the signal indoors - likely including built-in Wi-Fi, which will allow newer personal electronics such as cameras to automatically exchange information over the air.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband
LG demonstrates LTE at 60Mbps
LG Electronics has developed the first handset modem chip based on LTE standards - which can theoretically support wireless download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 50Mbps.
LG demonstrated the chip today at its Mobile Communication Technology Research Lab in Anyang, Korea, achieving wireless download speeds of 60 Mbps and upload speeds of 20 Mbps. The fastest phones currently on the market use HSDPA technology and download at a maximum speed of 7.6 Mbps.
For the past three years, LG have been pursuing 3GPP LTE standardization, working to develop and test commercially viable LTE technology with around 250 staff. "Now that LG has developed and tested the first 4G handset modem, a commercially viable LTE handset is on the horizon," said Dr. Woo Hyun Paik, CTO of LG Electronics.
According to market research company Strategy Analytics, the global LTE handset market will double from 70 million sales units in 2012 to 150 million sales units by 2013. The first LTE mobile phones will likely reach the market in 2010.
Labels: LTE, mobile broadband, quick-news
21Mbps mobile broadband a reality
Ericsson and Telstra have achieved an industry first in Australia: the successful activation of HSPA Evolution functionality capable of peak network speeds up to 21 Mbps into the Telstra Next G(TM)commercial network and the world's first data call on the newly-enabled network. For the first time, a commercial network makes use of the enhanced, standardized improvements called HSPA Evolution.
This enhancement adds a new dimension to broadband experience withthe capability for significantly faster internet browsing and file download, even faster than many fixed broadband connections. With HSPA Evolution, operators will increase the capacity in the networks and reduce the costs to deliver Mobile Broadband services.
This improvement is the first step of HSPA Evolution, also known as HSPA+. The improvement is provided by enhancements standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), bringing the maximum possible downlink speed for HSPA to 21Mbps, much higher than the current maximum of 14Mbps. The step to 21Mbps is obtained by using a higher-order modulation, called 64QAM that makes it possible for HSPA systems to send data bits with a higher rate. Future steps in the HSPA Evolution path include technologies like Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technologies and multi-carrier transmission. By combining these improvements, downlink speeds over 80Mbps and uplink speeds over 20Mbps will be possible. 21Mbps is the peak network downlink speed. Actual customer download speeds can be less and will vary due to congestion, distance from the cell, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband
Mobile broadband 4G - the death of copper?
An
article at Times Online today debates the future of copper broadband in the UK in the face of the potential speeds of both 3G and 4G mobile broadband. This is something we at
mobilebroadbandinfo.co.uk have
debated for some time.
It is the digital equivalent of a power blackout and the prospect is already worrying ministers and government planners - at some point in the next decade, the copper telephone network will run out of capacity.
Confronting the problem is expected to lie at the heart of Lord Carter of Barnes's Digital Britain review of communications policy, due early next year, with efforts to solve it focused on an unlikely source: mobile phones.
The Communications Minister is yet to reveal his plans, but he has been dropping heavy hints, writing in The Times this month that he wants to help to develop "mobile and wireless services that can do for broadband and video what they have done for the spoken word"e;.
His goal is to kick-start an auction of "fourth-generation" mobile technology, using a block of spectrum previously set aside for digital television. The 4G technology, known in the industry as LTE, or Long-Term Evolution, can deliver download speeds of ten megabits or more - five times quicker than a standard fixed broadband connection - in fact tests have achieved speeds of 160Mbps.
BT has promised to upgrade up to 40per cent of homes to fibre optic technology - where data is transmitted down filaments of glass at the speed of light - but the rest of the UK will be stuck on copper.
BT will use a new standard, ADSL2+, which promises speeds of "up to 24 megabits" - in theory ten times faster than the two-megabit standard of today. However, theory does not always match up to practice and other internet providers that use BT's network may not want to join it in investing to match its speed.
The 2.6 GHz spectrum can be used for fourth-generation LTE services, but the relatively high frequency means that it requires more base stations, raising the cost of deploying a national network to £2billion, and coverage indoors is poor.
This weakness makes the separate television spectrum much more interesting. A chunk between 790 and 862 megahertz - "the sweetspot in the sweetspot" available from 2012 - has been identified by Ofcom. It would cost far less to deploy, provide better coverage indoors and, it is believed, give fourth-generation phones ten megabit-plus speeds.
If the mobile broadband plan works, rapid internet development will continue into the next decade, fuelled by competing technologies. And, at last, it may be possible to watch Mamma Mia! on your mobile while sitting in a café.
Read the full article
here.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband, network coverage
80Mbps for existing mobile broadband infrastructure?
Ericsson, the handset and telecoms kit manufacturer, has predicted that next-generation Mobile Broadband networks using Long-Term Evolution (LTE / 4G) technology should be ready for prime time in the UK by late 2010.
Ericsson's UK chief technology officer, John Cunliffe, told ZDNet UK. "Networks will be ready for rolling out — shipping in commercial quantities — next year and then the devices, we think, will start to come in 2010," he added.
However many mobile operators are still trying to squeeze as much out of existing HSPA (3G) technology as possible, which in its present form can reach up to 14.4Mbps. By comparison LTE's "tested" maximum is 154Mbps (78Mbps average), though Cunliffe warns that newer enhanced forms of HSPA could get potentially compete with LTE:
"The fastest being deployed in the UK at the moment is 7.2Mbps but our roadmap continues until 42Mbps. We can even see that it may be possible for the technology to reach as much as
80Mbps… so there is certainly a lot of mileage in HSPA. People maybe think that we've got to have LTE to get to the higher speeds, but HSPA will go a long way before we need to get to LTE speeds," said Cunliffe.
This certainly begs the question, why should mobile operators bother with LTE and or mobile WiMAX when their existing HSPA infrastructure has the potential to compete with next-gen technology.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, quick-news
NTT DoCoMo to launch LTE mobile broadband in 2010
Japan's largest mobile network operator plans to beef up its wireless data services by introducing LTE (Long Term Evolution)
mobile broadband in 2010, becoming one of the first companies globally to offer the new technology.
NTT DoCoMo started testing LTE, which it calls Super 3G (third generation mobile telecommunications) and others call 3.9G, in July of 2006. The technology improves wireless download and access speeds over current EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) and HSPA (high-speed packet access) technologies. Early test have indicated potentials speeds of up to 160Mbps.
The company will introduce LTE commercially in 2010, said NTT DoCoMo CEO Ryuji Yamada, in a speech at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, China. He said his company needs speedier broadband to keep up with the video services Japanese consumers demand.
Labels: LTE, mobile broadband, quick-news
Mobile broadband future is fast - very fast!
In a demonstration, held in Sydney, Australia on Thursday, Ericsson has demonstrated wireless broadband technology that can transmit data at a remarkable 160Mbps.
The company is siting LTE or Long Term Evolution as a '4G' successor to the 3G cellular, or HSPA, infrastructures currently deployed by all of Australia's mobile carriers. But 160 Mbps is just the beginning. The target is for LTE to hit 1Gbps by 2013.
The company currently has proof of concept products but hopes to deliver on some of these towards the end of next year. In the demo, an engineer was able to show how fast it took to transfer files from a base station to a notebook. A 10MB email attachment downloaded almost in the blink of an eye, and 300MB of attachments was download in just over 10 seconds.
Whilst this is an Antipodean-only venture currently, it does provide a tantalising glimpse of what the future may hold in terms of
mobile broadband in the UK.
Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband
