Monday 13 August 2007
Beginning of the Cablefree world
With UWB becoming popular and more devices about to be rolled out, the cable connections between TV, VCR, DVD players, Camcorders, etc can be a thing of past.
In UK, OFCOM removed the restrictions for the use of UWB devices upto a range of 30 metres. In the US and Japan, UWB home hubs are a popular way of sharing domestic broadband.
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) can be used to send huge amounts of information between electronic devices, making it suitable for connecting items such as digital TV decoders and DVD players to television sets, or digital cameras to computers.
It could also be used to wirelessly link satellite dishes or cable TV connections to set-top boxes, doing away with the need for cables to be poked through walls and run around skirting boards. Satellite broadcaster Sky, for instance, is understood to be looking at whether UWB could be integrated into its equipment.
Described by techies as "Bluetooth on steroids", UWB can operate over distances of up to 30 metres. Japanese electronics manufacturers are already producing modems that use UWB, while Cambridge-based chip maker ARM Holdings has deals with several companies that plan to make UWB devices.
Separately, Vodafone yesterday joined the Wimax Forum which is creating standards and specifications for a new longer-range wireless broadband technology. The company stressed that it is taking a neutral stance on the next generation of wireless technologies, but the move raised eyebrows in the mobile phone industry.
Wimax, which can operate over many miles, is seen as a competitor to another next generation wireless technology, which is being developed by the mobile phone companies and builds on the existing 3G standard. LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is an mobile industry-led project designed to upgrade the existing 3G service. The LTE group is supposed to come up with recommendations on a new standard next month.
Earlier this year Vodafone's chief executive Arun Sarin warned that the process of getting a new wireless standard was taking too long. "As an industry it takes us a long time to get things done - we need to move faster or others will eat our lunch," he said.
Meanwhile The European Commission is opening up the wireless technology market by discarding out-dated rules limiting the areas of available radio spectrum. Next-generation wireless technologies such as BlackBerrys and smartphones work best over low frequencies that, until now, were reserved for GSM mobile phones. According to a statement last week, the Commission will allow new services to co-exist alongside GSM. The aim is to establish a more flexible, market-driven approach to spectrum management, says European Union telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding.
Sunday 12 August 2007
Training on Latest 3G/4G Topics
High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) - 1 day
High Speed Packet Access (HSPA/HSPA+) - 2 days
Introduction to MBMS - ½ day
MBMS and Mobile TV - 1 day
Advanced MBMS - 1-2 day(s)
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) - 2 days
Robust Header Compression (RoHC) - ½ day
Long Term Evolution (LTE) - 1 day
TCP/IP Refresher Course - 1 day
TCP/IP Overview for Telecom Engineers - 2 days
WiMAX and 4G Wireless - 1 day
New Wireless PAN (WPAN) Standards - 1 day
Thursday 9 August 2007
Vodafone plays the WiMAX card
WiMAX standard is often compared to Wi-Fi, though the comparison is unfair as WiMAX isn't based on a 20-year-old wired standard but was designed for wireless use (at least, the bits not borrowed from DOCSIS were). WiMAX offers greater speed and range than Wi-Fi, but most importantly it offers quality of service guarantees that make VoIP and streaming applications easier to manage.
"Our membership of the WiMAX Forum will complement our existing memberships of other key industry bodies such as the GSMA, 3GPP, and the Next Generation Mobile Network initiative," Vodafone global chief technology officer Steve Pusey said.
WiMAX has been heavily pushed by Intel, which intends to build it into laptop chipsets, encouraging rapid adoption of a technology in which it owns key intellectual property.
According to Ovum analysis:
Although a slightly crude generalisation, it's basically accurate to see the WiMAX Forum as the wireless Internet camp; the 3GPP as the wireless telecoms camp. There was a time when those two camps represented philosophies which were mutually exclusive and frequently antagonistic. These days, it makes less sense to see the world in those terms, because convergence between telecoms and the Internet - though far from complete - is now well under way. But at this early phase of the transition to convergence, it's not yet clear whether the predominant technologies and business models will eventually be those of telecoms, or those of the Internet. It's sensible, therefore, to remain interested in (and influential over) both possible outcomes, so long as they both remain possible.
Tuesday 7 August 2007
Which Mobile TV technology to go for?
