3GPP Femtocells: Architecture and Protocols

3GPP Femtocells: Architecture and Protocols

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April fool jokes...in case you missed

Other interesting and/or related links below:

Ubiquisys reveals details of RadioLight – a light-bulb integrated femtocell

Qualcomm to put Femtocells in Mutant Animals ;)

The world in 30 years

Five quick videos from Mobile World Congress 2011 - 3

More on HTC Freestyle and Brew OS here.

More on Live translating service here.

Ps: I know there are 6 videos ;)

FlashLinq: A P2P Network For Nearby Phones

Looks like the new technologies and enhancements just keep coming.

Following from MobileCrunch:

Imagine being at a concert. As the band wraps up their last song, the lead singer takes the mic and says: “Thanks for coming out everyone! Just for being here, we’re giving you all an exclusive track from our upcoming CD. It should be available on the local wireless network… now!”

Generally, pulling off something like this would be nigh impossible. You’d need a pretty intense wireless infrastructure to handle thousands of freebie-hungry concert goers connecting at once, and then an even beefier backbone to handle the actual transfer. That’s where Qualcomm’s new localized P2P network technology, FlashLinq, comes into play.

As Qualcomm puts it, FlashLinq “enables devices to discover each other automatically and continuously, and to communicate, peer-to-peer, at broadband speeds without the need for intermediary infrastructure.”

In other words, it’ll build a wireless network between FlashLinq-enabled devices, allowing those devices to pass data (like the theoretical exclusive track mentioned above) without some monstrous server doing all the heavy lifting. Qualcomm says

“But wait!” you say, “Isn’t this what WiFi Direct was built for?”.

Yep — the key difference here is that while WiFi Direct can share files between devices, FlashLinq can do that and share connectivity to a cellular network. Nice idea for those situations when only a handful of people in a big crowd can actually manage to pull down any data, right?

So, when can we expect this tech to roll out? Not for a while. Qualcomm’s working with South Korea’s SK Telecom to test out the tech, with trials beginning later this year. If those go well, Qualcomm will have the task of convincing other hardware partners to build this tech into their new gear.

A presentation on FlashLinq below:

FlashLinQ: A Clean Slate Design for Ad Hoc Networks

View more presentations from Zahid Ghadialy

Making of the Qualcomm Museum

For Qualcomm, Baker created a corporate museum experience that gives visitors an understanding of what lies at the core of the company’s extraordinary success story.

Qualcomm Video on LTE Advanced: Heterogeneous Networks

Qualcomm probably given up on Mobile TV idea

Bad news for Mobile TV proponents and supporters.

Qualcomm apparently is in talks to sell off its struggling MediaFLO digital mobile TV business, executives said in a conference call on Wednesday.

The announcement came during the conference call accompanying Qualcomm's third-quarter earnings. Qualcomm reported net income of $767 million, up 4 percent from a year ago, on revenue of $2.71 billion, which decreased 2 percent over the same period a year ago.

During the call, Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs announced the new direction for its MediaFLO business, a subsidiary of Qualcomm. MediaFLO brands its digital mobile television service as FLO TV. Qualcomm had saddled the business with a three-year, nonrefundable prepaid service agreement, which apparently hasn't helped MediaFLO's prospects.

"With respect to our FLO TV business, we're engaged in discussions with a number of partners regarding the future direction of the business," Jacobs said, according to a transcript by Seeking Alpha. "We are considering a number of alternatives and we will update you as appropriate."

This news comes at a time when Mobile TV business as a whole is not doing very well. Couple of weeks back I blogged about Mobile TV in China which has not been as successful as initially thought.

Qualcomm was one of the early proponents on another technology called MBMS. Couple of years back they decided to back MediaFLO and not focus much on MBMS. They bought the 700MHz spectrum in the US and launched nationwide TV network. This is also used by other carriers to deliver broadcasts to their devices.

In fact just a few months back they were pushing their standalone FLO TV device. Anyway, it seems they have probably given up on Mobile TV idea like a lot of others who dont see much return for the investment in Mobile TV. The average person is happy and content just to be able to watch Youtube on their mobile.

The following is from Rethink Wireless:

One option might be to shutter MediaFLO itself and sell on the licenses and tower assets - 700MHz is seen as beachfront spectrum in the US, and both Verizon and AT&T will build their initial LTE networks there. Jacobs made clear, in an interview with GigaOM, that he would rather keep MediaFLO as a content system. He said: "We want to see FLO continue so it's not like we'd want to sell the spectrum, but there are certainly people who would buy it for the spectrum. The spectrum is extremely valuable."

Qualcomm always intended to sell MediaFLO eventually - its usual route when it invests in spectrum and builds networks. The same pattern will be seen in India, where it will work with local partners to create a TD-LTE system in the 2.3GHz spectrum it recently acquired and then will sell the business on once established. However, it would have hoped to make more return on its investment in FLO before exiting. "We put FLO TV operations into our strategic investments for financial reporting because we always intended to get out of the operator business. …. It's not operating the way we want it to - it's not necessarily our core business, so we're looking at our options," Jacobs said in the same interview.

Andrew Gilbert from Qualcomm on 'Future of Wireless'

Andrew Gilbert from Qualcomm at The Future of Wireless International Conference 2010, organised by Cambridge Wireless and held in Cambridge, UK on the 29th and 30th June 2010.

All eyes on TD-LTE in India and China

The TD-SCDMA and Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) network will be massively deployed in China, the world's largest telecommunications country by number of telecoms users, in 2010, globally premier international market research and consulting firm Infonetics Research said in a forecast report.

More and more mobile carriers have started developing the LTE, including Verizon Communications Inc., China Mobile Ltd., and China Telecom Corporation Ltd., Infonetics noted. There will be no more than twenty LTE networks in the world at the end of 2010.

China Mobile Communications, the largest mobile telecom carrier in China, will establish three experimental TD-LTE (time division-long term evolution) networks separately in three coastal cities - Qingdao, Xiamen and Zhuhai - beginning the third quarter of 2010, according to the China-based China Business News Daily.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the carrier, handset and component makers, and handset solution suppliers in China in late 2008 began to cooperate for the development of TD-LTE in three phases, the report said.

The first-phase trial of technological concepts completed in June 2009, and the ongoing R&D and experiments in the second phase will be finished at the end of June 2010, the report indicated, adding the third phase will begin with China Mobile setting up three trial networks in the third quarter.

China Mobile Communications, the largest mobile telecom carrier in China, on April 15 inaugurated its first experimental TD-LTE network at the site of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

The trial network consists of 17 outdoor TD-LTE base stations made by Huawei Technologies completely covering the 5.28km square site and will be used to provide mobile high-definition multimedia services.

ZTE and Datang Mobile Communications Equipment as well as Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent have also set up TD-LTE access points inside a number of pavilions.

Motorola, Inc.'s Networks business has already announced in February that it has successfully deployed a TD-LTE network at the Expo Center for World Expo 2010 Shanghai China, and completed the first indoor over-the-air (OTA) TD-LTE data sessions at the site. These advancements demonstrate another milestone of collaborative industry efforts on TD-LTE commercialization, reaffirming Motorola's commitment to address the future needs of TDD spectrum operators in China and around the world.

These milestones follow the announcement by China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) in 2009, that Motorola was selected as main equipment supplier to provide indoor TD-LTE coverage for pavilions at Shanghai Expo. During the Shanghai Expo, Motorola will provide an advanced end-to-end TD-LTE solution and the world's first TD-LTE USB dongles. Motorola will also leverage its orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) expertise with professional services to deploy, maintain and optimize these leading-edge networks. Visitors will be able to experience applications such as high-definition video on demand, remote monitoring and high-speed Internet access services.

Motorola, Inc.'s Networks business announced on April 16th that it showcased an end-to-end TD-LTE demonstration via the world's first TD-LTE USB dongle at the Shanghai Expo site to support the "TD-LTE Showcase Network Opening Ceremony" hosted in Shanghai on April 15. Delegates at the ceremony experienced applications that run over a TD-LTE network via USB dongles, including high-definition video wall (simultaneous 24 video streams), remote monitoring and high-speed Internet browsing applications. This latest advancement demonstrates a major milestone of the collaborative industry efforts in building a healthy TD-LTE device ecosystem, reaffirming Motorola's commitment to TDD spectrum operators around the world.

Motorola, a leading provider of TD-LTE technology, and China Mobile share the same commitment to accelerating TD-LTE commercialization and globalization. "We are very excited to support China Mobile in bringing the world's first TD-LTE USB dongle demonstration enabled by our TD-LTE system," said Dr. Mohammad Akhtar, corporate vice president and general manager, Motorola Networks business in Asia Pacific. "A healthy devices ecosystem has always been critical to the development, commercialization and success of wireless network technologies. We are working closely with partners to drive this ecosystem as demonstrated by the advancement announced today. TD-LTE is now a commercial reality and we are very pleased to see that industry players are joining forces to accelerate TD-LTE globalization."

Interest in TD-LTE continues to grow because of several key factors: the low cost of TDD spectrum that is particularly attractive to emerging and developing markets; operators' continuing need for more capacity and spectrum; and the ability to hand-off between TD-LTE and LTE FDD networks. In effect, this ability to roam between LTE FDD and TD-LTE means operators can use TD-LTE networks to augment their FDD LTE network for more capacity or other applications such as video broadcasting, while operators choosing to use TD-LTE as their "main" network can still offer their subscribers the ability to roam to other operators' FDD LTE networks in different countries. Motorola is one of the few vendors in the industry that has expertise in, and is committed to investing in both FDD-LTE and TD-LTE, as well as WiMAX. By leveraging its orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) expertise and WiMAX legacy, Motorola has built up its leadership position in TD-LTE with a number of industry-firsts.

Nokia Siemens Networks has inaugurated a TD-LTE Open Lab at its Chinese Hangzhou R&D facility. TD-LTE smartphone and terminal manufacturers will be able to use the lab to test the interoperability and functionality of their devices across TD-LTE networks.

"The development of terminals and devices has always been a bottleneck in the roll-out of new mobile technology," said Mr. Sha Yuejia, vice president of China Mobile. "We are thus more than happy to see that Nokia Siemens Networks has established a cutting-edge terminal testing environment, an initiative that we support wholeheartedly. After all, a healthy ecosystem needs efforts from all stakeholders."

Nokia Siemens Networks' Open Lab will provide an end-to-end testing environment for verifying the compatibility of terminals and devices with the company's TD-LTE network products and solutions. The lab will also provide consultancy and testing services to device manufacturers. Nokia Siemens Networks' TD-LTE R&D center in Hangzhou is fully integrated into the company's global network of LTE Centers of Competence.

Providing a live TD-LTE experience to operators in the region, Nokia Siemens Networks also recently kicked off a nationwide TD-LTE road show in China. Beginning in Beijing, the road show will cover more than ten provinces in three months, demonstrating the most advanced TD-LTE technology and applications.

In India, Even as the government hopes to raise around $9 billion from the 3G and BWA auctions, foreign telcos waiting in the wings are eager to unfurl a new technology — TD-LTE —which is akin to 4G technology.

US-based Qualcomm and Sweden's Ericcson aim to piggyback on TD-LTE, hoping that it will help them gain a toe-hold in India, the world's fastest growing mobile market. Qualcomm is to participate in the broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum auction. If it does secure its bid in the auction, India could well become the first country after China to roll out TD-LTE.

TD-LTE, or Time Division Long Term Evolution, caters to peak download speeds of 100 Mbps on mobile phones, compared to the 20 Mbps for 3G and 40 Mbps for Wimax. LTE brings to the table additional spectrum, more capacity, lower cost, and is essential to take mobile broadband to the mass market.

The government has slotted the sale of two 2.3 GHz blocks of spectrum on April 11, providing 20 MHz spectrum in each of the country's 22 telecom circles. The base price has been set at $ 385 million. However, Qualcomm will need an Indian partner for its TD-LTE foray in the country since foreign direct investment is limited to 74%.

The US telco aims to use the 2.3 GHz spectrum band offered for TD-LTE-based BWA services. Sources in the know told TOI that the company would bid aggressively to corner one of the two BWA slots up for sale. There are 11 bidders for the BWA auction.

Asked to comment on the market dynamics, Sandeep Ladda, executive director, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), said: "Though the Indian market is huge, it won't be smooth sailing post auction. We are adding 1 crore customers a month and in January, we added 1.9 crore customers, but the implementation of the new technology has its own cost. And India is a very cost conscious market."

Eager to play by the rules in India, Qualcomm has notified that it would enter into a joint venture with an Indian partner to launch its services and later exit from the joint venture after the network becomes operable.

Meanwhile, The WiMAX Forum has gone on the defensive during the WiMAX Forum Congress Asia in Taipei, Taiwan. The group is speeding up its time table to deliver the next generation of WiMAX--a reaction to heavy data use among WiMAX subscribers as well as the looming threat posed by Qualcomm and Ericsson's lobbying for TD-LTE in India.

Recently, the forum launched a global initiative to accelerate advanced WiMAX features that would double peak data rates and increase average and cell edge end user performance by 50 percent.

Mo Shakouri, vice president with the WiMAX Forum, said enhancements to the current generation of WiMAX weren't on the forum's roadmap, but were brought to the forefront at the urging of several WiMAX operators already facing capacity crunches. The forum reports that the average usage of data on WiMAX networks is close to 10 GB. Clearwire recently reported that mobile users average more than 7 GB of usage per month. In Russia, mobile WiMAX operator Yota sees more than 1 GB per month in data traffic from subscribers using its HTC smartphone. For laptops, it's 13 GB per month.

"Demand for data is moving so fast that we were pushed by many people to add this functionality," Shakouri said.

The WiMAX Forum has also been prodded to announce more detailed plans for 802.16m, and step up the timeline for its development via a new group called the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative, which is made up of vendors Samsung, Alvarion, Motorola, ZTE, Sequans, Beceem, GCT Semiconductor and XRONet. The companies will work in tandem with the WiMAX Forum and WiMAX operators to accelerate the next-generation standard. WiMAX 2, the marketing name for the 802.16m standard, is expected to expand capacity to 300 Mbps peak rates via advances in antennas, channel stacking and frequency re-use.

The forum previously forecast 802.16m would hit in 2012 or 2013. But increasing demands for data--coupled with Qualcomm and Ericsson urging Indian mobile broadband license bidders to go with TD-LTE--motivated the forum to put some stakes in the ground and declare that WiMAX 2 equipment will meet certification by the end of 2011.

"There has been a lot of noise about TD-LTE, and the WiMAX Forum had not specifically given dates regarding timelines for 802.16m," Shakouri said. "Basically our announcement around 802.16m came about because of the noise in India."

The formation of the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative is a marked change from the way the first generation of WiMAX was developed. Sprint Nextel was the entity driving the majority of the standards work as it was eager to get to market and begin building an ecosystem. Vendors are now taking the lead and driving equipment readiness before the 802.16m standard is finalized by the end of this year. Shakouri said the standard is 95 percent finished.

"Those companies are going to take a more active role inside the forum," Shakouri said. "They have all come together to speed up the process."

The group of vendors plans to collaborate on interoperability testing, performance benchmarking and application development before the WiMAX Forum establishes its certification program to narrow the gap between the finalized standard and commercial rollouts.
So how much of a threat is TD-LTE to WiMAX? Shakouri said the answer depends on spectrum decisions. "At this moment, the spectrum we are focusing on is separate, aside from what Qualcomm announced in India," Shakouri said. He also said that a TD-LTE ecosystem is at least two to three years behind WiMAX.

Many analysts speculate that TD-LTE will become the crossover technology that will prompt WiMAX operators to flip to LTE. Clearwire was part of a group of operators and vendors that last month asked the 3GPP standards body to begin working on specifications that would enable TD-LTE to be deployed in the 2.6 GHz band, which Clearwire uses for WiMAX. During the CTIA Wireless 2010 trade show last month, Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow reiterated the company's interest in deploying LTE when the technology catches up to WIMAX. He also called for one standard down the road.

Another initiative the forum is announcing this week is the launch of its Open Retail Initiative, a global program aimed at driving WiMAX into consumer devices sold directly or through retail channels that can be activated by the consumer over the air on the network. If you remember the evangelism of early WiMAX advocates like Barry West, this capability was supposed to be the Holy Grail of the technology.

Qualcomm's FLO on the go...

Qualcomm's FLO TV is a reality in the U. S. of A. This is the advert which was being shown in the Superbowl

Many popular channels like the CNN are available real time. The following is a review from CNET.

Not everyone is enthusiastic, which is understandable considering the high cost.

I remember reading a research couple of years back which said that users are willing to pay a maximum of £5 for any service like the Internet or Mobile TV over their phone. Personally I think that is right and maybe in the next few months we may see the subscription prices dropping.

I would be interested in hearing from people who have experienced the FLO service first hand.

Femtocells update from Mobile World Congress 2010

From The Register:

Among a host of announcements, the leading silicon supplier for this segment, picoChip, was working hard to maintain its headstart as Qualcomm and others gear up to enter the market. It announced no fewer than six new customers, many coming from the Taiwanese ecosystem that is so vital to the mass adoption and price competitiveness of any emerging consumer product.

The new customers are Alpha Networks, Argela, Askey, C&S Micro, Contela and Zyxel, all of which will use the UK firm's PC302 picoXcell system-on-chip for HSPA(+). This is designed to reduce cost and time to market for vendors, and now has over 20 adopters, including Vodafone's femto supplier Alcatel-Lucent, and AT&T's, Cisco/ip.access.

Meanwhile, the femto players are looking ahead to LTE, where there are many indications from operators that tiny cells will play a big part in the strategy. The devices will be used from day one by some carriers - to offload data from the macrocell or to provide indoor coverage in high frequencies like 2.6GHz. They could also add capacity to deployments in low frequencies like 700MHz and even be used as a starting point for greenfield providers, which could then add macro networks later, explained Simon Saunders, chair of the Femto Forum.

Continuous Computing has been eyeing the femto market for several years from its heartlands in protocol stacks, core networking and traffic shaping. At MWC, it worked with picoChip and Cavium Networks to show the first complete LTE femtocell reference design. Available immediately, this includes the LTE modem, RF and packet processors, protocol software, intelligent router functionality and a complete Evolved Packet Core (EPC) simulator.

"The demand for LTE femtocells is unquestionable. We are already seeing operators asking for small cell access points to start testing in the second half of this year. Femtocells represent the key to avoiding the difficulties surrounding the first 3G deployments where roll-outs cost too much, took too long and did not meet user expectations," said Mike Dagenais, CEO of Continuous.

The reference design used a picoChip modem, mezzanine RF card and PHY software; Cavium's Octeon Plus multicore processor; and Continuous' Trillium LTE Layer 2/3 protocols, eNodeB reference application and EPC emulator.

From The Independent:

Call it network congestion, capacity crunch or data overload - the complaints aired at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week were all about cellphone network operators trying to find ways of profitably handling an explosion in mobile data traffic.

Management of the data traffic has become a priority for the telecoms industry as mobile internet usage is booming but data revenues for the phone companies grow slowly at best.

Research firm Informa forecasts a 50 per cent rise in mobile data traffic in 2010 on the back of the increasing popularity of devices such as the Apple iPhone and netbooks, but only a 13 percent rise in data revenues.

This has put added pressure on the phone companies to find ways of using fixed line networks including the internet to take some of the strain off the airwaves.

"Offloading is crucial for us," France Telecom -owned Orange's global head of mobile Olaf Swantee told Reuters ahead of the conference.

"In many countries where we have a fixed network we try to offload directly," he said.

The problem is that offloading data from wireless network to local hotspots still costs money, and operators are searching left and right for solutions that will not raise their overall capital spending, industry executives said.

"To address the smartphone challenge they are investing again," said Rajeev Suri, chief executive of joint venture equipment maker Nokia Siemens, who added that it was uncertain whether this spending was additional to or instead of other investment plans.

More certain was Bruce Brda, head of rival Motorola's networks business. "Carriers have been very consistent - they do not increase capex," he told Reuters.

Nevertheless Motorola saw better than expected demand late last year for equipment as some operators strengthened their existing networks to cope with surging data traffic, Brda said.

"In early 2010 I am seeing the same trend. The indication is there is incremental spending."

Equipment vendors such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent were also demonstrating new technology LTE equipment in Barcelona, as a route toward handling the data rush.

Operators are expected to spend billions of euros converting their networks to the Long Term Evolution standard, which will enable fast mobile broadband access for services such as watching movies on mobile phones, although some critics say LTE would prove a stopgap solution if data traffic goes on growing.

"LTE will buy a carrier two to three years of relief, but then it runs out," Brda said.

And analysts say telecom operators' sales in mature markets are not growing fast enough to justify major investments, which may mean an increase in demand instead for other technologies such as Wi-Fi or femtocells.

Femtocells are localized phone network base stations sited in homes and offices where signal strength might otherwise be weak, taking users onto the phone company's network via their own broadband internet connections.

"The biggest problem is that everybody is expecting these huge amounts of data but nobody is willing to pay much extra for it," said Stephen Rayment, chief technology officer of Belair Networks, which provides Wi-Fi services.

"Operators started offering 'all you can eat' data and now that's coming back to bite them," he said.

Speaking at Mobile World Congress Professor Simon Saunders, chairman of the femtoforum - the official non-profit standards' body proclaimed "2010 is the breakthrough year for femtocell".

From a UK perspective he was able to confirm the backing of industry regular Ofcom while T-Mobile, Telefonica/O2, Vodafone and Orange have all signed up as members so far. Furthermore, deployment of femtocell solutions to compete with Sure Signal is now ready and in their hands.

"The technology is there and it is now a matter of timing for the operators," he told me. "I cannot give specific dates, but all UK operators should be looking at a 2010 roll-out."

So far 55 network operators are femtocell forum members around the world, and operator commitments have jumped 50 per in the last three months alone. On top of this 3GPP has formalised femtocell standards, and the body's next generation ('Release 9') will bring support for LTE and enhancements for UMTS. The WiMax Forum is also on board as is the FCC in the US while China and Japan have confirmed their support.

Alcatel-Lucent recently announced the availability of a “small cell” (femtocell) designed to address the needs of enterprise customers. And last month Vodafone renamed its femtocell device to Sure Signal, as well as dramatically reducing its cost from £160 down to £50.

Informa said that the Vodafone relaunch of its femtocell offering is “realising considerable success in the UK, spearheading the entrance of femtocell services in the European market.”

“Vodafone rebranded the femtocell service to make the proposition clearer to end users while differentiating from their competition by eliminating indoor coverage deadspots,” it added.

According to Informa there are currently 12 service commitments, including nine commercial launches and several ongoing trials, while completed trials are now progressing into deployment plans for several mobile operators. This contrasts with eight femtocell service commitments and six commercial launches in November 2009.

During the last three months it cited French mobile operator SFR, Portuguese operator OPTIMUS and Chinese operator China Unicom, all of which have commercially launched femtocell services. Meanwhile it says that both Japan’s KDDI and France’s free have also committed to the technology.

