Showing posts with label Mobile Phones and Devices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mobile Phones and Devices. Show all posts

Saturday 1 March 2014

Mobile, Context and Discovery - Ben Evans


An Interesting presentation and Video from Benedict Evans, both embedded below:



There is an interesting Q&A at the end of the talk in the video. You can directly jump to 27:30 marker for the Q&A. One of the interesting points highlighted by him, that I always knew but was not able to convey it across is there is no real point comparing Google and Apple. I am too lazy to type down so please jump to 45:10. One of the comment on the Youtube summarises it well:

"Google is a vast machine learning engine... and it spent 10-15 years building that learning engine and feeding it data"

So true. It is not Apple vs Google; it is not about the present. It is about the future (see Google's recent acquisitions for context). As Benedict says, if Google creates beautiful, meaningful and unique experiences for users, why would they do it only for Android, they would also have it on Apple devices. 

In the end, comparing Apple and Google is like comparing Apple(s) and Oranges :)



Tuesday 18 February 2014

The Rise and Rise or '4G' - Update on Release-11 & Release-12 features

A recent GSMA report suggests that China will be a significant player in the field of 4G with upto 900 million 4G users by 2020. This is not surprising as the largest operator, China Mobile wants to desperately move its user base to 4G. For 3G it was stuck with TD-SCDMA or the TDD LCR option. This 3G technology is not as good as its FDD variant, commonly known as UMTS.

This trend of migrating to 4G is not unique to China. A recent report (embedded below) by 4G Americas predicts that by the end of 2018, HSPA/HSPA+ would be the most popular technology whereas LTE would be making an impact with 1.3 Billion connected devices. The main reason for HSPA being so dominant is due to the fact that HSPA devices are mature and are available now. LTE devices, even though available are still slightly expensive. At the same time, operators are taking time having a seamless 4G coverage throughout the region. My guess would be that the number of devices that are 4G ready would be much higher than 1.3 Billion.

It is interesting to see that the number of 'Non-Smartphones' remain constant but at the same time, their share is going down. It would be useful to breakdown the number of Smartphones into 'Phablets' and 'non-Phablets' category.

Anyway, the 4G Americas report from which the information above is extracted contains lots of interesting details about Release-11 and Release-12 HSPA+ and LTE. The only problem I found is that its too long for most people to go through completely.

The whitepaper contains the following information:

3GPP Rel-11 standards for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced were frozen in December 2012 with the core network protocols stable in December 2012 and Radio Access Network (RAN) protocols stable in March 2013. Key features detailed in the paper for Rel-11 include:
HSPA+:
  • 8-carrier downlink operation (HSDPA)
  • Downlink (DL) 4-branch Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas
  • DL Multi-Flow Transmission
  • Uplink (UL) dual antenna beamforming (both closed and open loop transmit diversity)
  • UL MIMO with 64 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (64-QAM)
  • Several CELL_FACH (Forward Access Channel) state enhancements (for smartphone type traffic) and non-contiguous HSDPA Carrier Aggregation (CA)
LTE-Advanced:
  • Carrier Aggregation (CA)
  • Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (MBMS) and Self Organizing Networks (SON)
  • Introduction to the Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) feature for enabling coordinated scheduling and/or beamforming
  • Enhanced Physical Control Channel (EPDCCH)
  • Further enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (FeICIC) for devices with interference cancellation
Finally, Rel-11 introduces several network and service related enhancements (most of which apply to both HSPA and LTE):
  • Machine Type Communications (MTC)
  • IP Multimedia Systems (IMS)
  • Wi-Fi integration
  • Home NodeB (HNB) and Home e-NodeB (HeNB)
3GPP started work on Rel-12 in December 2012 and an 18-month timeframe for completion was planned. The work continues into 2014 and areas that are still incomplete are carefully noted in the report.  Work will be ratified by June 2014 with the exception of RAN protocols which will be finalized by September 2014. Key features detailed in the paper for Rel-12 include:
HSPA+:
  • Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) Heterogeneous Networks (HetNet)
  • Scalable UMTS Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) bandwidth
  • Enhanced Uplink (EUL) enhancements
  • Emergency warning for Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN)
  • HNB mobility
  • HNB positioning for Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA)
  • Machine Type Communications (MTC)
  • Dedicated Channel (DCH) enhancements
LTE-Advanced:
  • Active Antenna Systems (AAS)
  • Downlink enhancements for MIMO antenna systems
  • Small cell and femtocell enhancements
  • Machine Type Communication (MTC)
  • Proximity Service (ProSe)
  • User Equipment (UE)
  • Self-Optimizing Networks (SON)
  • Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) mobility
  • Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services (MBMS)
  • Local Internet Protocol Access/Selected Internet Protocol Traffic Offload (LIPA/SIPTO)
  • Enhanced International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (eIMTA) and Frequency Division Duplex-Time Division Duplex Carrier Aggregation (FDD-TDD CA)
Work in Rel-12 also included features for network and services enhancements for MTC, public safety and Wi-Fi integration, system capacity and stability, Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC), further network energy savings, multimedia and Policy and Charging Control (PCC) framework.


Saturday 8 February 2014

100 years of Wireless History

Recently attended the Cambridge Wireless Inaugural Wireless Heritage SIG event, “100 years of radio”. Some very interesting presentations and discussions on the wireless history. 

Each of the presenters touched on a double-decade period and focussed on the lessons that can be learnt from that time and their relevance today. Focusing on 20 year timeframes, the event walked us through the exciting rise and evolution of wireless technology from 1914 to present day, while showcasing live demos from each age.

Presentations were heard from:

  • Colin Smithers, Chairman, Plextek "1914-1934: The wireless wave" - The Wireless Telegraphy Handbook of 1913 speculated on the future use of Continuous Waves and sets a benchmark against which fundamental trends in the industry can be measured and predicted including data costs and technology and transmission standard life spans. (PDF)
  • Geoff Varrall, Director, RTT Online "1934 - 1945: The wireless war" - In his controversial book The Origins of the Second World War the revisionist historian AJP Taylor argues that the Second World War was not caused by Hitler but was the result of a combination of factors including the rapid growth of broadcasting technology. So was this the wireless war? (PDF)
  • Steve Haseldine, CEO, Deaf Alerter, "1945 to 1974: The cold war - radio goes underground" - The National Communication Radio System, spy and clandestine radio, preparing for the Third World War (PDF)
  • Nigel Linge, Professor of Telecommunications,  School of Computing, Science and Engineering, University of Salford "1974 to 1994" - The transistor comes of age, the role of radio in consumer electronics and cellular radio (PDF)
  • Andy Sutton, Principal Network Architect, EE "1994 to 2014: Mass consumer cellular and the mobile broadband revolution" - Broadband radio, digital radio, smart phone and smart networks (PDF)

All presentations can be downloaded individually from CW website here

Thursday 30 January 2014

Multi-SIM: The Jargon


I had been having some discussions regarding Multi-SIM phones and there is a bit of misunderstanding so here is my clarification about them. Anyway, a lot of information is just an understanding so feel free to correct any mistakes you think I may have made.

This post is about multiple SIM cards, physical UICC cards rather than single UICC with multiple SIM applications. We will look at Dual IMSI later on in the post. In case you do not know about the multiple SIM applications in a UICC, see this old post here. In this post, I will refer to UICC cards as SIM cards to avoid confusion.

Back in the old days, the Dual-SIM phones allowed only one SIM on standby at any time. The other SIM was switched off. If someone would call the number that was switched off, a message saying that the number is switched off would come or it would go in the voicemail. To make this SIM in standby, you would have to select it from the Menu. The first SIM is now switched off. The way around it was to have one SIM card calls forwarded the other when switched off. This wasn't convenient and efficient, money wise. The reason people use multiple SIM phones is to have cheaper calls using different SIMs. So in this case forwarding calls from one SIM to another wont be cost effective. These type of phones were known as Dual SIM Single Standby or DSSS. These devices had a single transceiver.

So as the technology got cheaper and more power efficient, the new multi-SIM devices could incorporate two receivers but only one transmitter was used. The main reason being that using two transmitters would consume much more power. As a result, these devices can now have both the SIM's on standby at the same time. These kind of devices were known as Dual SIM Dual Standby or DSDS. Wikipedia also calls then Dual SIM Standby or DSS. This concept could be extended further to Triple SIM Triple Standby or TSTS in case of the device with three SIM cards and Quad SIM Quad Standby or QSQS in case of four SIM cards. One thing to remember is that when a call is received and a SIM becomes active, the other SIM cards become inactive for the duration of the call. A workaround for that situation is to forward the call to the other SIM card in case if its unavailable. Though this will work for DSDS, it may not be that straightforward in case of TSTS and QSQS due to more than two SIM cards being present.

Another category of devices that are now available are the Dual SIM Dual Active or DSDA. In this case there are two transceivers in the device. Both the SIM cards are active at the same time so each SIM card can handle the call independently of each other. It would even be possible to conference both these calls.

With the prices of calls falling, there is no longer a real need for multiple SIM cards. One SIM card is generally sufficient. It may be useful though to have multiple IMSI on the SIM card. The different IMSI would have different country and network code. For example, a person in in UK can have one IMSI with the home network code and one with say a US operator IMSI. This IMSI could only be programmed by the home operator. When the person is in UK he could receive calls on his UK number or on the US number which would be routed to his UK number. For a person in US calling the US number, this is a national call rather than an international one. When the person is roaming in the US, his US IMSI would behave like non-roaming case while the calls to the UK number would be forwarded to the US number.

Monday 13 January 2014

My observations on Mobiles and OTT Apps in India

What a change 2 years can make. The last time I was in India, people were reluctant to use data, smartphones were far and few and even those smartphones were just status symbols rather than for actual 'smart' use.


This time a lot of things were very different. I found that there was a Phablet craze going on. No sooner were people starting to get used to these big screen devices they realised how many things they could do. The well to do were buying Samsung devices and the people who did not want to spend big bucks were content with the little known brands.


The Domo phablet on the left in the picture above costs around 8000 (£80/$130) and the Maxx on the right is roughly ₹5500 (£55/$90). Both these come with 1 year warranty.


There were also quite a few ads using celebrities promoting Phablets. Its good to see people spending on these devices. Unlike UK where most of these devices are subsidised on a contract, people in India prefer pre-paid option and buying the phone outright.


I have to admit that even though I am a fan of these big screen devices, I find the Samsung Galaxy Tab just a bit too big for the use as a phone (see pic above).

It was also good to see that people have embraced the 3G data usage as well. I got a 6GB package for roughly 1000 (£10/$16). I found that people complained about the speeds and were prepared to pay more for 4G (faster data rates). I also noticed that a few people were not aware of Wi-Fi and the fixed broadband. I was told that the fixed broadband was capped, offered similar prices and could be quite unreliable. I guess Wireless is helping in India where the fixed Infrastructure may still be an issue in many places.

I have to mention here that I did not meet anyone who was using an iPhone. This could be due to iPhone being ridiculously expensive and people may be thinking why pay a high price for such a small screen. A comparison of iPhone prices worldwide showed that the price of iPhone 5S as % of GDP per capita (PPP) is the highest in India. See here.


Another area of observation was SMS and OTT apps. I remember spending a lot of time trying to convince people to use OTT apps for messaging as it would be cheaper for International messages. Well, now it seems everyone has adopted it whole heartedly. One of the problems with SMS in India is that you get too much Spam SMS and sometimes the operators are the culprits. There is no way to send a stop for these SMS messages. With OTT Apps, you know who is sending you messages and you can block the offenders.

There are many OTT Apps which are popular like Hike, Line, WeChat, WhatsApp, etc. The winner though is undoubtedly WhatsApp. I met an acquaintance whose has stopped using emails for business and now relies completely on WhatsApp. Then there were others who loved it because of Group chat facility.

There were many reasons why WhatsApp is a winner. Along with a simple interface and Group chat facility, one of the other reasons pointed out was that the facility to see when the person was last online was very useful. Recently WhatsApp introduced facility to send Voice messages. This helped it acquire some of the WeChat users.

It was good to see the beginnings of the mobile revolution in India. Wonder what my next trip will show me.

Please note that this article is based on what I observed in Mumbai among friends and family. In no way should this be treated as  detailed research.

Wednesday 8 January 2014

LTE-Broadcast (eMBMS) may fail again

I recently wrote a blog post for the Cisco SP Mobility blog on why the Cellular Broadcast may fail again (complete article embedded below). My main point is that small screen devices are not really suitable for mobile TV kind of applications. The larger devices like tablets are but since they do not contain the (U)SIM card, its not possible for them to receive cellular broadcast signals.

Anyway, I came across this picture below from the recent Ericsson Mobility report:

This highlights my point that more people are now preferring to watch videos over the tablets as compared to the smaller smartphone screens. Even though the other diagrams in the article does show a significant amount of users using their smartphones for viewing movies and long clips, my belief is that this will reduce over the time as the tablet share increases



A recent Business Insider article says that "One In Every 5 People In The World Own A Smartphone, One In Every 17 Own A Tablet". Once the users move to using bigger screens, their preferences on how they watch videos will definitely change.

A real interesting chart would be to show users viewing habits based on the screen size. Phablets are generally classified as smartphones but can be substitutes for tablets in many scenarios. They could definitely help the Mobile TV viewing habits on the smartphones.

