Saturday 3 January 2009
Everything you want to know on Single Carrier FDMA
Single Carrier FDMA Discussion Forum
Thursday 1 January 2009
Happy New Year 2009
Wednesday 31 December 2008
Bar Coded Train Tickets on Mobile
The Association ot Train Operating Companies has announced that all its franchisees will be able to take orders from train travellers straight from their phone and receive their tickets literally seconds before trains depart.
The system uses Masabi's tried and tested mobile ticketing solutions which relies on a barcode image that is scanned by the appropriate device(s) - as used by City AM newspaper and for V-fest events.
There's no need to sign-up and fast repeat purchases can simply be done using the card's CVV.
In addition, you won't be charged extra for using the sytem which uses US Government certified security encryption and when things go wrong, the new barcodes contain enough ticket information to allow alternative systems to validate tickets.
Ben Wittaker of Masabi said that "Once you send your text message to purchase your ticket, you will receive a response with a barcode reference, which can be scanned by inspectors."
Commentators hope that the service is more reliable than the UK train network and more secure than Transport For London's own Oyster system which has suffered a number of security scares in the past few months.
National Express, Heathrow Express and Chiltern Railways have already adopted the Rail Settlement Plan. This will lay the foundations of the rail ticketing body in charge of drafting the UK-wide standard which will oversee the use of tickets printed outside train stations.
Following successful trails with various train companies Masabi has worked with the Rail Settlement plan - the body that cross charges networks for ticketing to create an open standard for train tickets carrying bar codes to be accepted across rail franchises - enabling tickets to be printed out at home, or even displayed on mobile-phone screens, and used on journeys between network operators.
Selling tickets is an expensive part of running a rail franchise, and nearly 90 per cent of tickets are still sold at stations using ticket machines or at traditional windows.
Trials run by Masabi, who specialise in rendering bar-code information on phone screens, have apparently demonstrated that customers will happily buy tickets using their mobile phone - either while travelling to, or on arrival at, the railway station. Masabi's Java application stores the customer's credit card details locally, so the user just keys in the three-digit code from the back of their card along with origin and destination, and the ticket is bought and delivered over SMS or data connection where available.
But the standard also allows for bar codes to be rendered on other devices, or printed out after being bought on-line. Ticket inspectors will need to be equipped with bar-code readers, of course, but many are already sporting the technology and the standard has been devised in such a way that the last eight digits can be manually entered and checked on-line if necessary. Where a bar-code reader is used it shouldn't be necessary to perform an on-line verification as the 2D bar code contains authenticated details of the journey paid for.
The service does open up the opportunity to have one's phone poised, ready to buy a ticket should an inspector turn up, but you'll have to ensure you're are in the middle of a long carriage for that plan - as being dependent on timely SMS delivery to avoid a fine is not a good position to be in.
See Masabi's website for details.
Tuesday 30 December 2008
Improved Antenna to revolutionise mobile battery life
The invention involves a packaging technique to connect the antenna with the circuits via a wireless connection between a micro-antenna embedded within the circuits on the chip.
He estimates his module consumes 12 times less power than the traditional, wired-transmitter module. It is also much simpler in design, lowering the overall cost of any hand-held device, he said.
Mr. Shamim has filed patent applications in the U.S. and in Canada.
Earlier this year, the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation honoured Mr. Shamim and Mr. Arsalan as student researchers of the year for their work in the field of wireless biomedical sensors.
2008 saw an explosion in mobile social networking
Interesting article on Fierce Mobile Content on how Social Networking sites are being shaped by Mobiles and Vice-versa:
The volume of U.S. wireless subscribers who accessed social networks via mobile handset increased 182 percent between September 2007 and October 2008 according to a recent consumer study conducted by research firms The Kelsey Group and ConStat--in all, about 9.6 percent of U.S. subscribers ages 18 and over connected with a social network via mobile handset during the past year, compared to just 3.4 percent 12 months earlier.
A separate user study released this fall by market analysis firm ABI Research reports close to half of all social networking users have now visited destinations like MySpace and Facebook via mobile device. Forty-six percent of social network members have visited their favorite sites on their phones, with more than half of them checking for comments and messages from their friends--about 45 percent have also posted status updates. ABI adds that among all mobile social networking users, nearly 70 percent have visited MySpace, with another 67 percent checking their Facebook accounts. No other social networking destination achieved 15 percent mobile adoption. ABI suggests that consumers do not wish to create new and separate social networking profiles for the mobile platform, but instead prefer to access their existing social networking accounts on the go.
Both Facebook and MySpace enjoyed banner years in mobile. In November, Facebook announced its mobile userbase has expanded from 5 million to 15 million since the beginning of 2008--writing on The Facebook Blog, mobile team engineer Wayne Chang adds that in the 24 hours after the site began allowing subscribers to comment on their friends' status updates via the Facebook mobile site, users posted close to a million status comments. No less impressive, MySpace announced that same month that its integrated mobile solution customized for device maker Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones generated more than 400,000 downloads in its first seven days of release, an all-time high for both MySpace and RIM in terms of first-week downloads. Perhaps most important, the success of the BlackBerry MySpace app underscores social networking's growing profile among enterprise users--for many smartphone-toting professionals, 2008 was the year they abandoned their Rolodexes in favor of making and nurturing their contacts via the virtual world.
