340m 'Active' mobile broadband users by 2014

Mobile broadband computing (MBC) has grown very strongly in 2008, to 35m global subscribers. This is forecast to increase almost 10x by 2014, to 341m according to a new report titled "Mobile Broadband Computing" by Dean Bubley from Disruptive Analysis.

Some of the interesting highlights from the report as follows:

• Growth has been driven by cheap HSDPA modems and flatrate data plans.
• The majority of MBC users exploit conventional-seized laptops with separate 3G USB modems (“dongles”). This model will continue to lead despite the growth of netbooks, built-in 3G, WiMAX and MIDs (mobile Internet devices).
• At present, Europe accounts for 50% of global mobile broadband users, reflecting earlier introduction of consumer-friendly USB dongles and ferociously-competitive low-priced HSDPA tariffs.
• “Free” netbooks, provided on a subsidised basis by mobile operators on typical 2-year contracts are popular, but have a limited addressable market.
• By the end of 2011, about 30% of mobile broadband users will be exploiting notebooks with built-in 3G or WiMAX modules. 58%, roughly twice that proportion, will use external modems like USB dongles.
• By 2014, there will be 150m users of notebooks and netbooks with embedded mobile broadband worldwide. In terms of shipments, 100m wireless-enabled laptops will be sold annually by then – but not all will be activated.
• By 2012, there will be 45m users of WiMAX-enabled MBC devices. 11m of these will also use 3G or LTE connections in various hybrid approaches.
• Use of LTE in mobile broadband computing devices will be very limited until 2012. After that, ramp-up will be rapid, reaching 75m units shipped in 2014.
• By 2011, only 40% of mobile broadband users will be on long-term monthly contracts. Most will use prepaid, session-based, bundled or “free” models.
  

Some of the other interesting points from the extended summary as follows:

• Some operators' marketing teams have become over-zealous about competing with fixed broadband. In some markets, HSDPA is now cheaper than ADSL/cable. This is unsustainable, as the cost structures differ hugely. There are physical limits to the capacity of mobile data networks, which will rapidly be reached with the explosion of low-cost traffic. Some cellular networks now see more than 90% of 3G traffic from PCs. Network operators are now hostage to future high-bandwidth Internet applications gaining viral adoption among mobile users.
• Adoption of embedded-3G and embedded-WiMAX notebooks will grow slowly alongside separate “dongle” modems. Predictions of 50%+ attach rates in 2-3 years are over-optimistic; there are numerous practical, commercial and economic reasons for delayed adoption
• To date, most mobile broadband users have connected with an existing notebook PC, together with a separate datacard or USB dongle. Looking forward, a broader set of choices are emerging, with the advent of embedded-WWAN notebooks, small & inexpensive 7-10” sized netbooks, MIDs and the use of 3G handsets as “tethers”. Implicitly, these all compete to some degree against higher-end smartphones as well.
• At present, the majority of mobile broadband subscribers are engaged through
  traditional monthly contracts, typically over 12-24 month periods. However, further evolution is necessary. Disruptive Analysis expects a variety of new business models to emerge and take a significant share of the overall user base, including:
• Session-based access, similar to the familiar WiFi hotspot model.
• Bundling of mobile broadband with other services, for example as an adjunct to fixed broadband or mobile voice services.
• “Comes with data included” models, where the upfront device purchase price
  includes connectivity, perhaps for a year.
• Free, guest or “sponsored” mobile broadband, paid for by venue owners or
  event organisers.
• Incrementing capacity of Networks by perhaps another 10x in the next 6 years will need investment in more spectrum, more cell sites, newer radio technology, better backhaul and dedicated “hotspot” solutions like femtocells and WiFi. Yet in the current climate, these investments face delay, meaning a “capacity crunch” is possible in some cases.

On an unrelated note, More than 25 per cent of the content that workers view each day will be dominated by pictures, video or audio by 2013, according to research by Gartner. Though this does not specifically say mobile content, I think the same phenomenon will be observed in the mobile world and maybe to a larger extent with applications like Youtube already very popular with the mobile users.

Help to decipher the text messages

The world of text messaging is evolving so fast that honestly its becoming difficult for me to keep track of the 'text slangs'. If you are in a situation like me then dont worry help is at hand.

ITPro published an article recently reporting that the 'Post Office' (yup you read it correctly) has released a guide that lists lot of common slangs being used for texting. A word of caution would be that some of the terms are specific to Brits so they may not be applicable in other english speaking countries.

Some of the interesting terms listed are:

• ATM - At the moment
• 4EVA - Forever
• Code 18 - Someone who is bad at using technology
• 404 - Clueless
• BAB - Boring
• P999 - Parent Alert (Note 999 is emergency number in UK. So this would become P911 in US, P112 in Europe and P100 in India)
• GOOD job - Get Out Of Debt job
• Code 11 - Old Fashioned (London specific)
• 143 - I Love You (more commonly used one is ILU)

The guide is available from the Post office site here. (Ftp link for PDF)

There is also a very interesting book called "Txtng: the gr8 db8" that was published not too long ago.

The book is not expensive and I found it very interesting as it contains loads of useful information and statistics. The best thing is that in the end it contains very detailed list of text abbreviations, not only in english but also in 11 other languages (using english charachters though) including Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish and Welsh.

iBangle: Not a phone but great concept

The iBangle is Gopinath Prasana’s vision of a future iPod where the devices have become darn close to becoming jewelry. If you factor in inflation and the cost of Apple products today - might as well call it jewelry because it’ll cost as much. I digress, the iBangle is a thin piece of aluminum (of course) with a multi-touch track pad. To achieve the perfect fit, a cushion inside the ring inflates to keep itself taught against your wrist. Unisex? Maybe.

If this concept becomes reality, it would be just mater of time before a phone is rolled in along with this.

The wearable concept is also puched in the Nokia concept phones like the Nokia 888 and Morph.

LTE Advanced: NSN Proves relaying technology

Nokia Siemens Networks has broken new ground with another technological first: mobile broadband communications beyond LTE. Company researchers have successfully demonstrated Relaying technology proposed for LTE-Advanced, enabling an exceptional end-user experience delivered consistently across the network.

Completed in Nokia Siemens Networks research facilities in Germany, the demonstration illustrated how advances to Relaying technology can further improve the quality and coverage consistency of a network at the cell edge - where users are furthest from the mobile broadband base station.

Relaying technology, which can also be integrated in normal base station platforms, is cost efficient and easy to deploy as it does not require additional backhaul. The demonstration of LTE Advanced means operators can plan their LTE network investments knowing that the already best-in-class LTE radio performance, including cell edge data rates, can be further improved and that the technological development path for the next stage of LTE is secure and future-proof.

These performance enhancements have been achieved by combining an LTE system supporting a 2x2 MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna system, and a Relay station. The Relaying operates in-band, which means that the relay stations inserted in the network do not need an external data backhaul. They are connected to the nearest base stations by using radio resources within the operating frequency band of the base station itself. Towards the terminal they are base stations and offer the full functionality of LTE. LTE-Advanced is currently being studied by 3GPP for Release 10 and will be submitted towards ITU-R as the 3GPP Radio Interface Technology proposal.

The improved cell coverage and system fairness - meaning offering higher user data rates for and fair treatment of users distant from the base station - will allow operators to utilise existing LTE network infrastructure and still meet growing bandwidth demands.

The demonstration has been realised by using an intelligent demo relay node embedded in a test network forming a FDD in-band self-backhauling solution for coverage enhancements. With this demonstration the performance at the cell edge could be increased up to 50% of the peak throughput.

More info on LTE-A coming soon.

No LTE networks in UK before 2011

According to Silicon.com, any rollout of a next generation mobile network in the UK is still years away, says telecoms kit maker Ericsson's UK CTO John Cunliffe.

"I would say probably the end of 2010 at the very earliest," he told silicon.com. "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.

Cunliffe would not give an estimate on how much a commercial rollout of LTE in the UK might cost. "People need to do more modelling around rollout costs," he said. "It's a new equation."
However, he claimed operators switching to LTE would reap the benefits of "total lower capex and lower opex" - provided they are willing to stump up the infrastructure cash.

However Cunliffe highlighted that any large-scale deployment of rival 4G technology WiMax would also require similar investment in infrastructure to that of an LTE deployment. "If you think about WiMax starting off as essentially a radio you need a much bigger ecosystem around it," he said.

"By the time you actually deliver a service, the operators still have to pay for the infrastructure that goes around it and they've still got their opex - their people costs and so on - so the WiMax piece - the radio piece - is actually a small piece of the equation. In terms of the maturity of the 3GPP ecosystem, it's well ahead of where WiMax is."

"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."

Cunliffe added the top speed of LTE currently being demoed by Ericsson in lab conditions is 160Mbps and a drive test has reached a maximum of 154Mbps, with an average of 78Mbps.

What are the biggest hurdles to a UK LTE network being rolled out? Cunliffe believes they are timing - when operators will switch, especially those with significant investment in HSPA - as well as the inexorable issue of ROI: "Obviously there will be questions about return on investment," he concluded.

2009 is crucial for mobile vendors

Some time ago I wrote in my blog about the good results posted by the companies for that particular quarter. At that time I was slightly bullish in terms of future earning of the telecoms giants.

With the new financial results predicting more economic woes, the early signs suggest that the majot telecoms companies might have a rocky ride ahead.

Most of the major vendors have already issued warnings for their handset sales. The news comes amid a week of profit warnings from other handset makers, including Research In Motion and Palm, as the handset market faces declining demand in the midst of a global economic slowdown. The research firm Gartner also released statistics about the smartphone market, which saw its weakest year-on-year growth since the firm started tracking the industry, and Nokia saw its share of the smartphone market fall to 42.4 percent, down from the 48.7 percent share it had a year earlier.

I remember during the year 2000/2001 when we saw the major telecoms burst, Nokia was still holding up and it produced some good results. I expect/expected similar this time as well from Nokia.

I was proven wrong when Nokia issued a market warning for the second time in less than a month, cutting its outlook for global handset sales, as the world's largest handset maker braces for a slowdown in the coming year.The Finnish giant now expects global handset sales to drop below the 330 million units for the fourth quarter it estimated on Nov. 14, and also said its estimate of 1.24 billion units for 2008 would have to be revised down. Those numbers were cuts from previous estimates. The company also said it expects growth to slow in 2009, with the market contracting 5 percent from its 2008 levels.

Indeed these figures coming out of Nokia presents bleak picture and make everybody nervous. It is very much evident by looking at the current climate that year 2009 will be challenging for telecoms industry.

However I still believe that companies like Nokia have a strong, enviable base to build on and I believe even in tough situation it will continue to strengthen its position on many fronts.

There is no doubt that in the face of a global economic downturn and weakening demand, handset makers and vendors affiliated with cell phone components are probably headed toward a large shakeup.

Companies with more high-end portfolios, including Apple, Research In Motion and HTC will be better positioned to handle any turmoil that would affect the handset market. All three have showcase devices that could help propel them through any choppy waters. In the case of RIM, there are multiple devices that could turn into large sellers, most notably the BlackBerry Storm, which Verizon Wireless has already launched.

However, others such as Motorola and Sony Ericsson, which cut 450 jobs from its North American headquarters earlier this fall, are in a weaker position. Motorola has said it is planning on focusing more on phones running on Windows Mobile and Google's Android platform to chart it back to growth, but said an Android phone would not be in the market until the end of 2009.

Most of the handset vendors will develop a strategy where they will concentrate on the market where the handset sales are still on the up. Europe has already been considered saturated in terms of mobile sales and hence this doesn’t come as surprise when Ovum declared in its report that Europe has become the first regional mobile market to be hit by the economic downturn.
But the the US mobile market has to date resisted the downturn and developing markets such as Latin America continue to enjoy double-digit revenue growth rates. Markets such as Latin America which remains overwhelmingly buoyant gives enough hope to vendors hence the expectation that they will be able to ride out the current financial crises.

I guess 2009 is going to be interesting.

SMS Rocks! Long distance shoulder amputation by text

We have heard of dumping and divorce through SMS, betting through SMS but none can beat this one. A surgeon carried out an operation in Democratic Republic of Congo by following instructions received over SMS.

A British surgeon volunteering in the Democratic Republic of Congo saved the life of a teenage boy by amputating his shoulder using instructions texted by a colleague in London.

David Nott, 52, a general and vascular surgeon at Chelsea and Westminster hospital, was working with the charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in the town of Rutshuru when he came across the badly injured 16-year-old in October.

The teenager's left arm had been so badly damaged - either in an accident or as a result of the fighting between Congolese and rebel troops - that it had already had to be amputated. But the flesh and bone that remained had become badly infected and gangrenous.

"He was dying" said Nott. "He had about two or three days to live."

The doctor realised the boy's best chance of survival was a forequarter amputation which requires the surgeon to remove the collar bone and shoulder blade. The only problem was that it was an operation Nott had never performed. But he remembered that one of his colleagues at home had carried out the procedure.

"I texted him and he texted back step-by-step instructions," he said.

"Even then I had to think long and hard about whether it was right to leave a young boy with only one arm in the middle of this fighting.

"But in the end he would have died without it, so I took a deep breath and followed the instructions to the letter."

Such an operation, if performed in the UK, would require careful planning with every sort of modern medical product on hand if things went wrong.

But in Congo Nott had just one pint of blood and an elementary operating theatre.

Despite the basic conditions, the operation was a success and the teenager made a full recovery.

This news could not have come at a better time because the inventor of SMS, Matti Makkonen, received this year's Economist Innovation Award for Computing and Telecommunications.

If I remember my stats correctly, there are 3Billion+ users or SMS worldwide with 1Billion+ SMS exchanged daily and its nearly 20 years since SMS has been launched.

Nokia admits defeat in Japan

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia has said it will stop selling its handsets in Japan after struggling to grow its market share in the country.

Nokia said it would continue selling its luxury Vertu brand in Japan, and would dedicate its Japanese business to research purposes.

Nokia has nearly 40% of the global market for mobile phones, but it reportedly managed to take only 0.3% of Japan's market last year.

Samsung and LG have also faced problems in Japan - a market dominated by sophisticated domestic phones.

According to research firm IDC Japan, foreign companies account for only 5% of the Japanese market, which is dominated by local firms selling phones with features such as TV broadcasting and electronic payment functions.

The Nokia-owned luxury brand Vertu was created in 1998 and focuses on one-off specialist phones costing from 3,500 euros to more than 100,000 euros.

Source: BBC

Nokia to power Smarter Homes

Nokia Home Control Center - My home is where my phone is

Nokia Home Control Center is a solution based on an open Linux based platform enabling the home owner to build a technology-neutral smart home that can be controlled with a mobile phone, using a unified user interface. Nokia Home Control Center supports the most common smart home technologies, including Z-Wave as well as enabling the incorporation for proprietary technologies. Thus, it allows third parties to develop their own solutions and services on top of the platform, expanding the system to support new services and smart home technologies.

Building blocks for an intelligent house are readily available in the market. Putting it all together is, however, like trying to build a house from blocks that do not fit with each other. There are smart refrigerators, energy-saving washing machines, heating systems that can adjust the room temperature with one-celcius-accuracy, security systems with touchpanels, low-energy walls, programmable thermostats, self-adjusting curtains, configurable set-top boxes, self-operating yard lights and much more. The problem is all these systems are separate and you end up having a dozen remote controllers and miles of cables in the living room.

Until now, solutions to home automation challenges have been sought through the development of better sensor networks. Although they are, of course, very important parts of new smart home solutions, no single sensor network technology can solve the challenges in this field. Z-Wave, ZigBee, and KNX are all attempts to define a common command language for home networks. So far, there has not been a clear winner in the battle for the de facto standard of home networks. Hence, it can be assumed that a future home will use several different technologies.

The Nokia Home Control Center acts as a dictionary that translates different technological languages so that they can be presented in a unified user interface. Furthermore, the platform enables grouping different physical devices, even from different manufacturers, to be presented for the user in an easy-to-understand way.

The whole Nokia solution consists of four main components:

1. The heart of the solution is the Nokia Home Control Center which is built on top of standard gateway architecture.
2. Two most important control nodes are the mobile phone and web browser.
3. The back-end server architecture ensures a seamless and secure link between a mobile device and the home gateway and also makes possible updating and upgrading software easily.
4. The partner devices. In addition to the components that Nokia is providing, the value for the end customer comes from the integration of different third party devices and systems under the control of one user interface.

It will be possible for example to monitor and control electricity usage, to swich devices on and off, and monitor different objects, such as temperature, camera, and motion. On one hand, Nokia Home Control Center can be used as WLAN gateway. On the other hand, the platform covers everything from a basic security solution to a more sophisticated heating control system. Users are free to build a solution that fits to their needs and expand it when ever they want.

Mobility is becoming increasingly important in home environments, as wireless technologies for smart home solutions are emerging. As structure wiring is no longer required, these are no longer niche market products meant for new houses. Wireless broadband has become main stream and multimedia consumption over home networks is increasing. From many studies we know that moving from a multimedia network to a smart home network is a much smaller step than building a wired smart home from the scratch. Finally, the last barrier of high equipment prices is breaking down as the technology becomes more and more common.

Nokia 'Home Control Center' features and technical data can be seen here.

The following is additional info from the press release:

Nokia today also announced a partnership with one of Europe's biggest energy companies, RWE. The co-operation aims at developing a comprehensive solution for managing energy consumption and CO2 footage at home. This cooperation combines RWE's energy competence with Nokia's technological know-how.

With this in mind, the first joint solution from Nokia and RWE on late 2009 will focus on home heating management. The product consists of a central control unit together with remote-controlled thermostats for the actual radiator. The user interface will be the PC and the mobile phone. In addition, a separate display will be available. RWE is also planning special offers combining these devices with new energy supply contracts. In a second step, Nokia and RWE are planning additional services in connection with smart meters beyond 2009. These services will provide consumers with real-time information about their energy consumption and allow them to control their energy bill remotely.

"We are delighted to have secured a world-leading technology partner in Nokia for our range of smart home energy products. Our aim is to offer innovative and affordable energy-efficient solutions for every household that are simple and convenient to operate", said Carolin Reichert, Head of New Business at RWE.

Nokia Home Control Center will be part of Nokia's home offering. The solution will be demonstrated at the Nokia World event in Barcelona, Spain, on December 2-3, 2008 and is expected to become commercially available by the end of 2009.

Is Urgency for LTE growing?

Few weeks ago in response to Zahid’s blog I wrote that LTE may not be that far away as might be thinking.

In this blog I would like to carry this thought forward. With more and more giants moving into LTE camp as compared to WiMax there is a sense that LTE will soon pick up. Recently I have been sensing that thee is some urgency out there in regards to LTE development. Vendors and operators are pushing to the extent to get the technology out as soon as possible.

As I mentioned some time ago that I am really a big fan of HSPA+ and I once again say that till LTE arrives, HSPA+ can serve the purpose up to an extent.

As we already know that T-Mobile recently tested LTE and this really gave a push to the technology. There are lots of 3G operators now who share T-Mobile’s LTE aspirations although reaching to these LTE or 4G goal will not be straight forward. Lot of urgency for LTE also depends on what the operators do with HSPA+. Some of the operators might go for HSPA+ and hence wait longer before deploying LTE.

It’s quite interesting to see that operators such as T-Mobile are going for LTE whereas some operators currently staying away from LTE and hence going to launch HSPA+. Evidently LTE as it still a long way away from mass market maturity hence it’s going to be difficult for some operators to stick to its guns for LTE. I guess this also is one of the major factors contributing towards the urgency for LTE.

Currently the three big operators pushing LTE development are China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo and Verizon wireless. T-Mobile believes it is every bit as aggressive as those three operators and should be included in that list. The evidence of this is the urgency shown by T-Mobile when it tested LTE recently.

T-Mobile believes that LTE is suited in the long run, i.e. till 2020, to be the technology that you can consolidate all technologies onto -- GSM and UMTS.

Another operator showing urgency toward LTE is the world's largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers, China Mobile. China mobile plans to begin testing LTE soon where only the lack of chipsets are holding back its plans at the moment. Many telecom experts believe China's operators will essentially leapfrog 3G as the government continually delays tenders and opt for a 4G deployment like LTE.

At the same time as I mentioned some of the operators might decide not to get sucked into HSPA+ and rather push for LTE. This urgency for LTE is certainly demonstrated by T-Mobile once again when it announced it will not deploy HSPA+. The operator has indicated that to boost its mobile broadband throughput it will instead invest in LTE thus stepping up the pressure on equipment vendors. However T-Mobile might deploy HSPA as long as no hardware upgrade is required.

The above developments is allowing some to accuse T-Mobile of attempting to force equipment vendors to place greater emphasis on the development of LTE as against further refining HSPA+. Given that China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless have each made aggressive statements regarding their intent to push forward with LTE, then those interested in such plots have more to go on.

However, there is a question as to whether these operators, including T-Mobile, can wait for LTE, especially given the marketing hype around mobile broadband offers.

There is no denying that the above mentioned operators are aware of this situation and hence I guess this is main reason why they are showing immense urgency towards LTE.

Femtocells as the starting point - more info

Informa has recently come up with a report titled "Opportunities for femtocells in the mobile broadband ecosystem: the economic case for LTE and 3G+". I found the following very relevant to this topic that I have blogged earlier about:

One idea is to use LTE initially as an access point rather than a full standalone network, which would bypass all the difficulties and delays that may happen in developing the core network for this technology. Here femtocells, picocells or GAN dual mode solutions could help operators to achieve this goal. As well as the time to market advantage, operators will also have a good opportunity to test LTE access networks and their business case for it before engaging in any wide scale network rollouts. This will obviously help them to minimize risks while giving them enough time to get their networks more stable and ready for the challenge.

Deploying LTE through femtocells is now an industry accepted solution as mobile operators can incrementally add capacity to their networks where it is most needed. This is expected to be in the home environment where 60% of communication is expected to take place during 2013. Instead of performing ‘forklift’ upgrades for their macrocell networks, mobile operators can test the LTE business case by initially launching LTE femtocell networks. Overall capex is expected to be much less than for a macrocell network – but on the other hand, LTE femtocells will only create localized coverage and capacity hotspots for a limited group of end users.

Several chipset and hardware platform manufacturers have launched products for LTE femtocells, including Picochip and Agilent. The upcoming 3GPP femtocell standard is expected to provide compatibility for LTE femtocells and mobile operators are expected to announce their LTE strategies in 2009. Informa Telecoms & Media expects that the majority of mobile operators – especially those that have invested heavily in 3G – will incorporate femtocells in their LTE strategies either for business case validation or for selective, incremental capacity upgrades for their mobile networks.

SDR: Today and Future

I also got an opportunity to attend the SDR briefing in LTE World Summit. There were many interesting presentations including one titled "SDR in Mobile Devices" by Thierry Dubois, SDR Market Analyst, IMEC, Belgium. Infact last year I blogged about SDR from Imec presentation as well. The following is an extract from Thierry's presentation:

The key benefits of SDR are as follows:

• Reducing the Bill Of Materials (BOM)
• Lower development costs
• Facilitate better reuse of intellectual property (IPR)
• Possibility to upgrade products already in the field
• Enabler of the Cognitive Radio vision

There are three main areas where SDR's are required but some problems exist as can be seen from the diagram above.

• Flexibility is the key for baseband. Some of the common signal processing blocks may not be reusable. This means that though some protocols can easily be defined for a particular baseband, others may not be possible for that baseband. Good progress is still being made though on this front.
• Reconfigurable RF is some way away, further down the road.
• The biggest challenge is the antenna interface for which no proper solution exists. Some solutions being worked on right now include MEMS based solution, Carbon nanotubes, Special ceramic materials, etc.

The next step after SDR is cognitive radio (CR). The main advantage for using CR would be because spectrum is over-allocated but under-utilised. There are lots of white spaces in the spectrum that could be utilised by devices intelligently of their own.

Cognitive Radios are defines as: A radio that can autonomously change its parameters based on interaction with, and possibly learning of, the environment in which it operates. Through appropriate radio resource management, such a cognitive radio should make flexible and efficient use of network/spectrum resources.

CR would consist of Intelligent Sensing hardware and Intelligent Sensing Algorithms. There are two types of CR being considered:

• Opportunistic Radio: A radio that co-exists with other systems using the same spectrum. E.g., White Space Devices
• Smart Reconfigurable Radio Systems: A radio that makes flexible and efficient use of network/spectrum resources across heterogeneous environments. Seamlessly roaming possible on different networks, countries, frequencies, etc. It requires true paradigm shift i.e., spectrum liberalization

An Introductory paper on SDR is available on Bitwave Semiconuctor website.

