Monday 8 June 2009
Cell Radius on Different LTE Frequencies
Tuesday 19 May 2009
LTE World Summit - Day 1 roundup
Before we start, I should mention that there have been no discussions showing LTE is better than WiMAX, etc. It is now assumed that WiMAX is no longer a threat and a competitor. There is also missing a discussion on Femtocells. I suppose that some Femto related discussions are planned for day 3.
I am going to cover the discussions in detail in the coming days (months) but here are some interesting tidbits.
It started with a presentation from Marc Fossier, France Telecom. An interesting fact about France he mentioned is that 40% of voice traffic is VoIP. They are present in 30 countries (generally by the name Orange) and they have 128 million customers. LTE rollout is planned for post 2011. They will be deploying WiMAX in some markets like Romania and some African countries. The main reason being that there is no 3G network there. Another key point of his presentation was that Mobile TV should be independent of the technology being considered and TDD works fine for that. Also SON (Self Organising Networks) will be very important feature that is needed when LTE is rolled out.
Klaus-Jurgen Krath from T-Mobile Germany gave T-Mobile statistics of 148 million customers and revenue of 9.2 Billion Euros. One of the things he mentioned is that at 2.6GHz, the cell radius is 0.3Km but if we move to 800MHz then the cell radius is around 3Km. Personally I am not sure if the frequency is something we should worry too much about. WiBro in Korea is I think using 2.3GHz and is working fine. Another thing mentioned is that the Backhaul is generally quite bandwidth limited so that needs to be improved. The operators should use Microwave or Fiber to overcome this backhaul problem. LTE Migration will also take time and initially it would be the third layer on top of GSM and 3G/HSPA but by 2020 it should be dominant technology. Right now Voice and SMS problem has to be solved asap. Personally I think SMS is not much of a problem and SMS can work on CS as well as PS. Operators can use SMS over PS for the moment. Femtocell according to Klaus is very important for LTE but Femtos will be successful only if they are Plug and Play for both operator and the consumer. His final point was that we should not dissapoint the customer by showing the peak rates, rather we should focus on average rate.
Ulf Ewaldsson from Ericsson mentioned that 80% of broadband subscribers by 2014 will be mobile. Another thing he said is that for LTE, it is possible to deliver 1GB for < 1 euro. (Capex only). Ericsson vision is that by 2020 there will be 50 Billion mobile broadband connections. Ericsson will be ready with LTE soon and by the year end peak rate of 42Mbps will be possible.
Alex Sinclair from GSMA talked on expanding the LTE ecosystem. There were lots of interesting facts and figures that I will have to mention seperately. There was also an intersting mention of the GRX (GPRS Roaming Exchange) that will need a completely new discussion.
In the Panel Discussion, Marc mentioned that Orange is not considering Femtocells for Residential market because of many unsolved technical problems like Price, Security, Spectrum Management, etc. On the business side they may have Femto, Pico or Micro depending on the need. Ed Candy from '3' mentioned that operators should focus on Macro rather than Femto because lots of spare capacity available. He mentioned that there is a business problem because somebody has to subsidise Femto, also too many Femtos can cause RF blackspots and operational dynamics are yet to be worked out.
Elio Florina from Telecom Italia (TiM) talked about LTE and HSPA deployment in Brasil. The main point being that initially they want to have complete 3G/HSPA coverage and then in future think about LTE.
Alan Hadden from GSA mentioned about GSA activities. I was surprised to hear that only 55,000 people view their website annually. This is because a simple blog like mine regularly gets between 20,000 and 25,000 views per month. Again there were lots of stats that I will write about later. Interesting point from his discussion was about the Digital Dividend band that can be used by LTE to increase the coverage.
Dave Marutiak, Microsoft spoke about Bearer Aware Applications. Dean has blogged in detail about this.