Pictures Source: Trusted Reviews

HSPA+ rollout updates, Jan 2010

It has been predicted that the growth of HSPA+ broadband across Europe is set to soar with the total number of subscribers set to nearly double across Europe in 2011.

A new report has predicted that by 2011 the growth of HSPA+ broadband across key European markets will soar, and could almost double compared to 2009. The number of subscribers is set to soar from twenty two million in 2009 to around forty three million in 2011. The report was released by CCS Insight.

According to the report HSPA+ broadband will be a major factor in seeing growth of one hundred percent in the to five major European markets. The report goes on to state that the European mobile broadband market will enjoy seeing both subscriber and revenue numbers double by 2011. Revenues are set to increase from around six billion Euros in 2009 to around eleven billion Euros in 2011.

Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA, said: “It is clear from this report that with the right network investment, European mobile network operators will see significant growth in mobile broadband adoption in the next two years. HSPA technology will drive this rapid uptake across Europe as mobile operators and their customers continue to benefit from its expanding, vibrant and competitive ecosystem.”

HSPA+ was generally the most efficient way of upgrading use of bandwidth already in use and was likely to dominate in the short term at least, with an estimated 1.4 billion subscribers worldwide by 2013, around ten times the estimated take-up of LTE.

HSPA+ release 7, which became available last year, uses MIMO technology like that in 11n Wifi to help take the peak downlink throughput to 28Mbps, with 11Mbps on the uplink. Release 8, for which chipsets will become available this year, aggregates two carrier signals to bring peak data rates to 42Mbps on the downlink.

Release 9 will put two MIMO streams on each of two 5MHz carriers, aggregated to produce a 10MHz data pipe delivering 84Mbps on the downlink; the uplink uses simple aggregation to 23Mbps. A projected Release 10 would bring the peak downlink speed to 168Mbps, though this would require 20MHz carriers only available in the 2.5GHz and 2.6GHz bands.

Novatel Wireless, a developer of wireless data cards and other devices, said that it has added support for dual-carrier HSPA+ networks. The firm said it is using Qualcomm's MDM8220 chipset for the support, and will launch commercial devices in the second half of 2010 based on the chipset. Novatel said the new support will add more advanced data capability and other features to its offerings. Dual Carrier HSPA+ networks are expected to provide higher throughput to wireless data devices, and also helps address better service for cell phone users.

The new modem can receive data at up to 42M bps (bits per second) in compatible 3G networks. To increase the theoretical maximum download speed of the modem from 21M bps to 42M bps, Novatel uses two carrier frequencies instead of the usual one, a technique called dual-carrier. But it will only deliver the higher speed on networks that also support the technique.

Users can expect peak speeds at up to 30M bps, according to Hans Beijner, marketing manager for radio products at Ericsson.Leif-Olof Wallin, research vice president at Gartner, is a more pessimistic, saying increased traffic on the networks could negatively impact speeds. "I think it will be difficult to get above 20M bps," he said.

Sixty-six operators have said they plan to use HSPA Evolution, and so far 37 networks have been commercially launched, according to statistics from the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA).

However, the version of HSPA Evolution that supports 42M bps is still very much in its infancy. Last week, mobile operator 3 Scandinavia announced plans to launch services when modems become available. In December, representatives from Vodafone and the Australian operator Telstra visited Ericsson to Stockholm to view a demonstration, but neither operator has so far announced plans to launch commercial services.

Ericsson and 3 Scandinavia have unveiled plans to roll-out a worlds-first 84Mbps HSPA+ wireless network. The initial rollout will cover Denmark and four Swedish cities. HSPA+ networks that currently operate in Canada, for example, offer speeds of up to 21Mbps depending on conditions. In the United States, T-Mobile recently announced a similar planned network.

Real-world tests of the 21Mbps networks show the services achieving around 7Mbps speed. If a similar performance could be applied to the new Ericsson/3 network, it could result in speeds of roughly 28Mbps at realistic distances and network load.

and 3 will also deploy 900MHz 3G networks in Sweden in a bid to boost coverage in remote areas, as existing higher frequency networks have left some users with poor performance.

The high-speed services will hit Denmark and areas of Sweden this winter if all goes to plan.

China Unicom is putting the finishing touch on the tests on its HSPA+ networks in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, which were kicked off in October 2009 by partnering with its three major suppliers Huawei Technologies, ZTE, and Ericsson.

HSPA+ is the next generation technology for China Unicom's WCDMA 3G service. HSPA+, also known as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access, is a wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7. The HSPA+ network claims with a transmission speed of 21Mbps, 1.5 times faster than its current 3G network.

The outdoor average speed of the networks built up by Ericsson and Huawei reach up to 16.5Mbps and 18.5Mbps on the downlink, 50% higher than that of the existing HSPA network. That means you can download a song within two or three seconds.

Cell C, South Africa, has signed a US$378m deal with the Chinese telecom equipment provider ZTE Corporation. Cell C would ever lead the industry as far as network infrastructure is concerned but it is a fact that Cell C will be the first South African operator to roll out HSPA+ technologies incorporating download speeds of up to 21Mbit/s – three times faster than anything currently available.

According to Cell C an important factor in the decision to appoint ZTE is its ability to offer 4G services using Cell C’s 900MHz frequency band which offers wider and deeper coverage than existing 2100 MHz networks, enabling cost effective deployment to rural as well as metropolitan areas.

HSDPA Code Tree

How often does it happen that people ask you questions you know the answer to but cant recall the complete details. A similar thing happened when a colleague asked me about why only 15 codes why HS-PDSCH and what happens to the 16th code.

Here is a picture which is from Qualcomm Whitepaper (available here) which is self explanatory.

August 2009: Mobile TV Roundup

Qualcomm is slowly building content for its Flo TV mobile service for cell phones with the recent announcement that Discovery Communications launched a Shark Week Mobile Channel.
Discovery Channel’s Shark Week programs are scheduled to air on the Flo TV service through Aug. 14.