Femtocells as the starting point

I blogged earlier about 'LTE Femtocell Layer as starting point'. During my visit to the LTE world summit, I didnt find (m)any takers for the idea initially. Then in his presentation, Prof. Simon Saunders, Chairman of Femto Forum, seemed to encourage the idea. As FemtoForum is technology neutral, he started with the case for WiMAX Femtocells. He quoted a VP from Comcast saying that Femtocells are "absolutely key to WiMAX" and he envisioned future services and packages that would encourage customers to use their WiMAX femtocells and stay on Comcast’s network.

Then he threw the following slide to the operators saying that introducing LTE network via Femtocell could be a way to roll out the LTE network.

In Release 8, HSPA based Femtocells will be standardised and Release 9 (De. 2009) will deliver LTE standards-based femtocells. Some operators are in hurry to roll out their LTE networks next year, since LTE home eNodeB's wont be standardised in time for them, maybe we will see LTE Femtocells as intial offering by some operators by mid-2010.

LTE: 3G or 4G?

Continuing the discussion from LTE World Summit:

Adrian Scrase, Chief technical officer, 3GPP, France threw light on the topic which I have mentioned many times in my blog. I have always maintained that LTE can be called 3.9G but media and some other presenters have always been referring to it as 4G. Here is a slide from his presentation on his topic.
I think now when LTE-Advanced and IMT-Advanced comes, it will no longer be referred to as 4G/5G/6G. Someone will have to come up with some clever new term :)

“Your Wireless Future” at “Tomorrow’s Wireless World”

This one is from Chetan Sharma's blog (via Forox). The following is an extract from his blog:

Earlier this week, I had the distinct honor of moderating a panel of some of the most eminent senior wireless research scientists and CEOs of wireless companies from Finland where we explored the future of the wireless landscape from user interface to reduction in carbon footprint to privacy and security issues and much more.

Many people might not be aware but the City of Oulu in the central part of Finland is a leading epicenter of wireless activities with many major industry players setting up shops for doing R&D work. In fact, it is quite likely that one of the companies out of Oulu has had an impact in some way on the mobile phone you have in your pocket (and we are not including Nokia).

The topic of our panel was “Your Wireless Future” – a broad topic that is always difficult to cover in 60 minutes or less.

I started by asking the panelists about what in their view have been some of the defining trends over the last 12 months. Summary of answers – iPhone; android; move towards full mobile browser; browser will reduce fragmentation and more innovation will happen on this front; with the rise of smartphones, security and privacy have become an issue,

Some other salient points (read issues and opportunities) from the discussion:

• It is forecasted (by WWWRF) that in another 10 years, we will have 1000 radios per every subscriber. That would translate into few trillion nodes around us. The level of complexity and carbon footprint will be enormous. One has to figure out a way to address both.
• City of Oulu has first of a kind experiment with NFC where the technology has been embedded in day-to-day life from home, school, train station, restaurant, probably every object in the city. Pretty interesting experiment that will lead to interesting use cases and technology implementations.
• There are so many protocols being integrated into the device that hackers are targeting not only the data but the protocol weaknesses to gain access. IT finally starting to address smartphone issue in their networks.
• The role of Cognitive radio and SDRs will gain prominence as more access technologies get introduced.
• In a ubiquitous environment with finite spectrum, “sensing” technologies will have a great role in optimization. Sense and do the best for the consumer, the device, and the network. Hyper connectivity will become the norm.
• In addition to touch, gesture and face recognition will add to a better multimodal experience.
• Mobile payments is coming and going to make a big impact. We have to of course sort out the business models.
• 3Cs of mobile – convergence, context, and community (Nokia’s Mantra).
• The very business of R&D has changed significantly with corporations choosing to outsource R&D and the cycle of concept to market launch has shrunk from 6 years or more to 12-18 months.
• More innovation will come from integration of existing technologies rather than some big breakthrough.
• Demand for bandwidth will keep growing.
• Significant opportunities in medicine, enterprise, and other industry verticals.
• In developing countries, while consumers are willing to pay for expensive devices, they don’t have any appetite for expensive service plans.

Some discussion points from Craig’s (Dr. Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation) and our Q&A session:

• World will go to free MIPS and free baud (computing and communications). What happens then?
• Moore’s law is good for another 15 years based on 5 generation of future chipsets that they have in the labs. And it will probably keep going after that.
• Awareness of context really important.
• Many types of devices will proliferate including MIDs, education devices, some designed specifically for special purpose (medical monitors) and geographies (emerging markets).
• Global challenges are education, health, computing, and communication.
• In the developed world, wireless technology can help reduce the cost which is increasing at the rate of $200B/year and in the developing world, technology can help provide access to health care.
• Convenience and access trumps security concerns.
• Areas of opportunities – Telemedicine, education, economic development, governance, energy and environment.
• This is Craig’s 11th recession. Principle to tackle has been the same every time. You cannot save your way out of recession. You can only innovate out of a recession. Intel R&D budgets will remain the same.
• Innovation is key to surviving and competing in the global economy, now more so than ever.
• The fact that so much can be done in these tiny piece of electronics is just amazing and the drive to do better and more using technology keeps him going, keeps him inspired.

I am looking forward to an interesting future ;)

Phones can be unlocked by GeoSim

We all have used different phones over the period of time while on contract with a certain operator. The tricky situation comes when we move onto different operator and would sometime like to use the old phone. The way to crack this is quitely simpy unlock the phone and off it goes on any network.

GeoSIM, an international SIM card supplier, now says that it has introduced the “SIM PIG”, a SIM-like chip that bypasses the network lock on mobile phones, thus enabling any SIM card from any network to be used in a locked handset.

I honestly do not know whether this is good or bad, but simply for my own personal reason it’s good. Recently I moved from one operator to another and decided to go pay as you go. Hence I wanted to use my old phone on the new service provider but couldn’t do so until I got my phone unlocked.

SIM PIG claims to be able to unlock iPhone, Windows Mobile, HTC, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Blackberry and many more 3G handsets. It is inserted with the SIM card into the handsets SIM card slot. The PIG then dynamically bypasses the network lock on the mobile phone. The company says it does not affect any of the handset functionality and all features are maintained, nor it does not invalidate any warranty on the handset. Once SIM PIG is removed, the handset reverts back to its locked condition.