Ed Candy from '3' in his presentation highlighted an important point about the user experience. He said that for any service, user experience should be memorable so even after 2-3 years if the user has to use the same application than he should remember how it works. I think that there are hardly any services like this except those that are intutive to use. In Dec. 08, '3' saw people using 34million skype minutes and 68 million Facebook page views. It should be remembered that Facebook phone was launched in Dec itself. His message was that '3' will not be moving to LTE anytime soon because the current network is delivering whatever is required.
Roberto Di Pietro from Qualcomm spoke about the challenges faced by the chipset manufacturers. The main challenges is due to the fact that there are millions of combinations of different bands that the UE may need to support which is not practical and possible. They are focussing mainly on 2.6GHz at the moment and when the Digital Dividend band is available then they will implement chipset in that band as well.
Jorgen Lantto from ST-Ericsson and Sami Jokinen from Nokia gave their views on chipsets and handsets implementation respectively. According to Nokia, LTE handsets will be available by 2010. Initial deployments will be in FDD but later in TDD-FDD both.
Liesbet Van der Perre from IMEC discussed about the SDR implementation for LTE devices. Her presentation was more of updates on the previous IMEC info I have covered here.
Finally, I managed to squeeze myself into an Agilent workshop called 'LTE at the movies'. There were two parts to that 'MIMO MIA' and 'Honey who shrunk my mega bits'. The workshop lated 2.5 hours and I got a free Agilent LTE book. Lots of technical details that I will post seperately.
Please feel free to comment or correct me if I made any mistakes. You can also read Dean Bubley's take on the first day here.
I shouldnt finish without thanking the organisers who have done a good job in organising the event and for such wonderful hospitality (and food :).
Tuesday 3 February 2009
LTE Status: Jan 09 updates
Despite a tanking economy and a potential delay getting access to the spectrum Verizon bought in last year's FCC auction, the telco says it's still on track to roll out its next-generation wireless network next year.
On the company's earnings call today, Verizon COO Denny Strigl said he's still hoping LTE will be commercially available in the first half of 2010, with in-house testing to begin later this year.
TeliaSonera said on Thursday it had signed up Ericsson to construct its initial Stockholm LTE (the Long Term Evolution of 3G) network, and Huawei for the initial Oslo network. Both equipment makers said it was their first commercial LTE contract.
The telco said it is still evaluating suppliers for further LTE networks across Sweden and its other markets.
Wednesday 24 December 2008
India gets ready for 3G
The Indian Department of Telecoms (DoT) has published its official timetable for the award of its 3G licences across the country as well as a breakdown of how the relevant spectrum will be allocated across the telecoms circles.
As expected, the state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL each have been reserved one block of 2x5MHz in each circle, with the exception of Rajasthan (State in North West India) which will have no 3G spectrum at all. The number of blocks of spectrum in the private auction differs depending on the circle (see the spectrum table, below).
The auction for the 15-year licences is planned for Jan. 15, 2009. In the majority of 3G service areas there is 25 MHz of paired frequency bandwidth available which relates to four blocks of 2x5 MHz spectrum available for auction in addition to the block reserved for the state-owned operators, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). Spectrum is rather limited in many other areas, including the major metro circle of
All of the 3G spectrum will be in the 2.1 GHz band and in the 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz frequency bands, a separate auction for Broadband Wireless Access (WiMAX). In both these auctions, which will take place two days after the 3G auction, bidders are restricted to just one block of spectrum per service area.
The table below shows the proposed spectrum layout.
