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.

HSPA Data rates

Martin has posted a HSPA data rates table on his blog so I decided to copy it and add a photograph that I took from an Ericsson presentation ;)

• 3.6 MBit/s : Baseline HSPA with 16QAM modulation
• 7.2 MBit/s : 16 QAM, more simultaneous channels)
• 14.4 MBit/s : 16 QAM, even more simultaneous channels
• 21 MBit/s : 64 QAM modulation
• 28 MBit/s : MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output = 2 antennas) + 16 QAM, (3GPP Rel 7)
• 42 MBit/s : MIMO + 64QAM (3GPP Release 8)
• 42 MBit/s : 64QAM + Dual Carrier (3GPP Rel 8)
• 82 MBit/s : MIMO + 64QAM + Dual Carrier (i.e. 2 x 5MHz) (3GPP Release 9)
• + more in case 3GPP decides to increase the number of carriers that can be bundled in Rel 9 or beyond.

Giving up Texting for Lent

Lent, instituted by the Council of Nicaea in 325 and which for most Christian congregations runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter, commemorates the 40 days that Jesus is said to have spent fasting in the desert and rejecting the temptations of Satan before beginning his ministry.

The bishops are encouraging their parishioners to take up new forms of abstinence after the Pope emphasised in his Ash Wednesday address the importance of Lent as a spiritual build-up to Easter and praised the age-old Christian practice of fasting.

Chocolate, cigarettes and alcohol may be the predictable vices to give up for the 40 days of Lent but Italians are being urged to abstain from more contemporary pleasures, like texting, Facebook and iPods.

The Bishop of Modena, in northern Italy, has called on young Italians to give up on Fridays their addiction to sending text messages, in the run-up to Easter Sunday. Archbishop Benito Cocchi said that this would help them to "cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves".

The average Italian sends 50 texts a month, the second highest rate in Europe, behind the UK.
The bishops of Pesaro, on the Adriatic, and of Bari, in the south, have also picked up on the idea of a "text message fast" and more bishops could follow suit.

In the Diocese of Trento, in the foothills of the Alps, Archbishop Luigi Bressan has set out a type of calender of abstinence for his parishioners, with each Sunday of Lent dedicated to a different sacrifice.

He has called on Catholics to abstain from using a car, from logging into Facebook, from listening to music on MP3 players, and from playing computer games. He has also suggested that people use Lent to embrace recycling and he called for "abstinence from egocentricity".

In Venice, the bishop has suggested giving up mineral water and drinking only tap water during Lent.

Network operator '3' released a Facebook phone called INQ last year. Though I am not a fan of Facebook or for that reason the INQ, I know quite a few people are. Maybe this abstaining from the phone for a day maybe a good idea.

Joggler or Post-it?

O2 has recently released a family friendly touchscreen tablet which can act as a replacement for the post it notes many of us leave on the fridge door to communicate with our family members.


The following is from O2's website:

Managing family life can be a struggle. Introducing the O2 Joggler, a new device designed to help organise your family life a little better. Think of it as your new fridge door.

The fridge door has always done its best to organise family life. From birthdays to sports days, from pianos lessons to parents' evenings - it's all there. Somewhere.

The O2 Joggler works with an interactive online calendar and your mobile phone so every family member will know who needs to be where by when. O2 numbers even get text message reminders. Much more than an interactive calendar, the O2 Joggler runs a number of family-friendly applications to support family life and keep your family in the loop, including:

• Includes up-to-the-minute news, sport, traffic and weather updates
• View and load music, videos and photos
• Let everyone in your selected family group know what's going on and who's doing what with your shared O2 Calendar. Set up and update events and, if you are on O2, you can send text reminders to your chosen O2 phone numbers.
• View and load your photos from a USB memory stick which can be inserted into the side of your O2 Joggler. You can save your favourite photos on your O2 Joggler and display them as a slide show on the screen.
• Challenge yourself to a game of Japanese Sudoku.
• Store and watch your favourite videos.

The seven-inch touchscreen device connects wirelessly or via Ethernet cable to home broadband, meaning no SIM is required – and therefore there’s no additional monthly cost. It features a calendar to store appointments and deadlines, and will send text messages as reminders.

While the device can be used by anyone regardless of which network they’re on, the Joggler will only sent info to O2 mobiles – so Junior won’t get the reminder if he’s on Orange, T-Mobile or any other network. For O2 customers, their Joggler will be able to send 50 free text messages a month.

The oddly-named Joggler will be available from early April, for £149.99 or free for O2 customers if taken instead of a handset upgrade. Corporate customers will not be allowed to upgrade to the Joggler, so they'll have to pay out to get one.

Somehow I am not convinced if this device will be popular big time though its failure can easily be blamed on the current financial crisis. Somehow the features remind me of Femtozone services and maybe the Femto application developers can include some features from this into their Femtozone apps :)

LTE can get us out from the current recession

Hello everybody. Just in case you guys thinking where I am then I can tell you that I just returned back from my holiday last week.

Everybody is aware how the market situation is getting worse and there is no doubt it has started affecting the telecomm companies as well.

One of the major doubts I have been carrying from the past few weeks was, what will happen to LTE now after seeing the worsening state of the economy.

As I have mentioned in my previous blogs that the companies are toying with idea of considering HSPA+ as one of the option in case they can’t afford LTE in the current climate.

However I firmly believe that the success of LTE is very important not only for people like me but for the industry as well.

I think with WiMax loosing its grip it’s a very good opportunity for the telecomm giants to leapfrog the competition and work feverishly towards the launch of LTE.

The early signs are that LTE is getting a go ahead from most and the mobile industry is really pushing LTE

It is estimated that there will more than 50 million mobile users by the end of 2013. With the no of users growing at a rapid pace in India and china and other Asian countries these numbers sounds reasonable enough.

This growth rate would be remarkable given that the original standardization and specification process for Long Term Evolution (LTE) aka '4G' only envisages commercial deployment in the 2011-2012 timeframe. It would appear that the mobile industry is once again doing what it does best, overhyping new technology whilst it is still in development.

I suppose in the current climate the only excitement is that the announcements about LTE are arriving almost daily, each more positive than the next.

CDMA operator Verizon Wireless has already announced its intention to migrate its network to LTE, Motorola plans to focus on LTE, perhaps at the expense of WiMAX and so it goes on.

Recently T-Mobile step up the pressure on equipment vendors, when it stated it will not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but will instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE.

And now the news is that Nokia is affirming it’s commitment to LTE and says that it would have device for LTE networks by 2010.

Nokia affirmed its commitment to Long Term evolution (LTE) technology and said it would have devices for LTE networks in 2010, according to a company executive. By doing this Nokia in my view is dismissing WiMAX as a 4G standard. I believe one of the major reasons why Nokia might be thinking that way is because of WiMax’s lack of backwards compatibility and an unclear roadmap.

I hope all this news regarding LTE materializes and kicks off a nice decade ahead. However only time will tell whether the LTE hype is justified or if the mobile industry is about to get another dash of cold reality.

Blog: Advanced C++ with examples

This has nothing to do with Mobiles or 3G and 4G but for lots of people who get involved in different C++ coding and reviewing, etc. Here is the link to the blog:

http://advancedcppwithexamples.blogspot.com/

SMS hailed as enablers of next-generation offerings

Text services make money and complement new rich services, says new research.

The study, conducted by Direct2Mobile found that mobile operators believe SMS will become the enabler that underpins next generation offerings, with all those surveyed claiming they are developing their messaging infrastructure in order to introduce new value-added services.

Of all the services cited, mobile social networking and mobile applications lead the way with 75 per cent of operators expecting to invest in them over the next 12 months. Mobile broadband is not far behind with 65 per cent expecting to make investments over the next 12 months, closely followed by location-based services, IM/presence and the mobile internet (which 50 per cent of operators stated would be a priority for the 12 months ahead).