Using the SIM PIG does not require any technical knowledge and is quick and simple to insert. As the name suggests, SIM PIG SIMply PIGgy backs on to the SIM card when it is inserted to the handset.
So how does GeoSim is able to do this business of unlocking the phone or by passing the lock?
GeoSIM routes your dialling instruction away from the local operator and sends your call to the GeoSIM “Hub”. A few seconds after you make your call, your mobile phone will ring. You answer the “callback” and you will be connected to the person you wish to talk to.
In summary:

• Dial the number you want to call.


• A few seconds after you dial, your handset will ring. Answer the “callback” from the GeoSIM Hub.


• You will then get connected to the number you are calling.

Hmmm very strange… I am really dying to know whether some body uses this method.
Do GeoSIM and SIM PIG work in the United States?
Are they fully “legal” here in UK or Europe? I don’t know…

Delay in LTE can be blessing in disguise

Most of us know by now that Sprint and Clearwire is going to combine shortly to create a company which will trade into WiMax feverishly. The idea is that the joint company which will be called as Clearwire would foster competition in the mobile broadband arena and accelerate build out or deployment of advanced technologies such as WiMax. These are the kind of developments that keep LTE camp nervous but at the same time provide them some motivation as well.

With the merger it is anticipated that company's WiMAX network, to reach 140 million potential customers by 2010. It not a coincidence that Sprint chose WiMax as a 4G standard as it is available now and our customers want 4G now.

The company Clearwire says that it has deployed WiMAX in Baltimore and plans to deploy it in Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., pending the close of the deal. This development together with some other factors gives enough confidence to WiMax supporters that the technology would minimize the market penetration of LTE simply because WiMAX is coming to market first.

Everybody will agree with me that WiMax is definitely in a very good position and it is WiMax’s battle to loose as far as battle of 4G is concerned.

Meanwhile, The New York Times and BusinessWeek issued positive reports on the performance of Sprint's Xohm network in Baltimore.

On that other hand I am learning that network operators are just now beginning to see a return on their 3G networks. This gives the operators some encouragement to say they won't be ready to upgrade to an OFDM-based technology until about the time LTE is ready and why should they if they are able to generate handsome revenues with the existing 3G technologies.
On the other hand this delay in deployment of OFDMA based technologies by operators does gives mobile WiMAX time-to-market advantage over LTE by at least two years.

The fact that LTE won't be ready for another two to three years may actually turn out to be a boon for LTE as the time frame will allow mobile operators to get as much life as possible out of their existing 3G networks. Incremental upgrades to enhanced 3G technologies such as HSPA+ and EV-DO Rev B will allow for almost the same data rates as the initial LTE deployments, which will effectively set the stage for large-scale LTE commercial rollouts in three to four years.
LTE has a further advantage because the majority of cellular operators around the world will choose LTE as their migration path given the fact that 3GPP has tabbed LTE as the next-generation standard for the GSM community.
It is certainly a truth that WiMAX is a very robust technology that has been quite successful in many parts of the world as a fixed broadband solution and will continue to do so, especially in under-served markets. Although mobile WiMAX networks are already going live thanks to Sprint/Clearwire and Korea Telecom, the prospect of additional mobile WiMAX networks from Tier 1 operators is looking pretty grim.

Lets see how hard the WiMax camp will fight and how shrewdly the LTE camp will play the game.

Solving the LTE voice dilemma

Continuing the discussion from LTE World Summit, this is something that has been discussed in the past by myself and other blogs as well. We know that there is no out of the box solution for voice calls in Release 8 but there are some solutions that are being standardised for this problem. Dr. Howard Benn, Director of Cellular Standards, Motorola Mobile Devices gave an interesting presentation on this topic titled, "Voice –how to talk over LTE". Here is the summary of his presentation along with some more information:
As we know, IMS was introduced in Rel 5 but even till today, there has been no major IMS rollouts. There are some operators working on deploying the IMS solution but in reality its not been as successful as it should have been. If IMS is available then the problem of voice call on LTE goes away. The problem can be solved using Voice Call Continuity or VCC. Infact there is a bunch of specifications on IMS Centralized Services (ICS) and network Centric VCC for solving this and other similar problems.

So with IMS not being available, the first alternative for this problem is Circuit Switched Fallack (CSFB). In this, as can be seen from the MSC above, the user is attached to an LTE network. MSC can send Paging to the UE and if the user accepts the voice call then he is handed over to 2G/3G network. The big problem with this approach is additional time required to establish the voice call and the PS services might get disrupted, depending on how its handled.

The second solution is to have a Generic Access Network (GAN... previously known as UMA) based solution. This is similar solution to the ones used by some Femtocells. This would mean that the UE's would require GAN chipsets and GAN is known to be power hungry so it can impact the battery life significantly.

China Mobile's, Bill Huang in a recent interview mentioned that “We could carry voice over UMA” and “We will have an LTE network that supports voice…”. He was referring to this approach mentioned above.

Finally there are always proprietary options like Skype that can be used along with the data services to solve the voice problem.

Infact a service like Vonage, modified for mobiles, can solve this problem easily. You can connect a VoIP client from your phone or device to Vonage and you are given a landline number that you can pass to others. When calls are received on this number, the client in the mobile rings and you answer the call normally.

Nick Yamasaki from KDDI mentioned that KDDI will roll out LTE with CS fallback option for voice initially but then SRVCC (Single Radio VCC) solution will be adopted in future.

iBurst may give WiMAX run for money

One of the themes that emerged from the LTE World Summit was that no one was looking at WiMAX as a competitor for LTE. LTE is being thought as 'Mobile Broadband' whereas WiMAX is being thought more of as 'Low-mobility/Fixed Broadband'. They would serve different needs and their market will hardly overlap. I have blogged about iBurst in the past and I think it may give some competition to WiMAX.

David Brunnen from Personal Broadband UK (cant find their website) gave an interesting perspective on iBurst and even though many people have not heard of it, it can still compete in the market. They have a big presence in Australia and last year won the spectrum for the whole of Ireland + Northern Ireland between 1785 - 1805MHz. Even though they have won the 20MHz band, they think that they can do with 5MHz or maximum of 10 MHz. They have also partnered with iBand and would probably allow roaming between them.