Service Area ( | Paired frequency bandwidth to be allotted | Paired frequency bandwidth to be allotted |
| 160 | 15 |
Mumbai | 160 | 25 |
Kolkata | 80 | 25 |
| 160 | 25 |
Gujrat | 160 | 15 |
Andhra Pradesh | 160 | 25 |
Karnataka | 160 | 25 |
Tamil Nadu | 80 | 25 |
Kerela | 80 | 25 |
| 80 | 25 |
Haryana | 80 | 25 |
Uttar Pradesh(e) | 80 | 25 |
Uttar Pradesh (w) | 80 | 10 |
Rajasthan | 0 | 20 |
Madhya Pradesh | 80 | 25 |
| 80 | 25 |
Himachal Prades | 30 | 25 |
| 30 | 25 |
Orrisa | 30 | 25 |
| 30 | 25 |
North East | 30 | 5 |
| 30 | 25 |
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Satellite based Mobile Internet of the future
Advances in information technology are fundamentally changing the way military conflicts are resolved. The ability to transmit detailed information quickly and reliably to and from all parts of the globe will help streamline military command and control and ensure information superiority, enabling faster deployment of highly mobile forces capable of adapting quickly to changing conditions in the field. Satellite communications play a pivotal role in providing the interoperable, robust, "network-centric" communications needed for future operations.
Military satellite communications (or milsatcom) systems are typically categorized as wideband, protected, or narrowband. Wideband systems emphasize high capacity. Protected systems stress antijam features, covertness, and nuclear survivability. Narrowband systems emphasize support to users who need voice or low-data-rate communications and who also may be mobile or otherwise disadvantaged (because of limited terminal capability, antenna size, environment, etc.).
For wideband communication needs, the Wideband Gapfiller Satellite program and the Advanced Wideband System will augment and eventually replace the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS). These satellites will transmit several gigabits of data per second—up to ten times the data flow of the satellites being replaced. Protected communications will be addressed by a global extremely high frequency (EHF) system, composed of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency System and Advanced Polar System. These systems are expected to provide about ten times the capacity of current protected satellites (the Milstar satellites). Narrowband needs are supported by the UFO (Ultrahigh-frequency Follow-On) constellation, which will be replaced by a component of the Advanced Narrowband System
Although the EHF band is a relatively lightly used part of the electromagnetic spectrum (30-300 GHz), it is for good reason. Atmospheric attenuation is the biggest problem faced in this band, especially around 60 GHz, however the frequencies are viable for short distance terrestrial based communication links, such as microwave Internet and telecommunication links (which already operate in this band). Millimetre wave radar, probably best known as the radar that can see through your clothes but not your skin, also operates in this band.
Designed to avoid problematic frequencies that are more susceptible to attenuation, but accepting increased overall atmospheric attenuation, are an increasing number of military and civil satellite systems that are using this band for uplink and downlink, as well as inter-satellite communication. Inter-satellite communication is really where EHF equipment shines (no atmosphere, small antennas, high data rates).
Civilian systems are currently around the Ku band (Intelsat), providing data rates of up to 2-4 Mbps (14 GHz uplink, 12 GHz downlink) however these rates have still to trickle into everyday user's hands for remote and mobile Internet access. It is more common that an aggregator will access this link/rate and use that to then portion out local Internet access. Systems such as this are in use for remote Australian territories like Cocos and Christmas Islands, and formed the backbone of Boeing's stillborn Connexion in-flight Internet access. High ongoing access costs (basically a share of the overall cost of the satellite) and limited access slots help keep the technology away from everyday use at this time. Militaries and governments around the globe also lease access on these circuits when they need the added capability, with Intelsat and Inmarsat systems being used in the first Gulf War.
Advanced EHF is designed to provide 24 hour coverage from 65 North, to 65 South across the K and Ka sub bands, and when combined with the prototyped Extended Data Rate (XDR) terminals and systems, will offer up to 8.2 Mbps data rates for around 4,000 terminals in concurrent use per satellite footprint (whether that scales to 12,000 systems in concurrent use globally isn't clear from source material).
Within the tri-satellite constellation, inter-satellite EHF links will allow terminals on opposite sides of the globe to communicate in near real-time without the use of a terrestrial link. Combined with smaller, directional antennas and the various options for anti-jamming technology, it represents a significant military capability for the US.
Already plans are being drawn up for the Transformational Satellite Communications System (T-Sat) which will replace Advanced EHF starting sometime in 2013, however it is already facing funding troubles. This could be problematic, with Advanced EHF still struggling to reach capability and the final launch not scheduled until April 2010. Dropping the fourth satellite of the Advanced EHF constellation has been planned to give the USAF time to implement T-Sat more rapidly.