Jay Seaton, CMO at Airwide Solutions, said: “Revenues from SMS have become a substantial and strategic income stream for mobile operators worldwide. However, recent market changes are placing an ever greater pressure on operators to deliver new and richer services that will not only complement voice and text services but also boost ARPU and help improve market share.”

Networks may have to bundle Femtocells along with contract phones

"Tom Prescott, 32, took Orange to court after they refused to cancel his 18- month contract, even though he could not get a signal either at his Richmond home or in his office. "I felt bullied by the company, and dealing with Orange was awful. I hope people who have the same problem now realise they can do something about it."

Tom Prescott took his phone network (Orange) to court and won £500 for "lack of signal" in his home, there will be a sense of greater urgency in the industry.

The attitude of other mobile operators wasn't likely to be very different - before the lawsuit, anyway. If you complain that a call got dropped, and expect to be taken seriously, then you're mad. Most companies would have taken Orange's attitude: "Coverage is outside our control."

The Court disagreed. It said that if you sell an 18 month contract to a victim who neither lives nor works in an area where you can provide coverage, then it really is your problem, not theirs.

The trouble is, 3G phone technology simply doesn't work well enough for them to be able to fix the problem. Very simply, if the phone mast is blocked by brick or concrete walls, then very little of a 3G wireless signal will get through.

That was Prescott's problem: he couldn't make calls, and he couldn't receive calls. So naturally, he asked for his money back. Orange took the view that if the phone worked, and the network was in place, and if he could actually use the phone out in the street, then they'd done all anybody could expect. So they refused - an error of judgement commercially, but a complete disaster in PR terms.

And all operators are staring at the same disaster, if they don't change their business habits.

Not just one or two phone users have the problem; in some areas, claims of providing coverage are close to fraudulent. They can get away with it if the old 2G GSM network provides backup coverage, of course. But after this, even that may be called into question.

We know how to solve the problem. Simply, 3G operators have to put a private mast into your home. These are very small mobile phone cells. Smaller than microcells, smaller even than picocells, they are called femtocells. They are limited to short range: inside the building, and perhaps the gardens.

Question: who will provide your femtocell? Orange? Cingular? Clearwire? France Telecom?

Wrong Answer: "If I provide the customer's femtocell, they'll have to use my service! They'll never be able to switch! Muhahahaha!"

Better answer: "...it's going to cost us, but we have to make sure that this mini-mast works with any phone. Otherwise, nobody is going to see any point in using it."

Best Answer: "We have to change roaming regulations! The whole business model needs radical reform, so that we do NOT create logjams for our customers."

Here's the problem, rather neatly summarised by consultant Dean "Disruptive" Bubley: "These operators are living in a dream world of one operator per household. It isn't going to be true even of single people living alone."

Most households have phones from several operators.

The teenagers have friends on the same network, so that they can have free SMS texting chats together. Tell them "use another network" and have your face eaten off. It's not the money (they'll say) - "That network isn't cool."

The parents often have phones provided by employers (no choice there). And
there are "private" lines which they use because they always have. "Everybody knows that number," they say.

Yes, you can move a number from one network to another. No, it isn't a picnic. And anyway "why should I?" is the common response.

More mobile broadband ... with WiMAX this time

An interactive, online map by the WiMAX Forum and Informa Telecoms & Media’s World Cellular Information Service (WCIS) offers information on the many WiMAX deployments across the globe. Click here to access the map.

With investments already made into WiMAX, the wireless broadband technology will be able to withstand the current economic downturn in a year that will see some additional network deployments, according to the WiMAX Forum.

Because of the current economic climate, WiMAX providers are not being as aggressive with network deployments, but the forum estimates at least 100 more operators will launch commercial services this year.

The Forum says WiMAX now covers 430 million people or POPS, globally and are on a path to nearly double to 800 million people by end of 2010 and explode to 18 million by 2012. In-Stat forecasts LTE will have 23 million subscribers by 2013, but nearly 82 million mobile PCs with WiMax will ship in 2013.

So far, Mobile WiMAX is being offered in just two cities, Baltimore and Portland, Ore. On March 5th, Clearwire will announce which cities will be added next in the United States. Another nine cities are expected to roll out this year.

