NTT DoCoMo's F801i Kids Phone

TOKYO, JAPAN, December 10, 2007 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that the FOMA™ F801i, a new child-friendly 3G mobile phone loaded with special features for the safety and convenience of children, will go on sale December 20.

Building on the popular FOMA SA800i model that DoCoMo released in March 2006, the F801i offers many new or improved child-friendly features for security, theft/loss prevention, ease of use and more.

In an emergency, the child can quickly switch on the phone's 100-decibel alarm, which produces two types of noise alternately. When the alarm is activated, the phone also emits a bright light (high-intensity LED) that is easily visible to people in the surrounding area.

The phone can be set to automatically notify loved ones when the alarm is activated, and provide the handset's current location as well. Computer-generated phone calls can be placed to up to three registered numbers and messages can be sent to registered individuals who subscribe to the i-mode™ location service called imadoco search™.

In addition, the child can discreetly message their location to a registered imadoco search user by simply pushing a button on the side of the phone.

If the phone's power is switched off, a presetting can enable the handset to automatically turn back on (in as little as five minutes) and message the incident and the phone's location to a registered DoCoMo phone.

An amulet-style remote controller worn by the child can be used to make a misplaced phone beep if within a range of about 10 meters (may vary with usage environment). If the user moves even farther from the handset, the phone can automatically lock (requires presetting). If the handset remains out of the amulet's range for more than five minutes, a message can be sent automatically to a registered DoCoMo phone.

The F801i is ergonomically designed for easy use by small hands, and its waterproof body can withstand accidental immersion (up to 30 minutes at one-meter depth) or concentrated water sprays.

The phone's soft-rectangle shape and round speaker grille enclosed by a ring-shape LED were conceived by renowned designer Kashiwa Sato to symbolize safety, peace of mind, creativity and the future.

DoCoMo, as part of its corporate social responsibility program, provides education on the proper use of mobile phones by children. The Mobile Phone Safety Program involves workshops for students from elementary through high school, as well as for parents. DoCoMo has conducted more than 3,600 workshops for some 540,000 people throughout Japan since 2004. This program, along with services for site-access restriction, location information, etc., form a broad framework within which DoCoMo works to provide parents and their children with a safe and secure environment for using mobile phones.

More Photos of the phone can be found at Akhiabara News website.

In 4G we trust

So we have this again, LTE is being referred to as 4G. Firstly, this is not really news because i mentioned this in September. Check the post here. Also Verizon is not the first operator to commit to LTE future. AT&T has said the same before them. Regarding the terminology i said earlier that LTE is 3.9G, see here. But 4G sounds better than 3.9G and will confuse ordinary people less so...

Anyway, an article titled "3G bad; 4G better be better" came to my attention:

Not surprisingly, tech-savvy young adults are frustrated by the speed and connectivity limitations of 3G networks and expect both better speed and more reliable connectivity when 4G arrives, according to focus groups in the U.S. and Japan queried by Nortel and the consultant firm CSMG ADVENTIS.

“There was uniform dissatisfaction with today’s UMTS or 3G networks, whether that was because the feeds just weren’t good enough, the applications that they were running, like video, just weren’t good enough.

They look forward in the next generation of technologies to something that can deliver their expectations for these applications in ways that are easy, friendly and useful,” said Scott Wickware, vice president of wireless networks for Nortel.

Wickware said that the focus groups, based in New York City, Seattle and Washington, D.C. in the U.S. and Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, had similar unhappy feelings about their 3G wireless services.

“We expected the Japanese to have a different perspective on this because they’re perceived to be the most tech-savvy nation on the planet, but 25-year-old businesspeople in both countries seem to want the same thing,” Wickware said.

Not coincidentally, what they want is what Nortel has been preaching: “this hyper-trend called mega-connectivity that says everything that could be connected to the network and would be beneficial to the network will be connected to the network,” Wickware said. “We couldn’t have scripted it any better because the feedback came back almost universally saying the same thing.”

The feedback also indicated that users did not necessarily want a single multi-use device but preferred multiple devices connected to the network.
“They don’t want just the mobile phone connected to the network or their PC, they want their camera, their MP3 player, their vehicle, they want everything. I think the trending is a single or dual-purpose device is what a lot of people want,” he said.

Overall, he said, respondents are looking for more from future network services.

“We asked them a wide variety of questions about what they wanted from 4G. We didn’t define 4G for them and lead them down the path to see what they had to say, but left it pretty wide open so we were getting top-of-mind stuff that wasn’t influenced by our views,” he said.

Long time back i remember being so happy with Dial up Internet Connection but now i am not too happy with my 8M broadband. So i suppose the same goes for other technologies.

FMC: The long wait

FMC might take some time to roll out because nobody wants to fix something thats not broken.