If GPS and remote imaging (think Google Earth) have proven anything, it is that technology initially developed for military purposes, and extremely expensive for initial civil use, will eventually reach the point where it forms part of our daily lives without us ever being conscious of the massive investment to get to that point.
Friday 21 November 2008
LTE Roll out updates from the 4th LTE World Summit in London
Monday 13 October 2008
Femtocells and the stealing of Spectrum
Wednesday 16 July 2008
Momentum Building for UMTS 900MHz
According to a recent paper published by GSA, momentum is building for introducing UMTS 900 i.e. WCDMA-HSPA systems in 900 MHz band, used today by GSM/EDGE networks, to help operators to extend voice, data and mobile broadband services coverage by leveraging the advantages of lower frequencies. UMTS 900 is on the roadmap of several manufacturers. Three
commercial UMTS 900 systems have launched, and 20 user devices have been announced by 6 manufacturers.
I have blogged on 900Mhz band in past. Technical specifications for WCDMA-HSDPA in the 900 MHz band (UMTS 900) were completed by 3GPP in December 2005. The 900 MHz band, denoted as Band Class VIII, is defined as paired bands in the range 880 to 915 MHz (uplink), and 925 to 960 MHz (downlink).
A Manx Telecom trial confirmed 30% improved inbuilding penetration compared to 2100 MHz, and 40% in deep indoor penetration. With HSDPA, throughput could increase by 10%, raising overall network capacity 5%. A key finding was the ability to hand over calls between base stations operating at different frequencies. The trial confirmed a GSM 900 operator could re-use sites for UMTS without having to redesign and re-deploy the network, thus significantly reducing operational costs.
Wednesday 21 May 2008
Dell to power laptops with HSPA
Although Montevina was expected to usher in the next-generation WiMAX technology, the apparent delays underlying Clearwire's WiMAX rollout may have pushed Dell to seek an alternative broadband choice.
According to a Dell spokeswoman, the choice to include Ericsson's HSPA technology was as much about compatibility as throughput. If a customer takes a 3G-enabled laptop with him or her to Europe, it might work, "but it's not a seamless transition," Dell's Anne Camden said. The HSPA technology is more uniform throughout the globe, she said.
But it's also true that Dell wanted a broadband solution now. "Mobile broadband delievers a broadband experience today, and that is what we need," Camden said. "We want to deliver a great broadband experience. We're certainly looking at WiMAX support in future products."
Dell is the second major PC vendor to sign on to use Ericsson's HSPA technology, after Lenovo.
According to Ericsson, both Dell's business customers and consumers will use the new modules. Interestingly, Ericsson built in a GPS component into the HSPA modules, meaning that location services will be also be built in.
Market projections indicate that in 2011, approximately 200 million notebooks will ship annually and Ericsson anticipates that 50 percent of those notebooks will feature a built-in HSPA mobile broadband module. Users will increasingly have the option to take their broadband connections with them, delivering on the promise of full service broadband, which is anytime, anywhere access from the screen or device of choice.
Meanwhile:
Winners of Sweden's 2.6GHz spectrum auction can now look to rapid deployment of advanced mobile networks, with Ericsson poised to deliver end-to-end HSPA and LTE technology. The auction is the first held in the world to license according to the harmonized band arrangement decision by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT).
As a front runner in allocating the 2.6GHz frequency band, the regulator Swedish Post and Telecom Agency has adopted a harmonized spectrum allocation as defined by CEPT. The allocation will facilitate economies of scale for operators and secure the availability of standardized terminals, allowing roaming between countries for users. Auctions of the 2.6GHz band in Austria, Netherlands, Italy and the UK are scheduled for 2008.
LTE and HSPA, the preferred technologies for the 2.6GHz band, enable a superior, mass-market user experience, enhancing demanding applications such as mobile video, blogging, advanced games, rich multimedia telephony and professional services.
