Technologies from Mobile World Congress 2013 (#MWC13)

If you liked the Gadgets roundup from yesterday then you would like this one as well:



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Finally:

Gadgets from Mobile World Congress 2013 (#MWC13)

Finally, if you have enough patience, here is Nokia keynote:



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• Mobile Device Testing and its Path to Commercialization

Wi-Fi & Packet Core (EPC) Integration

Yesterday I wrote a blog post on whether Wi-Fi is the third RAN in the Metrocells blog. Today I am posting this excellent presentation that details how this Wi-Fi integration with EPC will be done.

Wi-Fi & packet core integration from Zahid Ghadialy

LTE-A: Downlink Transmission Mode 9 (TM-9)

When LTE was introduced in Release-8 it had 7 transmission modes that were increased to 8 in Release-9. Earlier, I posted an R&S whitepaper on the different Transmission modes (10K+ views already) that listed transmission modes till TM 8. In Release-10 (LTE-A) 3GPP Introduced a new transmission mode, TM 9. TM9 is designed to help reduce interference between base stations to maximise signal stability and boost performance. The new TM-9 enables the enhancement of network capabilities and performance with minimum addition of overhead. TM9 is designed to combine the advantages of high spectrum efficiency (using higher order MIMO) and cell-edge data rates, coverage and interference management (using beamforming). Flexible and dynamic switching between single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) and an enhanced version of multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) is also provided.

A new Downlink Control Information (DCI) format - known as format 2C - is used for TM9 data scheduling. Two new reference signals are defined in TM9: Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) and Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS). The first is used from the UE to calculate and report the CSI feedback (CQI/PMI/RI), while the latter is an evolution - providing support for more layers - of the UE specific reference signal that is already used for beamforming in Rel-9, and is used for signal demodulation. TM-9 is particularly smart as it can detect when a mobile device is being used and send a different type of signal that is optimal for a mobile device (variable DM-RS – demodulation reference signals). This maximises the efficient use of the base station and guarantee’s a decent data rate for users.

Early results in SK Telecom press release are positive with a claimed 10-15% increase in data rates in locations where there was known inter-cell interference.

I also looked into couple of books and here is one explanation from An Introduction to LTE by Chris Cox.

To use eight layer spatial multiplexing, the base station starts by configuring the mobile into a new transmission mode, mode 9. This supports both single user and multiple user MIMO, so the base station can quickly switch between the two techniques without the need to change transmission mode.

The base station schedules the mobile using a new DCI format, 2C. In the scheduling command, it specifies the number of layers that it will use for the data transmission, between one and eight. It does not have to specify the precoding matrix, because that is transparent to the mobile. The base station then transmits the PDSCH on antenna ports 7 to 7 + n, where n is the number of layers that the mobile is using. The maximum number of codewords is two, the same as in Release 8.

The mobile still has to feed back a precoding matrix indicator, which signals the discrepancy between the precoding that the base station is transparently providing and the precoding that the mobile would ideally like to use. Instead of using the PMI, however, the mobile feeds back two indices, i1 and i2. Both of these can vary from 0 to 15, which provides more finely-grained feedback than the PMI did and in turn improves the performance of the multiple user MIMO technique. The base station can then use these indices to reconstruct the requested precoding matrix.

Embedded below is an extract from Google books for Lte-Advanced Air Interface Technology By Xincheng Zhang, Xiaojin Zhou

Google Glasses - take two

Picture source: Guardian

So nearly after a year of my Google Glass post, looks like Google is ready to ship some of these glasses to some competition winners for $1500. Even the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is excited and cant wait to get his hands on it.

There is also this new video showing 'How it Feels' wearing Glass and everytime I go back to youtube, the count increases by 100K. Embedded below:


My two main concerns are that I have to speak loudly to the glass which may not be convenient in public places or in front of others and the other being that when many people will have these devices, my Glass may pickup command from another user.

Sometime back there was a discussion on 'Bone conduction audio'. This will allow the user to hear from the Glass without the need of a headphone or speakers, I guess a similar kind of technology is needed in place of a mic. The Glass can sense that the user who is wearing it is talking instead of someone else. It should also solve the need to speak to speak loudly to the Glass.

Small cell standardization in 3GPP Release 12

A presentation looking at Small Cell Standardisation in 3GPP Rel-12.

Small cell standardization in 3GPP Release 12 from Zahid Ghadialy

Diameter, Signalling and LTE

Last year, I blogged about Signalling storm and Diamater here and here. Embedded below is a similar sort of presentation from the Fokus Fuseco Forum 2012.

What kind of signalling issues have to be solved by introducing LTE? from Zahid Ghadialy

M2M Standardization and its Role for Emerging Smart Cities

Interesting presentation from FOKUS Fuseco forum 2012.

Global M2M Standardization and its Role for Emerging Smart Cities from Zahid Ghadialy

Related presentation on slideshare here.

Scalable UMTS (S-UMTS) to accelerate GSM Refarming

Looks like a good idea from LTE will possibly be applied to UMTS/HSPA and it will also help accelerate the re-farming of GSM spectrum. A recent presentation from Qualcomm below:

Available to download from here.

Revisiting Coordinated Multi-point (CoMP) Technology

Looks like I re-visit CoMP every Q1 of the year. Couple of years back, I had posted a primer on CoMP here and last year I had a slide on schemes and deployments here. With Release-11 out of the door and  Release-12 getting in full swing in the standards, its time to re-visit this topic in a bit more detail. There are couple of presentations, one completely devoted to this topic and one that has a section on it. Both of them can be downloaded from slideshare.

CoMP and Interference Management Tech in 3GPP from Zahid Ghadialy

3GPP LTE Standards Update: Release 11, 12 and Beyond from Zahid Ghadialy