According to this old (and relevant) article:

Despite the hype, heavy adoption isn’t expected until the next decade, analysts say. Dragging it down is carrier reluctance to market FMC services and tepid demand among cash-strapped U. S. companies still trialing products from established vendors and newcomers.

“Why would [carriers] want to do anything to disrupt the nature of the return that they’re getting in tariffed services?” asks Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research, referring to wireline and wireless carriers such as Verizon and AT&T, which continue to see growing wireless revenue and fat profit margins of 40% to 45% every quarter. “Naturally, they are much happier to take your minutes of use and apply them to cell phones. Same would [be true for] a tariffed voice service. There’s really no incentive for them to rock that boat.”

Both wireline service providers and cellular providers lose revenue when calls are moved off of their respective networks and onto the enterprise’s wireless LAN (WLAN). They lose additional revenue if the off-site traffic is routed to another enterprise network, Insight notes.

A recent article on this topic says:

It sounds like a simple concept, but FMC requires lots of technical stitching on the part of the carrier or vendor to smooth out the seams between the wired and unwired worlds. FMC melds several disparate infrastructures - such as TDM and packet VoIP, IP data, Wi-Fi and various flavors of cellular - into one. There are multiple instantiations of FMC from which an enterprise can choose, which makes the right FMC decision more difficult.

But once the networks are stitched and the decisions about whether to opt for a carrier managed service or enterprise-centric FMC implementation are made, the benefits are manifold, industry experts say. They include the ability to be reached through one phone number wherever you are - at your desk, around campus, roaming about or at home - as well as reduced enterprise telecom costs by, for example, bypassing international mobile roaming charges when making cross-border calls.

Enterprises also can save on telecom costs. In addition to bypassing international roaming charges, businesses can tame their out-of-control cellular bills by selecting one or two service providers or vendors to include cellular as a component of an overall FMC or unified communications package, Mathias says.

As i said in the start, nobody is going to make a move on FMC till someone starts shouting and others start listening to him.

Now, according to a report by The Yankee Group, one of the positives that FMC brings to the table—its cost-savings by moving mobile minutes off wireless and onto wireline devices— does not outweigh the trepidation of enterprise IT professionals and decision makers.

“We see it as something that will hit eventually but in the short term probably not,” said Brian Kotlyar, research associate with The Yankee Group and author of the report, “Productivity is the Prettier Face of FMC.”

Twenty-nine percent of the 302 IT decision makers surveyed for the report considered FMC a nice technology to have but not a critical application on their networking road map. Even more daunting, there is an adoption rate of less than 2 percent for the concept, the report said, so things aren’t taking off in that space even while it might be viewed as a positive.

Finally some stats to put everything in perspective:

Though FMC registers barely a blip on the radar screen, there will be 92 million FMC subscribers worldwide by 2011 and FMC revenue will amount to $28 billion by that time, representing 3% of overall mobile subscriptions globally, according to market research firm Informa Telecoms and Media. The firm says the United States will lead the way with 33.2 million subscribers.

As a consequence, sales of dual-mode handsets will increase to 5% of global handset sales by 2011, Informa expects. Eighty-five percent of these sales will be to consumers adopting FMC services for convenience and cost benefits, although a "significant proportion of revenues" will be from enterprises adopting FMC as part of a unified communications strategy for more effective business interactions, the firm says.

So is anyone doing something on FMC?

If you want to read further:

• The pros and cons of dual-mode phones
• Is FMC good for you?
• FMC: Enterprises aren't ready yet

ZTE now shows off 2Mbps TD-HSDPA

ZTE Corporation a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, showcased its 2M TD-HSDPA high-speed wireless downloading technology solution in line with the company’s theme of “Talking to the Future” at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress 2007 held from 12th to 14th November 2007 at The Venetian® Macau. The GSMA Mobile Asia Congress (formerly 3GSM World Congress Asia) is the sister event of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and is attended by mobile professionals and innovators from across Asia and around the world.

With its 2M TD-HSDPA technology solution, ZTE clearly shows its vision to further enhance the TD-SCDMA concept and make it a part of consumers’ mobile wireless communication experience. ZTE’s 2M TD-HSDPA technology provides user endpoint’s downstream data rate as high as 2M, allowing users to enjoy smooth high-definition movies online, download documents in bulk, as well as experience many top-line multimedia functions. 2M speed rate is best achieved on 1.6M broadband single carrier, while 20Mbps can be achieved on multi-HSDPA carriers.

HSDPA is a large volume mobile multimedia service 3G technology for GSM-based mobile phones developed by mobile operators to bring true broadband speed wirelessly. It incorporates AMC (Adaptive Modulation and Coding), HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest), RRM (radio resource management) and MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Out-put) technologies, all of which significantly improve downstream data rate.