Ericsson's solutions help operators leverage their network investments by providing optimal voice communication and mobile broadband services. Ericsson employs scalable architecture and allows seamless network expansion, providing an efficient migration path to broadband, regardless of the legacy technology in place.
Ericsson's offerings for the 2.6GHz band are based on its multi-standard RBS 3000 and RBS 6000 series. These energy efficient base stations support WCDMA/HSPA/LTE and GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/HSPA/LTE respectively. Ericsson's RBS suite offers the smallest base stations on the market and facilitates low-cost migration and easy network integration. HSPA is already commercially deployed in more than 185 networks in 80 countries, with more than 600 devices launched.
Monday 19 May 2008
Introduction of Hierarchical cells by the networks
Surely the people already involved in field testing can tell us if they are seeing Inter-frequency measurements and if they are wouldnt this indicate multiple frequencies?
My thinking was that when the operators rolled out HSPA they kept the HSPA part on one frequency and they let the existing 3G on the original frequency. This helped them keep everything smooth without worrying too much about the code tree management.
Now Dean has something on Femtocell and since I have posted on this topic recently, I am quite interested in his views:
Austria is a bit of an outlier in adoption of HSPA, with data traffic apparently now 20x outweighing voice on the network, but it's an interesting indicator of what's coming down the line. HSPA networks are now having to deploy an extra set of transmitters on the base stations. For those readers who don't follow this area, 3G UMTS networks (including HSPA), use 5MHz spectrum slices. Most operators have allocations of 10, 15, 20MHz or more, but typically haven't been using all of their theoretical capacity thus far. if you assume that most countries will take two years from launching flatrate dongle plans, rather than one year, to fill up the first 5MHz, it's an early indicator of demand ramp-up for spectrum (and capacity) over the next few years. This is especially true as end users get used to higher-speed HSPA, as well as increases in the total number of users. Add in some growth in data traffic from phones with decent browsers or video clients, and it starts to look as if the 2.1GHz 3G band is going to fill up very quickly. This has a number of implications:
- Firstly, there's a short term business case for femtocells - if they can work out cheaper than adding a second or third 5MHz carrier on the macro network. On the flipside, some of the calculations I've seen have suggested that femtos substitute for new extra base stations rather than adding extra kit to existing ones. I'm not sure what the comparative costs are, but I guess that bring up a 2nd carrier must be a lot less. [Not much discussion from Ericsson about femtos for 3G macro-offload (or indeed at all), to be honest. My take is that as well as potentially impacting its overall integrated base station/transmission business model and bringing in new competitors, I get the distinct impression that the Big E is a little skeptical about some of the femto hype on a fundamental basis.]
- Secondly, it means that operators will need to get extra spectrum if they're serious about continuing to drive mobile broadband. 2.6GHz is the obvious big chunk, but refarming 900 and 1800MHz GSM starts to take on more urgency ( as well as expediency for coverage reasons).
- Lastly, it means that operators are going to be faced with some unpalatable choices in terms of capex for HSPA - having to choose between fulfilling the need for extra 5MHz carriers in high-use areas, versus continuing 3G build out in areas with no coverage at all. I suspect that this is going to drive a lot more emphasis on EDGE - and EDGE Evolved, as an interim coverage solution in marginal areas, as it wring more life out of existing 2G base stations. Interestingly, the GSA has been talking up EDGE today as well.
Sunday 18 May 2008
Qualcomm to back MediaFLO at the expense of 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.
Mobile companies including Vodafone and 3 already offer mobile television in Britain, but take-up has been poor.
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday 22 April 2008
More on LTE-Advanced
LTE-Advanced should be real broadband wireless networks that provide equal or greater peak data rates than those for wired networks, i.e., FTTH (Fiber To The Home), while maintaining equivalent QoS. Smooth introduction of LTE-Advanced should be possible on top of LTE system.