Anyway, here is the complete article:



Wednesday 6 November 2013

The Relentless Rise of Mobile Technology


Mobiles have been rising and rising. Couple of weeks back I read 'Mobile is considered the first and most important screen by nearly half of the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, according to research commissioned by Weve.'


The finding placed mobile ahead of laptops or PCs (chosen by 30.6 per cent) and way ahead of TV (12.4 per cent) as the first and most important screen in the lives of people between the ages of 18 and 34. 
Just 5.8 per cent of those surveyed in the age group chose a tablet as their "first screen".
The research also found that 45 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds consider their mobile their first choice of device when interacting with online content, placing the platform just ahead of laptops and PCs, which scored 43 per cent. 
Among the wider 18 to 55 age group surveyed, a PC or laptop was seen as the "first screen" with 39.8 per cent naming either computer as their most important screen, while smartphones came second on 28 per cent. 
TV was in third place with 27 per cent of people naming it as their most important screen. Five per cent of the total group said they considered a tablet their "first screen". 
Only a quarter of the 18 to 55 age group said mobile would be their first choice platform if they wanted to access the internet, while nearly two thirds preferred to use a PC or laptop.
Tomi Ahonen has always been referring to Mobile as the 7th Mass Media.

So when I saw this above picture (and there are more of them) in Ben Evaans slide deck (embedded below), it just reiterated my belief that Mobile will take over the world sooner or later. Anyway, the slides are interesting to go through.



Sunday 13 October 2013

Handset Antenna Design


Came across this presentation on Handset Antenna design from a recent Cambridge Wireless event here. Its interesting to see how the antenna technology has evolved and is still evolving. Another recent whitepaper from 4G Americas on meeting the 1000x challenge (here) showed how the different wavelengths are affecting the antenna design.


Maybe its better to move to higher frequencies from the handset design point of view. Anyway, the Cambridge Wireless presentation is embedded below:


Monday 9 September 2013

LTE TDD - universal solution for unpaired spectrum?



TDD deployments are gathering pace. An earlier GSA report I posted here, highlighted the many devices that are TD-LTE ready.
The main thing that is being emphasised is that from the standards point of view, not much additional efforts are required for a TDD device as compared to an FDD device. Of course in practice the physical layer would be different and that could be a challenge in itself.

Qualcomm published a presentation on this topic that is embedded below. Available to download from here.



Thursday 29 August 2013

New Mobile related terms added in Oxford dictionary

The Oxford dictionary has just added some new words in its dictionary. Here is a summary of the words related to mobiles.

BYOD: n.: abbreviation of 'bring your own device': the practice of allowing the employees of an organisation to use their own computers, smartphones, or other devices for work purposes. Wikipedia also calls it bring your own technology (BYOT), bring your own phone (BYOP), and bring your own PC (BYOPC).

digital detox, n.: a period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic devices such as smartphones or computers, regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world.

Another term called "Nomophobia" which has unfortunately not yet entered the dictionary refers to as the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. The term, an abbreviation for "no-mobile-phone phobia". According to a recent survey some 54% of Brits have experienced this. If someone is getting affected by Nomophobia, its time they undergo a 'digital detox' to sort their life out.

emoji, n: a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication.


Everyone using OTT applications would know them well. They are very useful in communicating emotions. I generally think this as one of the drawbacks of SMS that we cant use emoji's. On the other hand OTT apps can be making money by providing extended emoji's for a premium but I havent seen anyone do this yet.

FOMO, n.: fear of missing out: anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website

'FOMO' is big and I personally know people who suffer from this. In the good old days this was known as jealousy where one would be jealous that someone was going on more holidays, have a bigger house/car, etc. In this connected world where we can get Facebook updates and notifications on the phones and tablets the digital term is FOMO. A slide from Mary Meeker's presentation that I put here shows that a typical user checks their phone 150 times every day and social media is not very far from the top.

internet of things, n.: a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data.

This 'Internet of Things' or 'IoT' has been covered in the blog more than enough times.

phablet, n.: a smartphone having a screen which is intermediate in size between that of a typical smartphone and a tablet computer.


Earlier this year I put a post here that talked all about feature phones, smartphones, phablets, etc. Other terms like Tabphones and Phonetabs didn't make it.

selfie, n. (informal): a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.


Here is a selfie of me using my phone today to end this post :-)

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Connectivity in 'Connected Vehicles'

An interesting presentation from the Future of Wireless International conference about the evolution and options for connected cars and other vehicles



Sunday 7 July 2013

500 Billion devices by 2030, etc...

Few weeks back in the LTE World Summit 2013, I heard someone from Ericsson mention that internally they think that by 2030 there will be 500 Billion Connected devices on the planet. The population projections for 2030 is somewhere around 8.5 Billion people worldwide. As a result the figure does not come much as a surprise to me.