A recent survey shows more than 40 percent of cell phone users in China like the idea of watching TV on handsets. Some pundits even predict the number of mobile TV users in China will jump to nearly 60 million in 2008, and revenue from handset sales and programming will generate 1.3 billion yuan (US$170m).
The road to mobile TV, however, most likely will be bumpy. Current trials have found several vulnerabilities, such as handset display hang-up when video content is loaded, short battery life and overheating, that must be fixed.
What’s really hindering mobile TV development in China (and, arguably, in other geographical regions), however, is lack of agreement on one standard. In June, a government agency overseeing the mobile TV industry reaffirmed CMMB (China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting) as the official standard for 3G video service. The reason: CMMB is homegrown and completely free of foreign IPRs.
The State Administration of Radio, Film and TV developed CMMB last October, but a tug-of-war over the standard has undermined SARFT’s efforts to implement it this year. Despite a slow start, SARFT has obtained 25MHz in bandwidth on 2.5GHz for CMMB service and plans to build networks for the Olympics in six cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao.
The other contenders CMMB must fight are DVB-H (Europe), Media-FLO (United States), T-DMB (Korea), DMB-TH (a digital TV spec modified for handheld developed by Tsinghua University), T-MMB (Nufrontsoft, which is aligned with MII, the Chinese telecom regulatory body) and CMB (Huawei).
For now, CMMB appears to be most appealing because of SARFT backing. SARFT’s control of programming and distribution in China gives CMMB a huge regulatory and cost advantage over rival mobile TV standards.
Recognizing that CMMB has clout in China, a large industry alliance of 120 companies backs the standard, including heavyweights such as Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson, and Chinese firms like Lenovo, Huawei and ZTE.
One of the main benefits of CMMB, according to SARFT, is that it does not charge royalties for two years, saving an estimated 1 billion yuan (US$130m) in foreign IPR payments. SARFT hopes the savings will encourage handset manufacturers to cooperate in perfecting the standard and expediting proliferation.
There are other concerns. Some Chinese standards are not really independent but a hodgepodge of foreign versions. Reports say T-MMB, developed by Nufrontsoft, incorporates certain core DAB patents like DMB that will be in effect until 2013. Critics say if Chinese handset makers adopt T-MMB they will have to dole out hefty royalties–about US$6 per set or up to US$120m to US$300m per year.
CMMB and T-MMB use different approaches to video transmission and delivery. T-MMB uses a streaming overlay on top of mobile infrastructure, so that it shares the total bandwidth and download speed for the service, like the current video service. CMMB relies on a tuner installed in the handset to receive video signals over the air.
The T-MMB advocates say adding a tuner will compromise other features affecting handset and overall performance, while the CMMB supporters predict T-MMB will be dead on arrival because video traffic will crash the network and cost will skyrocket.
The debate over mobile TV standards is not just about patriotism and technology. SARFT has jurisdiction over broadcasting via various media outlets, including handheld devices, while T-MMB is a brainchild of MII which, by default, only provides a transmission conduit to end users but not content and distribution.
The problem is that both sides see mobile TV as a golden opportunity but want to run the market on their own terms. At this time, the central government sees it as a market issue and is reluctant to provide guidelines, so tussle over mobile TV probably will go on for some time before technical issues are straightened out.
Monday 6 August 2007
UMA is not Dead
Because femtocells do not use WiFi signals, they don't require dual-mode handsets, which opens up the market to customers that don't want to ditch their current phones just to get the benefits of a stronger in-home signal. Meanwhile, potential T-mobile HotSpot@Home customers can only choose between two phones (the Nokia 6086 and Samsung T409), which means existing customers have to ditch their current mobile phones for a dual-mode device. Blackberry 8820 will soon be available in U.S. which has support of UMA.
"The femtocell industry is starting to appreciate the three year head startOne thing to remember here is that not all mobiles supporting WiFi will support UMA. On the other hand all phones that support UMA will support WiFi.
UMA has over proprietary approaches being proposed for device-to-core network connectivity," said Patrick Tao, Kineto's vice president of technology. "As the
technology behind successful l dual-mode handset services, such as unik from
FT/Orange and T-Mobile's Hotspot @Home, the 3GPP UMA standard has already identified and addressed the real-world deployment issues operators face in
bringing femtocells to market. These issues include security, device
authentication, access controls, handover, regulatory compliance, as well as
scalability to support millions of endpoints."