High-level requirements
•Reduced network cost (cost per bit)
•Better service provisioning
•Compatibility with 3GPP systems
Spectrum
WRC 07 identified the following new bands for use by IMT/IMT-Advanced:
- 450−470 MHz band,
- 698−862 MHz band,
- 790−862 MHz band,
- 2.3−2.4 GHz band, and
- 3.4−3.6 GHz band.
Not all of these bands are available on a worldwide basis. These bands are in addition to the bands currently specified in 3GPP. Specification for C-band should not be restricted to 3.4 – 3.6 GHz, but cover 3.4 to 3.8 and even 3.4 to 4.2 GHz as these will likely become available in some countries.
Channel Bandwidth
- Channel bandwidths up to 100 MHz to be specified
- However, for many operators consecutive allocation of 100 MHz unlikely
- optimised performance needed for smaller bandwidths of e.g. 50 MHz low cost/complexity (i.e. not fully flexible) resource aggregation to be considered
- Full low complexity (for NW and terminal) interworking with 3GPP RAT, so operator de facto has flexibility on technology to deploy, when and where. The networks of most operators will be a combination of multiple 3GPP RAT for many years to come.
- Network Sharing: Support for at least all currently specified Network Sharing features, also to facilitate cost-efficient roll out of LTE-Advanced, including, but not limited to, rural area coverage.
- As LTE-Advanced should be an evolution of LTE, it is essential that it is specified as part of the 36-series of specifications.
- It is also essential work is performed to a large degree by the experts that developed LTE, and thus work ideally should be performed in existing Working Groups.
- LTE-Advanced will likely constitute the next significant development step for LTE, but (smaller) stand-alone enhancements and additions to LTE should be possible, and progressed in parallel.
- Some of these smaller enhancements, as well as the “corrections” to LTE Release 8 could/should be captured in Rel.9, where SAE considerations will lead to relatively short Release completion time-frame.
The workshop docs are available here.
Monday 7 April 2008
700 MHz Spectrum - Google: Loser or Winner?
But the Mountain View-Calif.-based company now says that was all part of the game plan.
Google had said last July that it would guarantee a minimum $4.6 billion bid if the Federal Communications Commission would grant four license conditions the company sought for the spectrum. The FCC granted just two, giving open access to outside applications and devices, but Google proceeded with a bid.
"Google's top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called 'C Block' reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important 'open applications' and 'open handsets' license conditions," wrote two of the company's lawyers on the corporate blog. "We were also prepared to gain the nationwide C Block licenses at a price somewhat higher than the reserve price; in fact, for many days during the early course of the auction, we were the high bidder. But it was clear, then and now, that Verizon Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher (and had far more financial incentive to gain the licenses)."
Most observers had already assumed that Google had, in fact, bid, and some had even worried that the company would win the auction, which could have added risk to the company's business operations.
The company's lawyers said that the auction "doesn't mark the end of our efforts toward greater wireless choice and innovation."
"We will weigh in at the FCC as it sets implementation rules for the C Block, and determines how to move forward with a D Block re-auction," they wrote on the blog.
The FCC plans to use the D block for public safety networks.
It appears everything went as planned for Google. It didn't have to cough up any money in the 700 MHz auction but it ensured the open-access provisions (at least most of them) that it fought for at the FCC. But with the same faces, namely Verizon and AT&T, emerging as winners in the auction, the auction isn't going to change the face of the wireless telecom industry as industry pundits had hoped.
As exciting as it would have been to see a newcomer to the wireless landscape, incumbents such as Verizon have the wherewithal to spend billions on licenses and billions more to build out network infrastructure. That's their core business. And with the 700 MHz band the last of the so-called beach-front property, operators were prepared to drive the price up to a hefty level, especially given the fact that new 4G networks need a nice chunk of extra spectrum, about 20 megahertz, to deliver the broadband data speeds that are advertised.