The main thing about iBurst is that it has very good spectral effeciency and an average throughput of around 600kbps. Data Rate of 1.061Mbps downlink/ 346Kbps uplink with System capacity 24.4Mbps downlink/ 7.9 Mbps uplink is supported. At the same time it offers high mobility with handovers at speed of over 100kmph. The cell radius is 1.5-3km in urban and 5-7km in rural area. Because of adaptive antennas, the same frequency can be reused and the interference can be reduced thereby increasing the cell capacity.

The biggest problem with iBurst is that there are very few players. Kyocera is the only base station supplier. On the devices side, Kyocera is the lead player but there are other new players like Dovado which has won some big contract with first US iBurst operator and Moovera (bought by Icomera) which also has some similar devices.

Last year Kyocera announed that iBurst has more than 140,000 subscribers. This year iBurst South Africa has been shortlisted for an award of "Best Operator in Developing Country". In last 6 months they have increased the subscriber numbers by 30%.

With the big players heavily invested in HSPA+/LTE and many others having a foot in WiMAX, it would be interesting to see how a possible iBurst success might be viewed. I would like to hear from people who have experienced this technology on what their feeling is about iBurst.

For more information on the iBurst technology, see Kyocera's iBurst Technology homepage.

Latest news on iBurst available from iBurst.org website.

LTE Roll out updates from the 4th LTE World Summit in London

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got the opportunity to attend and meet with the industry experts in the 4th LTE world summit. There were some very interesting discussions and debates and some announcements about the rollout of LTE. Here is a quick summary of the announcements and news. I am sure to have missed some and will expand on some of the topics in later posts.

Karri Mikkonen, Director, Corporate Strategy, TeliaSonera in his presentation said that TeliaSonera to be an early LTE adopter with rollout planned Mid 2010. They have already bought licenses in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Baltics. According to them LTE enables very convenient mobile data usage scenarios, and is one tool to win battle in mobile data, among others.

Bill Huang, General Manager, China Mobile Research Institute gave a very interesting perspective on mobiles in China which I will expand in a later post. According to his presentation, China Mobile will be deploying TDD based LTE (TD-LTE) option probably around 400Mhz spectrum. Trails will start by Mid 2009 and pre-commercial launch will happen around end of 2009. By Q2, 2010 there will be large scale commercial trials involving around 15,000 base stations.

Remi Thomas, Director of NGMN project and head of Network Strategy, France Telecom, France said FT plans to introduce HSPA+ and opt for 'wait and see' approach for LTE. The earliest they want to even think about LTE is after 2010 and if practical the rollout may occur in 2012. Even with HSPA+ they will opt for all the software changes only and not go for any hardware changes. So we wont see MIMO anytime soon with HSPA+ according to them. They also have plans to rollout LTE Femtocells when available to check the technology and iron out the problems with LTE technology.

Erik Ekudden, Vice President, Group Function Technology, Ericsson, Sweden in his presentation said that E\\\ will be commercially releasing equipment in 2009. Terminal HW including support FDD and TDD modeof LTE. For FDD, initial support will be for IMT core band of 2.1GHz and also IMT extension band of 2.6GHz and US 700MHz spectrum. For TDD the initial support will be for IMT extension center gap in 2.6GHz spectrum and 2.3 TDD band in 2.3GHz band.

In a question answer session, Dr Howard Benn, Director of Cellular Standards, Motorola Mobile Devices mentioned that Motorola already has a working LTE UE but not in Form factor (probably development board). He did not expand on the details.

Nick (Norikazu) Yamasaki, Manager Standards Strategy section, Emerging Technologies and Spectrum Division, KDDI Corp. in his presentation said that KDDI is a CDMA2000 operator but since with UMB nearly dead (my words) they have decided to eveolve to LTE. LTE deployment willbe started around 2012 but will co-exist with the CDMA 2000 network which they will support for another 10 years. Right now they have EV-DO Rev.A but they may also opt for Rev.B

One of the big problems that was discussed many times in the conference was that Release 8 LTE standards have no solution for the normal CS voice call. There are some hacks around it but voice part will only be solved in time for Release 9. This could delay decisions by some operators to roll out LTE networks untill after Release 9. I will write a post on this later.

Mobile advertising will grow

As the technology has evolved over the last decade so does various mobile applications and services related to it. In today’s competitive and saturated market operators and vendors are spending significant amount of time in drafting new strategies which will result in new revenue generation.

It is all about making the consumer interested and getting into the feeling of the general public in terms of what they would like and what would interest them. Mobile advertising is one such step in that area.

In the last year alone mobile advertising had emerged and there is a buzz out there related to it. I have noticed that people including myself take more notice of a mobile ad than advertising on TV or on a PC screen. And with a billion new phones being bought every year, the potential market is huge. Does this really mean that people out there really believe that it's going to be worth billions in just another two to three years?

There is no denying from the fact that mobile phones offer advertisers many different ways to reach an audience. With more and more people accessing internet from their mobile there is a potential area for growth. Placing ads at the start of a video or adding them to the results of a mobile search are less intrusive forms of promotion. I think we'll see people responding well to this kind of ad.For one thing the credit crunch will force advertisers to reduce traditional outlets like print and TV, and push them to explore cheaper and more targeted avenues, such as mobile devices.
So eventually, revenue from mobile advertising might rival that on other channels. But until then the industry will have to knock a few zeros off its forecasts.

You mist have noticed receiving various SMS from your operator sending you a message related to some product or event. SMS advertising for consumer goods, such as food and fashion is rising significantly specially in Europe.

Recent study by comScore suggested that more customers were getting ads for consumer goods such as food, fashion, restaurants, travel and financial services. In the three months ended August 2008, the number of offers received for non-mobile consumer goods rose 15 percent, compared to last year.

Food is the fastest-growing category of SMS advertising since August 2007, at a rate of 53 percent, followed by clothing-fashion at 38 percent and restaurants at 37 percent.
Mobile advertising is relatively new in the market and just like any other new thing it will take some time to settle down. However there are some articles floating around which suggest that mobile advertising is overhyped. Although these suggestions are based on some fact and data collected by the reputed analysts, I still do believe that mobile advertising will pick up especially after the latest credit crunch. In my view every time we see a launch of a new product or new technologies there is an excitement around it and in this process sometimes it gets overhyped. Same might be true with mobile advertising as well.