Flo TV uses the analog spectrum previously occupied by television broadcasters, and offers programming from several of the large network brands. Flo TV President Bill Stone says he envisions expanding the service from cell phones to cars and other consumer electronics products.

Flo TV, however, is not the only mobile TV service. AT&T CruiseCast launched a satellite-based television service in cars June 1.

CruiseCast, which is really an AT&T logo slapped onto RaySat Broadcasting equipment and services, offers 22 TV channels and 20 satellite radio channels. Its satellite antenna is a fat disc the size of a Bundt cake affixed to the roof of a vehicle.

The service costs $28 a month, plus $1,300 for equipment, which requires certified installers who charge an additional $200-$300, says Jim Llewellyn, who demonstrated the service July 31 in San Diego.


If you feell you're missing out on The Ashes action, you can now watch the Ashes for free on your W995.

A 3-month pass for the Sky Mobile TV service now comes bundled with the device exclusively on the 3 Network.

With the service, you can watch eight made-for-mobile channels that use highlights content from the Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Xtra channels. You’ll also be able to watch live matches right on your W995 too.

Australian cricketers Glenn McGrath and Matthew Hoggard appeared at the launch of the new bundle, and McGrath expressed his thoughts on the new bundle, saying ”the Sony Ericsson W995 on 3 is a real must for any dedicated cricket fan. To be able to access crucial games via Sky Mobile TV on the go, especially when a tournament like The Ashes is on is invaluable to me.”

After the initial 3-month period, Sky Mobile TV will cost you £5 a month. So, while the savings aren’t amazing, amounting to a whopping £15 in total, it’s still a great feature to have right now if you’re a cricket fan.

Testing of free mobile digital TV for cell phones, netbooks and other on-the-go devices is ramping up in the weeks ahead, and the first devices that can provide such broadcasts should be on store shelves by next year, according to the broadcaster-based group behind the effort.

"Just like you turn on your TV today at home and watch live and local broadcast television, you will turn on your handset and be able to watch live and local broadcast television," said Anne Schelle, executive director of the Open Mobile Video Coalition.

Trials are underway around the country in cities such as Chicago, New York and Raleigh, N.C. The biggest test pond will be Washington, D.C., where broadcasters have the attention of what may be the nation's most powerful audience — politicians. "We already have two stations on the air there, and we'll have the rest of our stations on air by next week," said Schelle.

Cell phones are probably the largest single group of devices that could receive local TV programming.

"There are 250 million of them out there," said Schelle. It's not clear whether wireless carriers are as enthusiastic.

MobileCrunch has picked up an interesting story from AV Watch - who themselves have spotted a USB tuner that plugs in to your TV, and then streams out 1-Seg (that’s a Japanese TV standard) formatted TV that your iPhone/iPod Touch can pick up via an App running over WiFi. Nice.

The iPhone has been at somewhat of a disadvantage for a time, because unlike a lot of other phones in Japan, it can’t natively pick up a TV signal - Japan is one of the places where Mobile TV has worked (but there are a number of specific reasons for that….), so this little bit of kit solves an issue for people who need their TV fix.

The USB device is called the SEG Clip, and is sold by I-O data it follows a previous device that was more of a standalone unit from Softbank Mobile - that one was it’s own receiver, transmitted the data by WiFi, but also double as an extra battery if you plugged it in to an iPhone.

WISH-TV today announced the expansion of its mobile offerings to include a new application for BlackBerry smartphones. This mobile application is the latest addition to 24-Hour News 8’s fully synchronized television and digital offerings that are available free of charge at www.wishtv.com .

WISH-TV unveiled its iPhone custom application with great popularity and much success in May 2009. In addition to these specialized applications, 24-Hour News 8 is also available via any web-enabled mobile device.

LIN TV , WISH-TV’s parent company, in conjunction with News Over Wireless (NOW) has developed the custom BlackBerry smartphone and iPhone applications for each of its 27 local television stations. Six LIN TV stations, including WISH-TV, launch the BlackBerry smartphone service today. LIN TV is the first in its local markets to provide instantaneous and on-demand access to its local news, sports and entertainment, as well as video, weather forecasts and traffic reports to BlackBerry smartphone subscribers.

Six LIN TV stations launched the BlackBerry service last week, including WISH-TV, WAVY-TV, KRQE-TV, WANE-TV, WALA-TV and KXAN-TV. LIN has been among the more aggressive broadcasters in the deployment of its content over nontraditional platforms.

Media Content and Communications Services (MCCS) has made its Hindi, Marathi and Bengali news channels -- STAR News, STAR Majha and STAR Ananda -- available on the mobile TV platform.

The content of all three channels will be streamed live, including the ads that appear during the news programmes. The content will be available on the 3G networks of MTNL and BSNL. However, the company claims that their mobile TV option will also be made accessible to subscribers of other telecom operators, who offer 2.5G services.

Currently, only two mobile operators -- BSNL and MTNL -- offer 3G services in India. The video content delivery process is faster on 3G mobile networks, as compared to 2.5G.

Qualcomm to put Femtocells in Mutant Animals ;)

In the latest breakthrough from its labs, Qualcomm has perfected a new version of its system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology that can be embedded into animals, turning them into living, breathing highly mobile femtocells. By creating biological femtocells, Qualcomm is allaying one of the critical weaknesses of the wireless network: while the devices on the network are mobile, the infrastructure of the network is static. By turning the family dog, for example, into a femtocell, the issues of dead zones and coverage gaps disappear as coverage moves with you wherever you—and your dog—go.

Research into these dynamic biological networks is still in its infancy, but Qualcomm has released a demo video on the technology, which you can view below. As part of that research, Qualcomm is trying to overcome what it sees as the inherent limitations of many species of animals. Pigeons, for instance, could be used to create a pervasive flying network in any heavily trafficked downtown area, but the pigeon isn’t the most long-lived of animals and it has several predators, thus requiring an operator to constantly reintroduce new pigeons into the network to maintain capacity levels.