Tuesday 4 March 2008
UMTS in 900MHz is finally seing light
ARCEP announced yesterday that it has authorised Orange France and SFR to deploy UMTS technology in France in the 900MHz band. ARCEP also proposed that Bouygues Telecom should reuse the 900MHz band for 3G. According to the regulator, the mobile operator said that it would deploy UMTS in the 900MHz band by the end of 2009 and that it would request modification of its authorisation when it is necessary.
UK regulator Ofcom has already opened a consultation on the future of the 900MHz band, currently allocated to Vodafone and O2 for their 2G services, and has suggested that a technology-neutral auction might be in order for 2009.
So, why should we be happy with 900MHz UMTS as opposed to 2100MHz UMTS:
- The increased frequency reduces cell range, resulting in a more costly network rollout and makes achieving GSM like coverage (>90% population) very challenging. Additionally, with the rapid roll-out of HSDPA (an evolution bringing broadband like speed to UMTS) and its less robust, higher-order modulation scheme (16QAM), building penetration from macro deployments becomes an issue.
- W-CDMA (UMTS) in the 900MHz band achieves a 60 per cent reduction in the number of cell sites required to serve rural areas, and can deliver improved quality of service in urban areas by enhancing in-building penetration by 25 per cent.
- 900MHz is a good frequency for building penetration and decent range, and is used in rural areas where the small-cell-site advantage of 1800MHz is less applicable.
- Signal coverage of 2 – 4 times the coverage in the 2100MHz band, resulting in a reduced number of base stations required
- Improved indoor coverage in urban areas. A 2006 study showed a 25% improvement in in-building penetration
- Added potential for re-use of existing GSM base stations, antenna systems and feeders if deployed within existing GSM sites
- Lower power consumption, since the RF power amplifier (one of the largest electricity consumption item in a Node B) efficiency is much improved
Thursday 21 February 2008
700MHz for WiMAX: Everything is fair in Love and War
“The market interest has grown considerably recently to the point where the board has decided to give it some high priority and made the announcement today (at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona) that we’re going to be working hard on the technical specifications for the band,” said Tim Hewitt, chairman of the Forum’s regulatory working group.
While the Forum has publicly maintained a low profile about 700 MHz, it “has been keeping an eye on 700 megs for quite some time,” Hewitt said. “There’s a nine-step process we have to go through (and) for some time we’ve been doing this background work on these nine points.”
The next step in the accelerated process is to announce specifications to support both TDD and FDD certification profiles, which, in itself is a bit of focus shift because TDD has previously dominated the organization’s work.
“That was the very strong drive from the market; they wanted these TDD systems,” Hewitt said.
Now the market, both in the U.S. and overseas, wants the combination of FDD and TDD to work with 700 MHz spectrum that’s just becoming available, especially as the FCC auctions off U.S. spectrum being abandoned by broadcasters moving to all-digital delivery.
“There’s an equally important and quite exciting thing under way in the world because the ITU at the recent radio conference identified what we know as the digital dividend spectrum, the UHF spectrum that will become available in many countries when television goes digital,” Hewitt said. “That’s spectrum near 700 MHz.”
The Forum is also looking at WiMAX from a slightly different perspective. while previous efforts included fixed or portable WiMAX based on IEEE 802.16d standards, the profile work within 700 MHz will be strictly 802.16e and especially mobile.
See figure above for D Block, etc.
"We now know that only the D Block may not sell in this auction," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) said in a statement. "The construction of a nationwide, next-generation, interoperable broadband network for public safety is a crucial policy objective, and the need for such a network has not diminished."
As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Dingell has pushed aggressively for a nationwide public safety network. With valuable D Block spectrum expected to still be available after the auction concludes, the FCC is expected to re-bid at least some of the spectrum using new rules.
Bidding for the C Block has stalled for days, and speculation has grown that Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless placed the leading $4.74 billion bid for the spectrum in the secret auction. Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which had campaigned aggressively to create the spectrum block for interchangeable devices and services, is the likely second bidder for the C Block band.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said recently that he hoped a bidder would emerge for the D Block to improve public safety responses. "If no one steps forward, the commission will have to reevaluate," he told reporters.