According to research firm In-Stat, WiMAX will continue to outpace LTE over the next few years and the technologies will take different paths. Verizon Wireless is expected to launch LTE commercially sometime next year but most operators will wait until 2011 or 2012.

Meanwhile, the WiMAX forum says there will be 100 certified products on the market this year, growing to 1,000 by 2011. The forum also expects growth to continue in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa.

Via: Daily Wireless

More than half the world now uses mobile phones

A UN report this week showed that more than half the global population now pay to use one.

The survey, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency of the UN, also found that nearly a quarter of the world's 6.7 billion people use the internet.

But it is the breathtaking growth of cellular technology that is doing more to change society, particularly in developing countries where a lack of effective communications infrastructure has traditionally been one of the biggest obstacles to economic growth.

By the end of last year there were an estimated 4.1bn mobile subscriptions, up from 1bn in 2002. That represents six in 10 of the world's population, although it is hard to make a precise calculation about how many people actually use mobile phones.

Africa is the continent with the fastest growth, where penetration has soared from just one in 50 people at the turn of the century to 28%.

Much of the take-up is thought to have been driven by money transfer services that allow people without bank accounts to send money speedily and safely by text messages, which the recipient - typically a family member - can cash in at the other end. Vodafone's M-Pesa money transfer service was launched in Kenya in 2007 and now has 5 million users.

The ITU report points to the Gambia, where mobile subscriptions have rocketed amid stiff competition among mobile operators. Out of almost a million telephone subscribers, there are more than 800,000 mobile subscriptions but only about 50,000 fixed telephone lines in service.

Developing countries now account for about two-thirds of the mobile phones in use, compared with less than half of subscriptions in 2002.

The adoption of mobile technology has outstripped the growth of fixed-line connections, which rose from 1bn to 1.3bn over the same period, with market penetration stuck just below 20% for some years.

The figures demonstrate that many people in the developing world are bypassing the older technology altogether.

In the developed world, many people use more than one mobile device, with subscriptions exceeding population by 11% in Europe.

On the other hand, a single mobile phone may have several users in poorer countries, where handsets are sometimes shared or rented out by their owners.

The report also recorded a marked increase in internet use, which more than doubled from 11% of people using the net in 2002 to 23% last year.

Here the report identified a clear gap between the rich and poor world: fewer than one in 20 Africans went online in 2007, for instance, and less than 15% in Asia, whereas Europe and the Americas recorded penetration of 43% and 44% respectively.

Across the world just 5% of people have broadband internet at home, although this rises to 20% in the developed world.

Sweden was the world's most advanced country in the use of information and communications technology, in an index of 154 countries that took various factors into account such as access to computers and literacy levels.

South Korea and Denmark were placed second and third in the list, while the UK was ranked 10th.

Mobile phones have changed Congo irrevocably, especially Goma. The country has only about 20,000 land lines after the system collapsed under Mobutu Sese Seko's ruinous dictatorship.

Now traders shipping imports to distant towns, farmers sending produce to the main cities, and those involved in the thriving gold and diamond smuggling trade use their phones to check prices, text quotes and arrange deliveries. Women who once sold roasted corn by the roadside now make a living dealing in mobile top-up cards and recharging flat phone batteries in a town where much of the population doesn't have electricity.

"Everyone but the very poor has a cell phone," said Mukeba. "Even the guy who only makes a few dollars a day picking up passengers on his bike. Even the woman selling things by the roadside. Almost everyone finds the money."

Cell phones have helped transform Goma in other ways. The town's economic boom of recent years has been fuelled by war and plunder, particularly of the rich mines in eastern Congo. Among them are diamonds and gold but also coltan, a rare but crucial element in mobile phones.

The small fortunes to be made by mining it sent tens of thousands digging for black mud and attracted criminal syndicates and foreign armies. "It all came at once," said Mukeba. "War, cell phones, dollars. Some people are getting very, very rich and everyone is making a little bit of money."