“ZTE’s 2M TD-HSDPA showcase at GSMA Mobile Asia Congress Macau builds the momentum of our successful presence in PT/Wireless & Networks Expo Comm in Beijing, China last month,” says Mr. Liang Ming, International Marketing Director of TD-SCDMA products, ZTE Corporation. “As the first provider to showcase TD-MBMS mobile TV solution, we further solidify our remarkable capability in TD area with this solution. As a run-up to the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, ZTE is setting the stage as among the pioneers in providing users in the country with extraordinary TD-SCDMA wireless solutions.”

Lets talk Femtocell

Femtocell is back on agenda with activity from the Femtoforum. Femto Forum has formed four specific working groups to study the subject (femtocell progress) from multiple angles.


The working groups include

over-the-air radio and physical layer issues;

networks and interoperability;

regulatory issues;

market issues.


Each area is receiving support from both vendors and operators including such heavyweights as Rogers Wireless, UTStarcom, Motorola, NEC and Nokia Siemens Networks.


Since the Forum is not a standards-setting body, it’s biggest goal is to “make sure that we can speed up the standards and that they’re appropriate and actually span across the different air interfaces, including the WiMAX area and the 3GPP and 3GPP2 interfaces,” said Simon Saunders, the Forum’s chairman. “Where there are commonalities, that helps to drive economies of scale.” Since the “absolutely core focus” for femtocells is the residential environment, “it’s very important to make all the pieces work together so the femto works well with the DSL or cable infrastructure behind it,” said Saunders.


Meanwhile, IDATE (a consulting firm specialising in Femtocells) expects to see the femtocell market developing rapidly over the following years. While a lack of agreed standards and outstanding technical issues will inhibit major rollouts in 2008, network integration issues are likely to be solved by 2009.Coupled with cost reductions this should lead to a ramp up in volumes in 2009/2010. IDATE believes 10 million UMTS femtocells will be shipped in 2010, rising to 18 million in 2011.




In another report the prediction is that there can be between 20 and 40 million users by end of 2012.

An article in Telecoms.com (sorry for subscribers only) argues that for Femtocells to be successful, Voice is not enough:

The business case for femtocells involves a voice-only strategy, the potential for large incremental revenues is questionable, while an approach that positions femtocells as a platform for delivering multimedia services to the home will yield greater financial benefits.

"One of the big advantages of deploying femtocells is the ability to offer good coverage and data speeds close to those of fixed-line access, in the very place where people are most likely to want them: in the home," Heath says. "Consequently, operators should be looking at services which fit these criteria, rather than simply offering cheap mobile voice minutes."

He added that in Finland, where mobile subscribers enjoy good indoor coverage, traffic from fixed to mobile networks shifted 10 per cent in 2006 - the most ever for the country in one year. That migration proves, he said, that once mobile usage is perceived as being affordable, even though it might still be more expensive than fixed, people will adopt it.

"Therefore, operators might not need to go as far as offering cheaper voice calls," Heath said. "Instead, they should look at carefully segmenting their customer base and target customers with little or no indoor coverage."

Tal Givoly, chief scientist at Amdocs said the introduction of femtocells was not a big step forward in terms of technology or the ability to deliver new services. He said that many operators were actually aiming to deliver Telco 2.0 and become "purveyors of the digital lifestyle" but that femtocells were essentially a Telco 1.0 play and would not help operators achieve that objective. "First cases would have to be increased customer loyalty rather than substantially revised new services," he said.

Mobile TV is one service that operators are eager to roll out and for which femtocells could be seen as a disruptive technology that saves operators a great deal of capex and opex. Heath said that DVB-H requires operators to invest a considerable amount in new infrastructure, requiring as it does a lot of new transmitters. He added that the development of a range of killer applications, including mobile TV, video and audio services, would significantly broaden the consumer appeal of femtocell services.

As the market progresses toward triple- and quadruple-play offerings, consumers will most likely expect high-quality mobile TV, video and audio services, which will be difficult to deliver using 3G macrocell networks. Heath said that deploying femtocells could substantially reduce the investment necessary and achieve significant capacity and cost savings.

Heath also says that although many network operators are offering mobile broadband services at attractive prices, they can do so only while 3G networks are relatively underused. "Without femtocells, they could soon run into QoS problems as mass take-up occurs," he said.

Finally, if you want an alternative view to these analysis then you may want to read this report from Analysis.

Femtocells, while likely to provide great benefits for mobile subscribers and improved in-building service for mobile operators are not a technological end game. On the contrary, the femtos, which improve in-building mobile connectivity, carry considerable commercial risk, according to a report, “Femtocells in the Consumer Market: business case and marketing plan,” published by Analysys.

UTRAN Network Sharing

This is a new feature that the network operators are getting more interested in. The problem is that the Network side is more prepared than the handset side which still has some way to go.