I can relate to this as mobile is now the main source of internet connectivity for my wife. I have been asked to get the new INQ1 phone from '3' as it would make her experience of Facebook better.
Monday 29 December 2008
Simplifying LTE/SAE Interfaces
Femtocell interference by macro network is now addressed
If one understand the basic concept of femtocells that the concern for interference is obvious. The femtocells and macrocell network share the same carrier and hence the cause for interference. The simplest way to avoid interference is for the femtocell to utilise a different carrier than the surrounding macro network. But I think this will be like running away from the problem instead of solving it. Also this not very much feasible or practical solution either because majority of 3G operators do not have sufficient spectrum.
This issue was really serious and as expected whoever involved with the femtocell deployment specially the Femto Forum got involved into the research to answers the queries regarding the interference.
The Femto Forum study therefore focused on finding technological solutions for mitigating interference when both the femtocell and macrocell networks share the same carrier. These methods are already being developed for pre-standard femtocell solutions, and Femto Forum members are working to bring them within the standards framework.
The main objective of the study was to identify a number of solutions that will mitigate any potential interference of the macro network by the femtocells.
The first really good news is that the study found femtocells have the potential to deliver an order of magnitude of more capacity than the macro network alone when used in dense deployments, even when occupying the same radio channel as the macrocell.
Effectively what it’s been suggested is that any interference related barriers to wide scale femtocell deployment have been removed so operators will be able to maximise the capacity benefits offered by femtocells.
Following are the key solutions suggested for interference mitigation considering that femtocell and macro cell using the same carrier:
- Adaptive Pilot Power Control: In this case the femtocell dynamicallyadjusts its transmit power in response to the current level of signals fromsurrounding cells and the desired coverage area.
- Extended Tests for Dynamic Range: This will ensure that femtocell designsare able to operate reliably even in the presence of nearby high powermobile phones connected to the macro network (this test has already beenincorporated into the latest 3GPP Release 8, 25.104 specification).
- Uplink power capping: This technique specify that the uplink power of the mobile phone is capped when operating in the femtocell environment thus ensuring that even in difficult radio conditions,the phone hands-off to the macro network before its transmit power increasesto the point where macro noise rise is a problem.
- Dynamic receiver gain management: Automatic gain or adaptive attenuation in the femtocell will ensure that femtocells can offer good service to both near and far mobile phones without unnecessarily increasing the phone transmit power, therefore keeping the noise rise to a minimum.
At a time when mobile operators are seeing data usage rocket, femtocells offer an economic and effective way to deal with demand. This therefore makes it very important for the femtocell technology to sort out any niggling issues.
There is no doubt that by utilizing the identified interference management techniques femtocells can offer operators an effective method to increase capacity and coverage within theirexisting networks through dense cell deployments.
Friday 26 December 2008
Marketting is the key for femtocells success
There are so many multinational operators who are conducting trials as above with the objective of launching commercial pilots during Q1/2009.
However this opportunity is reliant upon mobile operators developing and marketing a proposition that will have obvious appeal to the consumer.
Even now in some countries the mobile operators struggle to understand what femtocell proposition will work in their market? They understand the business case, but the key issue of how to persuade a customer to acquire and install a femtocell remains unsolved in many regions.
This could be explained best by taking the example of Germany where cellphone subscribers are accustomed to using advantageous 'home-zone' tariffs that use the normal cellular network to determine when the subscriber is making calls from their home. Attempting to undermine this attractive proposition with a femtocell-based solution could be difficult. However places where comprehensive 3G coverage is compromised it is possibly providing the subscriber with their own femtocell, or personal 'home cell which could eventually prove to be particularly attractive for the customer.
I believe the key challenge is the consumer proposition and the future success depends on mobile operators and their ability to package their femtocell propositions appropriately for the various market segments.
I always ask the question whether standalone femtocells are likely to be short-lived.
ip.access claims it is already seeing demand for femtocell modules to be integrated into other devices, such as WiFi home hubs and set-top boxes, etc.
I hope you agree that with femtocell technology reaching commercial maturity, attention is now switching to developing application services and operator business models that will maximize the technology benefits which will eventually lead to a success story for femtocells.
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 |
Texting and Internet being trialled on flights
BMI is piloting mobile internet and texting services on planes, but frequent flyers need not get up in arms about getting stuck next to chatty people, as the airline has wisely chosen to leave out voice calls.
The service, from OnAir, will be trialled for six months on just one plane – an Airbus A320, which flies between Heathrow and Moscow. Passengers will be able to use SMS, email and internet on mobiles, PDAs and laptops with GSM SIM cards or dongles.
Peter Spencer, managing director of BMI, said: “It opens up an exciting new era of travellers being able to stay in touch by text message and email whilst in the air.
The pilot project isn’t just about testing the tech or the take-up, however. “The trial will help us address some of the social and etiquette issues regarding the use of mobile communications devices inflight and provide valuable customer feedback which will be at the heart of deciding how the service is developed and rolled out across the remainder of our mid haul fleet,” Spencer said.
“We have chosen not to implement the voice call option as part of the trial,” he added.