Qualcomm has solved that problem through genetic engineering. It has crossbred a pigeon with a wolf, creating a hardier more aggressive femtocell that can defend itself from both predators and the elements. The only problem with this approach, though, is its high susceptibility to industrial espionage. A rival operator could introduce biological femtocell predators into a market, to attack, maim and possible even eat another operator’s femtocells. While bio-engineering femtocells such as the wolf-pigeon might seem a natural defense mechanism against tactics, the rival operator could always engineer a better femtocell. Qualcomm demonstrated how a shark crossbred with a hawk could effectively nullify a femtocell networks composed of wolf pigeons.

See the Video below:




By the way, I hope you have realised that it was an April Fools joke :)

HSPA+ to become more widely available in 2009

According to 3G Americas press release, 100 million new connections were added last year. On a worldwide basis, GSM totals 3.5 billion of the nearly 4 billion mobile subscriptions or 89% share of market at the end of December 2008. With 278 UMTS-HSPA networks in service in 121 countries, there are 290 million UMTS-HSPA subscriptions as of the end of 2008 compared to 186 million a year earlier—more than 100 million new 3G connections. UMTS-HSPA subscriptions are expected to more than double in 2009, according to Informa’s forecasts, and reach 455 million connections by the end of this year.

A survey last year by GSA showed that over 1000 HSPA devices have already been launched. Remember HSPA device could be HSDPA device only or HSDPA and HSUPA device. According to Dell'Oro group, Worldwide total mobile infrastructure market revenues grew 5% in 2008, driven by the nearly doubling and quadrupling of revenues of the WCDMA and WiMAX markets, respectively.

The focus is now moving towards HSPA+ (Release 7). HSPA+ is already becoming everyones favourite as it now has the potential to compete with LTE. The HSPA+ data rates will soon be able to rival that of LTE. No new spectrum will be required and enhancements will now allow multiple bands to be used at the same time thereby reducing the need to move to LTE for gaining higher data rates by use of higher bandwidth.

O2 Germany is planning to upgrade its network to HSPA+ by mid 2009. Vodafone also plans to upgrade its network to HSPA+ when more devices are available. Hong Kong operator CSLNWM is working with China's ZTE to upgrade their network to SDR based HSPA+ network that could easily be upgraded to LTE. Australia's Telstra has already announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it is the first in the world to offer mobile broadband service with peak rates of 21 Mbps made possible through HSPA+ technology.

On the devices front Huawei has E182E HSPA+ slide USB stick supporting 21.6Mbps DL and 5.76Mbps in UL. Novatel surprisingly has the same specs for its MC996D modem. Qualcomm meanwhile has released a range of new HSPA+ capable chipsets. The MSM8260 supports 3GPP Release 7 HSPA+ for data rates of up to 28 Mbps. The MSM8660 adds support for 3GPP/3GPP2 multimode, and the MSM8270 adds support for Release 8 dual-carrier HSPA+ for even higher data rates of up to 42 Mbps. All three products offer full backward compatibility to previous generation networks and are pin-, software- and functionally-compatible.

Its just a matter of time before we will all be able to experience the HSPA+ speeds on our mobiles and mobile connected Laptops.

UMB now officially dead, Long live LTE!

As one article put it, "Qualcomm cancels its own 4G system" going further to mention "Ultramobile broadband (UMB) is ultra dead". I blogged earlier about Nortel abandoning its CDMA business and about CDMA operators defecting to LTE and was sort of waiting for this imminent announcement to happen. There were already rumors about this happening since last year. (Not sure if some Hedge fund managers did be on this ;). UMB is also known as CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev C.

Qualcomm Inc officially announced that it has stopped development of Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), its next-generation, high-speed wireless technology, and has been making small-scale layoffs as it looks to cut costs in the weakening economy, Chief Executive Paul Jacobs said. Jacobs said the company was putting resources into LTE technology instead.

The company that created CDMA techology, meant for UMB to be CDMA’s 4G play. The company had high hopes for squeezing out WiMAX, positioning UMB to compete directly against LTE. With a logical upgrade path for existing CDMA carriers, UMB was designed to continue the GSM vs CDMA platform war in the fourth generation of wireless technology.

However, Qualcomm in recent years has gained dominance in the LTE development field as well. With Qualcomm now heavily invested in UMTS/HSPA technology, UMB had Qualcomm playing both sides, ensuring that they would be dominant in all CDMA-derived products (both UMB and LTE use technology originally derived from Qualcomm’s oldest CDMA patents).

With WiMAX becoming embraced, and even deployed, globally, UMB failed to gain a single carrier. The main cause for CDMA carriers defecting to WiMAX, has been Qualcomm’s monopoly on the technology. WiMAX trumps UMB in being an industry standard, not controlled or mandated by a single company.

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has yet to comment on this announcement. However, the CDG has told PhoneNews.com that their driving force going forward will be to foster CDMA as a low-cost network option, especially in developing nations. Qualcomm still hopes to use CDMA for new networks in Africa, using their own hybrid GSM/UMTS/CDMA chipsets for international roaming when those customers travel abroad.

This leaves LTE as the eventual winner and with Operators already planning to roll out LTE network mid next year, WiMAX is going to get tough competetion from LTE. CDMA2000 operators meanwhile will have to now start planning how to move towards LTE (or WiMAX for that matter). 3GPP has laid down clear evolution path to move to LTE from CDMA2000. Other option which I quoted earlier is the eHRPD approach.

Qualcomm to make Femto-Intelligent Handsets

The last time I read about Qualcomm bying stake in Femtocell maker Ip.Access, I overlooked it but now the rumors are that they want to be the leaders in Femto-Intelligent handsets. This fits well with Femto-optimised handsets plan that I blogged about.