The possibility of sharing part or all of the network by two or more separated commercial entities was not considered in the initial specification work of 3GPP. However, as e.g. a result of partnerships, the need for two or more operators to share common network infrastructure has become an economically desirable goal. Meanwhile, changes to public network operating licence conditions make such sharing possible from a regulatory point of view.

Some work has already been carried out in this area with the definition of the equivalent PLMN concept and partly with the introduction of Iu-Flex, but there is still the need to consolidate these activities under a coherent work plan.

Network sharing is in a way similar to what is done by MVNO's who use the host network to offer services. In network sharing case the other operator would not generally be a MVNO and probably the equipment would belong to both of the operators along with the cost and revenue earned. This is easily possible if the network is not overloaded (as in case of 3 UK) but if its a long time existing operator (like Vodafone) than they may not have enough spare capacity to allow someone else to share their infrastructure.

3GPP Specs for further reference:

3GPP TS 23.251 - Network Sharing; Architecture and functional description

3GPP TR 22.951 - Service aspects and requirements for network sharing

LTE prophesized by 2010

One of my friends passed me this car number plate and you can see that this photograph was taken in 1994. It predicts that LTE will be available in 2010 ...it might be true after all ;)

Thanks Vipin for passing this to me.

Concept Phone: Chinese Scroll Phone

Another one of the concept phones, better known as "The Chinese Scroll Cellphone".

It was designed by Yun Lang and has some obvious details that can be seen on the image:

the numeric keyboard is wisely placed on the scroll

it makes use of a flexible display, similar to the Nokia 888

you don’t need to unroll the scroll to make a call Yun Liang’s scroll cellphone takes its inspiration from how traditional Chinese paintings are unfurled.

Source

More Statistics...24 Million LTE Subscribers in 2012

This one comes from Juniper Research who claim that there will be 24 million subscribers by 2012.


The report discusses how LTE is expected to be the long term successor in mobile broadband as it offers a migration path from existing 3G/HSPA technologies already in place. Juniper Research forecasts that, by 2010, LTE - the next generation of mobile broadband (after HSPA), should be going commercial and high definition could by then be a reality on devices.


However, the report warns that LTE needs to continually evolve to remain competitive in cost and performance versus the other leading mobile data technologies set to be foremost over the next five years. The report predicts that HSPA will dominate mobile broadband network deployments, consistently accounting for about 70% of the total mobile broadband subscriber base until 2012. Mobile WiMAX is also expected to achieve single digit proportion of the subscriber base by 2012.


Report author, Howard Wilcox says, "We expect 3GLTE to begin to achieve significant market traction towards the 2011 to 2012 timeframe. By 2012, for example, we forecast that 3GLTE will represent around 24 million subscribers globally. As the GSM Association has said recently, it is a natural follow-on from HSPA and will benefit from the extensive installed base of HSPA worldwide. Western Europe will account for over half of LTE subscribers in 2012."

This should not come as a surprise in case LTE is launched by 2010 but i doubt that. At present not all operators have moved on to HSDPA even though the technology has been stable for over a year now. Then there are few operators who have moved on HSUPA. I know there are still some outstanding problems with HSUPA but overall its quite stable (except FDPCH probably)

Once these are rolled out, operators are going to go on HSPA+ which is the real evolution as it still uses WCDMA base. Why would operators want to abandon the tried and tested technology for something new unless there is no other option.

So my guess would be that these stats will be true but 2 years later than predicted. LTE will start seeing mass rollouts by 2012 (just in time for London Olympics) and by 2014 there will be 24-25 million subscribers.

NG-1: Another Technology?

In an article in Indian Express, the managing director of Vavasi Telegence Farid Arifuddin mentions that they have developed the next-generation wireless access technology called NG1.

This was originally conceptualised as a PhD program in the US. The network
architecture of this technology is state-of-the-art and is based on IP. This
platform can deliver both voice and high-speed mobile data simultaneously with
several applications that have multi-dimensional ramifications. This is the most
spectrum efficient and environment-friendly technology among the available (and
likely to be available) ones. Apart from being spectrum efficient, we have the
unique advantage to enable a large coverage area while we simultaneously cater
to more subscribers within a cell site. These features make it the most
cost-effective solution for the delivery of services.

We earnestly believe that this technology will bring telecom revolution in India, because with the advantages we have in terms of technological superiority, we have a competitive edge and we intend to pass it on to our consumers both in terms of price and product advantages. Since we have a fully IP-based network architecture, with far less infra requirement, rollout time is shorter and can be far more efficient. Moreover, India has not been able to have any significant say in the technological evolution so far. This could bring about a paradigm shift in the long-term evolution of the telecom sector.

Didnt find any more information except that this technology is being developed in China.

Even the official website of Vavasi has very limited information.

Somehow i have a feeling that this is an existing technology being recycled/repackaged as a new technology.