Friday 3 August 2007
Certified Wireless USB is finally here
Two manufacturers of laptop PCs and two designers of wireless hubs and adapters are the first companies to receive consumer product certifications from the Universal Serial Bus Implementers Forum (USB-IF). The Certified Wireless USB products are expected to be in stores for the back-to-school and holiday gift season.
Previously certified silicon from Alereon, Intel Corp., NEC Corp., Realtek Corp., and WiQuest Communications are integrated into the products, according to the USB-IF.
The two laptop companies are Dell Computer for its Inspiron 1720 notebook and Lenovo for its ThinkPad T61/T61p 15.4-inch Widescreen Notebook. Networking companies D-Link and IOGear each had a wireless hub and also an adapter certified. Certification of the Wireless USB protocol by the USB-IF assures the interoperability of devices from a variety of manufacturers.
Certified Wireless USB is based on the WiMedia Alliance's Ultra-WideBand (UWB) common radio platform, which is capable of PHY-layer data rates of 480 Mbit/s at distances up to 3 meters and 110 Mbit/s at up to 10 meters.
From an engineering perspective, the question of co-existence with other wireless technologies in the 3 GHz band has been a persistent question for Wireless USB.
Dell and Lenovo have announced the first notebooks with embedded Certified Wireless USB chips - the Dell Inspiron 1720 and Lenovo ThinkPad T61and T62p. The laptops connect wirelessly to USB peripherals hooked up to Certified Wireless USB hubs such as those released by D-Link and IOGear. They will carry a Certified Wireless USB logo. In the interim, until peripherals catch up with the technology, they will need to be plugged into a wireless USB hub. This will allow the Dell and Lenovo laptops to communicate with a peripheral device such as a conventional printer plugged into the hub.
Tuesday 31 July 2007
2G is Dead, Long live 3G
Two bands of spectrum — at 900MHz and 1800MHz respectively — were set aside in the 1980s for use by the emerging 2G/GSM mobile-phone market. However, since 3G/UMTS became a reality earlier this decade, many users have switched over to the new standard, which operates at the higher-frequency 2100MHz.
Neither Orange, T-Mobile nor 3 had responded to a request for comment on the EC's proposals at the time of writing.
BT Movio ... going ... going ... gone
- Downloaded more than a million reality TV clips in the last year.
- Downloaded over a million SeeMeTV clips every month, with £100,000 being made by budding directors in the process.
- Last summer watched World Cup TV on their mobiles nearly 4 million times.
Friday 27 July 2007
HSPA in Latin America
Erasmo Rojas, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean for 3G Americas commented, “EDGE delivers an excellent customer experience for wireless data, serving as a foundation for customer uptake of wireless data services and increasing revenues for all GSM operators. The next move is to UMTS/HSDPA mobile broadband. We expect many more launches of HSDPA in 2007 and 2008 throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.”
As GSM customers push for speed and applications to satisfy their demands for services such as web browsing, email, mobile payments, interactive gaming and video sharing, UMTS/HSDPA provides the solution with average downlink throughput data rates over 1 Mbps in favorable conditions and latency measuring at 70-100 milliseconds. +
Many more operators throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are planning their move to mobile broadband with HSDPA. Rojas continued, “However, some carriers need additional spectrum allocations before UMTS/HSDPA networks can be launched.”
Tuesday 24 July 2007
Google jumps on the Femtocells Bandwagon
Yes, I know that Google's talking about pitching $4.6B for the US 700MHz spectrum... and yes, I know that there's a 700MHz standard for UMTS going through 3GPP at the moment. But I'd have thought that femtos at that sort of
frequency was fairly pointless, as the big attraction of 700MHz is that it's got great range and goes through walls easily.
The real advantage of 3G femtos, in my view, lies in 2100MHz 3G spectrum (i.e. most of the world today outside the US), and probably in the future in 2600MHz band. It's conceivable that Google might want to start bidding for those chunks of spectrum around the world, but I'm unconvinced that it's
going to follow the classic cellular path (i.e. 3GPP UMTS or LTE) rather than something more Internet-like.
There's an outside possibility that Google might, in fact, want to do something with WiMAX - but at present, Ubiquisys doesn't do WiMAX femtos, although chipset supplier PicoChip is certainly doing suitable silicon. Maybe that's what the investment's for . . .