Interoperability between LTE FDD/TDD network

In countries where FDD and TDD are both in use, it would be interesting to see Dual-mode LTE terminals that would support both TDD and FDD and it should be possible to do a reselection as well has handovers from one mode to another.

It should be noted that the Structure of TDD and FDD frames are different as shown above.

If you are wondering why we need both FDD and TDD modes in the same geographical location, its because of Spectrum being available as well as with TDD allows possibility of different UL/DL data rates which generally means more efficient use of spectrum.

Shared Data plans anyone?

Shared plans are common in business tariffs but for some reason operators are reluctant to offer them on personal plans. With multiple devices becoming a common place, I would rather prefer to have a single plan that can be used across multiple devices rather than paying for a plan for each device.

From operator point of view, I think they would get a higher loyalty rate if they allow this as it means that if you want to change an operator, you would have to change SIM from multiple devices and some of these devices may be locked to an operator or may not work on other operators, etc.

An Infonetics Research report is embedded below:

2011 Infonetics Research - The new requirements of shared data plans

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Femtocells and Interference Management

Also see earlier post on Ultra SON here.

Overcapacity or Capacity Crunch?

A Qualcomm presentation from not too long back:

How to meet data demand?

View more presentations from Zahid Ghadialy

And another report from the UMTS Forum that is suggesting that the data traffic will grow 67 times from 2010 to 2020, summary embedded below:

Summary of report: Mobile traffic forecasts 2010-2020

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Then I came across this interesting discussion on Twitter and a blog post by Dean Bubley in Disruptive Wireless blog.

Overcapacity has been summarised in few words as: Overcooked forecasts + WiFi offload + optimisation + LTE + more spectrum + caps/tiers + well-designed apps

In the blog post Dean's mentioned about the falling data usage that has been reported by O2. I would strongly recommend reading it.

From the network point of view, I think overcapacity is better for the time being as we are prepared for the short term future. In the long run, new devices and innovative apps may suddenly start driving up the data demand again and hopefully by that time we have sorted out some more of the capacity crunch issues.

What do you think?

Another concept phone from Nokia called 'HumanForm'

Description as follows:

HumanForm was created in a joint effort between Nokia Design and Nokia Research Center to translate the most promising new nanotechnologies into meaningful user experience, prototype those for decision making; and transfer and set aspiration for future portfolio.

Project is a key to bring significant user experience benefits to the market thereby creating mindshare and value share through nanotechnology enabled experiences.

HumanForm is a visionary solution for a dynamically flexible device beyond touch screen and voice communication where technology is invisible and intuition takes over. Natural interactions are enabled with kinetic user interface.

HumanForm concept and a follow-up Nokia Kinetic Device prototype were launched in Nokia World 2011.

To learn more, visit: http://research.nokia.com/

2nd Workshop by 3GPP and Broadband Forum

3GPP and Broadband Forum held another joint session recently. Here is the summary from that event (3BF-11046.zip)

All presentations and documents from that event is available to download and view here.

Video on the Vision of the Future

I came across couple of videos recently on how User Interface for the future is going to be different than what we are used to. Its already getting changed as we get used to the touch screens and gesture recognition. Here is the first video that came out couple of weeks back and has already had over 2 million hits:

There is a whole blog post dedicated to this which you may be interested in, available here.

Another one is on the gesture recognition that will probably make big on the future devices including TVs.

On a lighter note, the future generation would probably just take the touch and gesture recognition for granted. Here is one such video:

LTE for Mobile Consumer Devices

LTE for Mobile Consumer Devices

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From the 2nd ETSI M2M Workshop, Oct. 2011. All presentations available here.

Related posts:

• 6th ETSI Security Workshop
• 1st ETSI M2M Workshop summary and conclusions

Redirection, Reselection, Handovers and other Inter-RAT combinations in LTE

Another one from Qualcomm's 4G World presentation. You can see the number of scenarios that would have to be taken into account for; this was one of the reasons I believed SVLTE may be a good choice.

Related posts:

• Recap of Handover procedures in LTE
• LTE to 3G Handover Procedure and Signalling
• HeNBs (Femtocells) and eNBs Handovers
• Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SR-VCC)

Devices may require support for over 40 RF Bands to be used universally

Interesting picture from Qualcomm presentation in 4G World that shows that for Universal use, a device may have to support over 40 RF bands (which may not be physically possible and may also be overly expensive)

Related posts:

• A global analysis of LTE spectrum requirements and business models
• LTE Spectrum Strategies and Forecasts to 2016
• Global survey of the Status of LTE Ecosystem