John Cunliffe from Ericsson is widely credited for making the statement 50 Billion connected devices by 2020. Recently he spoke in the Cambridge Wireless and defended his forecast on the connected devices. He also provided us with the traffic exploration tool to see how the devices market would look up till 2018. Here is one of the pictures using the tool:



In terms of Cellular connectivity, we are looking at 9 Billion devices by 2018. The interesting thing to notice is that in 2017, there are still some 4 Billion feature phones. While in the developed world our focus is completely on Smartphones, its interesting to see new and existing SMS/USSD based services are still popular in the developing world. Some months back I heard about Facebook developing SMS/USSD based experience for Feature phones, I am sure that would attract a lot of users from the developing world.

One thing missing from the above is non-cellular connections which will make bulk of connectivity. Wi-Fi for example is a major connectivity medium for tablets. In fact 90% of the tablets have only WiFi connectivity. Bluetooth is another popular method of connectivity. While its mostly used in conjunction with phones, it is going to be a popular way of connecting devices in the Personal Area Network's (PAN's). So its no surprise that we will see 50 Billion connected devices but maybe not by 2020. My guess would be around 2022-23.

Sunday 16 June 2013

Five Future Technologies (#FutureTech) we may see soon in our devices!

Remember 'Internet of Everything' rather than 'Internet of Things', here is a recent Cisco video explaining this vision:

You can read more on these topics on Cisco blogs.


Next is the self-healing technology:



Spray-on clothes
These will go very well with phones where you can spray paint phone covers and maybe if its possible to dissolve the skin and re-use it, it would be an added bonus.


Just think how the technology used to design Robots can enable flexible phones and other devices.




With sensors becoming smaller and cheaper, more of them are being put in our devices. Many years back people were saying that breath analysers could be available in mobiles but I guess there wasnt a business case for that. Also many of these sensors have come as part of Bluetooth add-ons to keep the cost/weight/size of the device down. Now there is a possibility of whole new range of sensors coming to our devices.

You can read more details on this here.


Finally, there is always one user who would ask me why is there no mention of LTE in the videos above so here is a **bonus** video.

I have to mention that this didnt sound very convincing to me as a selling point. Its like back in the year 2000, 3G was being sold as an enabler to the must have 'Video calling'.

Thursday 30 May 2013

Internet Trends by Mary Meeker at #D11

The last time I posted the presentation by Mary Meeker was back in 2011 but the things have moved on and its amazing to see some of the things that have changed. I think the slide that summarises what I mean is as follows:

Nomophobia and FOMO are a big problem and I see this day in day out working in this industry.

The slide pack which was actually posted yesterday has already crossed 550K as I write this, in just 1 day. So you can understand how eagerly awaited event this has become every year.



To download the above, click on the Slideshare icon and then you can save from Slideshare site.

If you want to watch the video of her presentation, its available on All things digital website here.

Sunday 12 May 2013

Around the World with Mobile Global Insights - via @TomiAhonen

Next month we will reach the milestone where the number of active Mobile devices is equal to the number of people in the world. There are many people with more than one active mobile device and there are others who have no devices so the number of active devices will still keep rising for some time to come.

Embedded below is a presentation by Tomi Ahonen in MMAF 2013, you can see all the presentations from the event on Slideshare here.



Saturday 23 February 2013

Google Glasses - take two

Picture source: Guardian

So nearly after a year of my Google Glass post, looks like Google is ready to ship some of these glasses to some competition winners for $1500. Even the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is excited and cant wait to get his hands on it.

There is also this new video showing 'How it Feels' wearing Glass and everytime I go back to youtube, the count increases by 100K. Embedded below:


My two main concerns are that I have to speak loudly to the glass which may not be convenient in public places or in front of others and the other being that when many people will have these devices, my Glass may pickup command from another user.

Sometime back there was a discussion on 'Bone conduction audio'. This will allow the user to hear from the Glass without the need of a headphone or speakers, I guess a similar kind of technology is needed in place of a mic. The Glass can sense that the user who is wearing it is talking instead of someone else. It should also solve the need to speak to speak loudly to the Glass.

Sunday 13 January 2013

Videos from the CES 2013





Gorilla glass (above) is made by a company called Corning that is much more well known for its futuristic video, see here.











Finally, this Sony Xperia Z has got over 2 million hits, not exactly sure why so I have added the video for this as well