Ovum had interesting analysis on the original news:

It's easy to see, though, how femtocells fit into Qualcomm's vision of the future of the wireless world. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say the company believes that the WCDMA radio technology is so good that no other is needed; curiously, ip.access's other industry investors, including Cisco and Motorola, are much more closely associated with the opposite position. Some years ago Qualcomm engaged in a sustained rubbishing of WiFi as a public access technology, and more recently it has given WiMAX the same treatment. Femtocells could be a route towards using WCDMA in home and other internal networking.

The reality may be more prosaic. According to Qualcomm Ventures' self-description, its “aim is to support Qualcomm's mission of enabling and fostering 3G (WCDMA) and wireless Internet markets through strategic investments in privately owned startup ventures.” With femtocells at least a plausible runner in the medium term in the future development of public mobile networks, not investing anywhere in the technology might almost be deemed remiss. In Qualcomm's own words, both it and ip.access “have developed key intellectual property for femtocells, share the same vision for femtocells, and can work together to make the most effective use of these ideas for the benefit of the whole femtocell industry.”

From ip.access's perspective, the deal is somewhat more straightforward. It believes that Qualcomm is buying in because of its technological excellence and 'traction' with operators - it claims involvement in a number of femtocell trials with major MNOs, though none of these has been publicly disclosed.

For ip.access, the money Qualcomm is bringing is less interesting than the relationships and influence - especially with standards organisations - that it adds. Privately held, the company already lists Cisco, Intel Capital, ADC and Motorola Ventures among its owners. Neither party is disclosing the extent of Qualcomm's investment, or whether it will have any significant impact on the balance of shareholdings.

We are still mildly sceptical about the femtocell business case; even though ip.access provides some interesting data on the impact that domestic femtocells can have on the capacity requirements for the macro network. But it's clear that Qualcomm's decision to buy into ip.access makes the proposition rather more credible.

Qualcomm to back MediaFLO at the expense of MBMS

Just couple of days back I was complaining about everyone abandoning MBMS but now I can see why Qualcomm is suddenly uninterested in MBMS:

U.S. mobile technology company Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) said Friday that it acquired an L-band radio spectrum licence for GBP8.3 million that will enable it to bring new mobile TV and wireless services to the U.K.

Qualcomm U.K. Spectrum Ltd bought the licence to use 40 Megahertz of the 1452 MHz to 1492 MHz band in an auction by communications regulator Ofcom.

The licence is suitable for offering mobile television, wireless broadband and satellite radio, Ofcom said.

The L-Band spectrum license acquired by Qualcomm covers the entire United Kingdom and is technology neutral, thereby enabling Qualcomm to use the spectrum for innovative technologies, depending on its assessment of market needs in the United Kingdom.

The L-band, on which any technology or service can be used, will contend with two main rivals, DVB-H, backed by Nokia, the handset maker, and by Viviane Reding, the European Telecoms Commissioner, who wants to make it the European standard, and TDTV, which is being tested by Orange and T-Mobile in the UK. All three technologies would require special handsets able to pick up a broadcast signal.

Mobile companies including Vodafone and 3 already offer mobile television in Britain, but take-up has been poor.

Qualcomm said that it does not intend to run a mobile TV broadcasting network as an operator, as it has done in the United States, but is looking for partners to launch its mobile television technology, MediaFLO.

Andrew Gilbert, head of Qualcomm's European operations, said: “We will not attempt to become an operator, but if service providers want to partner with us ... we are open to talking to folk.” Mr Gilbert added that Qualcomm would use the spectrum to bring a variety of wireless technologies to the UK market but that it had no timetable for launches in mind.

With industry heavyweights supporting DVB-H and TDTV, analysts see this as Qualcomm's last chance to bring MediaFLO to the UK and European markets. Will Harris, of Enders Analysis, said: “One potential outcome from this is that two competing mobile TV services could be launched. While it is too early to say which technology will win at this stage, those that fail to get support from the mobile operators will lose.”

O2, the mobile network provider, was initially interested in the L-band auction, but pulled out without bidding. Failed bidders include WorldSpace, the satellite radio group, and The Joint Radio Company, which runs spectrum for the UK energy industry.

The next competition, to run later this year, is even more significant. It has a price tag that could run into the tens of millions because it is for a frequency that supports WiMax, a high-speed network technology similar to a common WiFi home wireless system, but with a more robust signal and a range of a kilometre or more.

Although WiMax is not new it has had little success so far. But interest is hotting up. In the US last week, Sprint Nextel announced a $14.5bn (£7.4bn) joint venture with Clearwire to build a network servicing as many as 140 million people by the end of 2010. And Google is pumping another $500m into the scheme.

At the moment, the UK market is small. Freedom4 and UK Broadband, a subsidiary of PCCW, are the only providers with a national licence, and only limited services are available. But developments on the other side of the Atlantic are fuelling interest, and some big players are lining up for the relevant spectrum auction. Ian Livingston, who takes over aschief executive at BT in two weeks' time, has said thecompany is interested, and Vodafone has trials running in Malta.

Freedom4 is also already in talks with potential investors about the £100m infrastructure funding it estimates it will need from 2009-11. "We are talkingto our partners and the banks," Mike Read, chief executive of Freedom4, said. "Following the deals in the US, there is moreinterest in what we are doing over here."

Ian Keene, a senior analyst at Gartner, said: "There is abusiness case for WiMax in the UK, but most likely it will becity-centric and focused on business, rather than nationalcoverage competing with mobile networks."

The biggest auction of all will be next year's bidding for the "digital dividend" – the wide bands of frequency freed up when the analogue television signal is switched off in 2012. The debate about who should get what is already well under way. Broadcasters claim a substantial portion for high-definition TV, mobile operators want it for next-generation cellular services such as video, and internet service providers say it iscrucial for the broadbandinfrastructure.