But like the Internet revolution before it, mobile needs to emerge from the technology foothills and develop media experiences and advertising solutions that delight and satisfy real consumers' needs and wants.

Mobile TV getting attention again

Nokia N96 with Mobile TV capability (DVB-H) has recently been launched in UK but there is no one broadcasting any Mobile TV. Maybe the operators are hoping that once there are enough handsets with this capability, Mobile TV can be launched and hopefully people will view it.

Last month, Juniper Research released a report likely to strike fear in the hearts of operators betting on consumers' willingness to pay for mobile TV content. In "Opportunities for Streamed & Broadcast Services, 2008-2013," Juniper projects that by 2013 some 330 million people worldwide will have handsets that can receive analog and digital broadcast TV signals — but less than 14 percent of them will sign up for pay mobile TV services.

"The development of terrestrial TV-capable receivers with comparatively low power consumption, and the availability of these receivers in mass market handsets, throws into question the business case for the deployment of a dedicated network in many markets," said report author Dr. Windsor Holden.

In Germany, Mobile 3.0's DVB-H trial flopped when operators started promoting their own TV-capable phones designed to receive DVB-T signals for free — undermining Mobile 3.0’s pay TV business model.

Last July, Toshiba shut down its Japanese satellite mobile TV subsidiary, Mobile Broadcasting, because the subscriber base wasn't big enough to support the business. But it wasn't because the Japanese aren't watching mobile TV. In fact, shipments of handsets able to receive Japan's free 1-seg mobile TV service continue to soar according to the Japan Electronics Information Technology Association — 10 million in the first half of 2008, bringing the total of 1-seg units shipped to 30 million.

Of course, the situation is markedly different in the United States where carriers have a lock on the handsets available to subscribers. And so far, that has effectively stifled competition from devices that can receive free-to-air TV. But with more free-to-air devices hitting the market, it's reasonable to question whether that trend will continue indefinitely.

In another announcement last month, IHT reported that France presented plans to set aside about a fifth of the country's prime television broadcasting spectrum for mobile Internet and television services by the end of 2009, in what supporters described as a major step toward creating a harmonized mobile broadband network in Europe.

France is the first major European country to reserve part of its most valuable broadcasting spectrum, the so-called UHF band, for mobile broadband and video services. Finland and Sweden have also said they plan to reserve the band for mobile services.

If a Europewide broadband network were to come to fruition, its greater scale would probably push down the cost of Internet services to consumers, especially in rural areas not reached by fast, fixed-line networks. It could also enable large mobile operators to sell services, like mobile TV or mobile broadband, across national borders, further increasing competition and lowering consumer prices.

The move was hailed by mobile operators and by the European Union's telecommunications commissioner, Viviane Reding, who is proposing that her office be given a greater role in influencing how EU countries redistribute the frequency.

The French plan, disclosed by Eric Besson, a French state secretary responsible for evaluation of public policies, commits France to reserving 72 megahertz of prime spectrum that is currently being used exclusively by television broadcasters - the 790 MHz to 862 MHz band - for mobile broadband services by the end of next year.

Besson said the country's broadcasters would be able to use the remaining portion of the UHF spectrum - 470 MHz to 790 MHz. He said that would still be enough to support 11 terrestrial broadcasters plus two new mobile TV broadcasters, owned either by mobile operators or TV broadcasters.

Sami said the French plan would most likely influence other European nations to make a similar redistribution. Britain, he said, is also leaning toward devoting a portion of that spectrum, from 806 MHz to 862 MHz, for mobile services.

In Germany, DVB-H licensee Mobile 3.0 handed back its licence to local regulators. The return of the licence was ordered by the authority for private broadcasters - Zulassungs- und Aufsichtskommission für den privaten Rundfunk (ZAK) - because Mobile 3.0 did not meet the conditions of the licence. It is not sure when a new licence will be issued. Meanwhile DVB-T carries on its success with LG planning to launch another handset model before Christmas.

In Switzerland, Take-up of the mobile TV service from Swisscom is not meeting expectations, according to Swisscom Broadcast chief Jean-Paul de Weck, speaking during the Biel Bienne Communication Days (Comdays). The main reason for the slow acceptance is the lack of choice of DVB-H capable handsets. Up until the end of September, the Nokia N77 was the only handset available to receive the service, though now there are four different models. Swisscom currently has about 5,000 mobile TV users, though it expects to gain more subscribers with the wider choice of handsets.

Qualcomm is now to give some more attention to its mobile TV standard of MediaFLO. This is because they no longer have to worry about UMB (see this). Outlining future strategies, Qualcomm indicated it's focusing more on its MediaFLO mobile broadcast TV and its Firethorn mobile banking technologies to carry it in the near term while it develops its Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless infrastructure and its Snapdragon platform for future inroads in wireless mobile. MediaFLO is operated in 62 markets, but it's expected to get a boost in February when the big switchover to digital TV takes place. Qualcomm purchased $555 million worth of spectrum in the FCC's 700-MHz auction earlier this year, and the purchase will be used to spread MediaFLO. The new spectrum will enable the company to address 108 markets by the end of 2009, according to media reports.

Finaly for some good news:

A large U.S. television broadcaster has announced good results from recent trials in Chicago and Denver of mobile TV using a draft standard from the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). Ion Media Networks, Inc. said it found it relatively easy to set up two mobile channels in each city and reception was better than expected. The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), an alliance of local and national TV broadcasters, hopes to see members roll out commercial mobile TV services late next year. To date mobile TV services using other technologies have failed to deliver and grow a market among cellphone, notebook and car video users.

Ion Media's stations WCPX and KPXC have been multicasting two standard definition mobile channels since August. LG Electronics and Harris Corp., whose technology was selected for the ATSC standard, provided prototype mobile TV receivers and transmission equipment for the tests.

We're seeing fantastic reception out to as far as 40 miles from transmitters, and beyond that we have good transmission outdoors but it's not consistent indoors," reported Jenkins.

Reception was also good in cars at freeway speeds and indoors within 40 miles of transmitters. "We went into parking garages where there were three or four levels of concrete above us, and reception was perfect--that was one of the big technical lessons," said Jenkins.

Spectrum availability was not a problem in the trial. One station in the trial supports an existing high definition terrestrial broadcast, another supports multiple existing standard def channels.