Mobile TV getting attention again

Nokia N96 with Mobile TV capability (DVB-H) has recently been launched in UK but there is no one broadcasting any Mobile TV. Maybe the operators are hoping that once there are enough handsets with this capability, Mobile TV can be launched and hopefully people will view it.

Last month, Juniper Research released a report likely to strike fear in the hearts of operators betting on consumers' willingness to pay for mobile TV content. In "Opportunities for Streamed & Broadcast Services, 2008-2013," Juniper projects that by 2013 some 330 million people worldwide will have handsets that can receive analog and digital broadcast TV signals — but less than 14 percent of them will sign up for pay mobile TV services.

"The development of terrestrial TV-capable receivers with comparatively low power consumption, and the availability of these receivers in mass market handsets, throws into question the business case for the deployment of a dedicated network in many markets," said report author Dr. Windsor Holden.

In Germany, Mobile 3.0's DVB-H trial flopped when operators started promoting their own TV-capable phones designed to receive DVB-T signals for free — undermining Mobile 3.0’s pay TV business model.

Last July, Toshiba shut down its Japanese satellite mobile TV subsidiary, Mobile Broadcasting, because the subscriber base wasn't big enough to support the business. But it wasn't because the Japanese aren't watching mobile TV. In fact, shipments of handsets able to receive Japan's free 1-seg mobile TV service continue to soar according to the Japan Electronics Information Technology Association — 10 million in the first half of 2008, bringing the total of 1-seg units shipped to 30 million.

Of course, the situation is markedly different in the United States where carriers have a lock on the handsets available to subscribers. And so far, that has effectively stifled competition from devices that can receive free-to-air TV. But with more free-to-air devices hitting the market, it's reasonable to question whether that trend will continue indefinitely.

In another announcement last month, IHT reported that France presented plans to set aside about a fifth of the country's prime television broadcasting spectrum for mobile Internet and television services by the end of 2009, in what supporters described as a major step toward creating a harmonized mobile broadband network in Europe.

France is the first major European country to reserve part of its most valuable broadcasting spectrum, the so-called UHF band, for mobile broadband and video services. Finland and Sweden have also said they plan to reserve the band for mobile services.

If a Europewide broadband network were to come to fruition, its greater scale would probably push down the cost of Internet services to consumers, especially in rural areas not reached by fast, fixed-line networks. It could also enable large mobile operators to sell services, like mobile TV or mobile broadband, across national borders, further increasing competition and lowering consumer prices.

The move was hailed by mobile operators and by the European Union's telecommunications commissioner, Viviane Reding, who is proposing that her office be given a greater role in influencing how EU countries redistribute the frequency.

The French plan, disclosed by Eric Besson, a French state secretary responsible for evaluation of public policies, commits France to reserving 72 megahertz of prime spectrum that is currently being used exclusively by television broadcasters - the 790 MHz to 862 MHz band - for mobile broadband services by the end of next year.

Besson said the country's broadcasters would be able to use the remaining portion of the UHF spectrum - 470 MHz to 790 MHz. He said that would still be enough to support 11 terrestrial broadcasters plus two new mobile TV broadcasters, owned either by mobile operators or TV broadcasters.

Sami said the French plan would most likely influence other European nations to make a similar redistribution. Britain, he said, is also leaning toward devoting a portion of that spectrum, from 806 MHz to 862 MHz, for mobile services.

In Germany, DVB-H licensee Mobile 3.0 handed back its licence to local regulators. The return of the licence was ordered by the authority for private broadcasters - Zulassungs- und Aufsichtskommission für den privaten Rundfunk (ZAK) - because Mobile 3.0 did not meet the conditions of the licence. It is not sure when a new licence will be issued. Meanwhile DVB-T carries on its success with LG planning to launch another handset model before Christmas.

In Switzerland, Take-up of the mobile TV service from Swisscom is not meeting expectations, according to Swisscom Broadcast chief Jean-Paul de Weck, speaking during the Biel Bienne Communication Days (Comdays). The main reason for the slow acceptance is the lack of choice of DVB-H capable handsets. Up until the end of September, the Nokia N77 was the only handset available to receive the service, though now there are four different models. Swisscom currently has about 5,000 mobile TV users, though it expects to gain more subscribers with the wider choice of handsets.

Qualcomm is now to give some more attention to its mobile TV standard of MediaFLO. This is because they no longer have to worry about UMB (see this). Outlining future strategies, Qualcomm indicated it's focusing more on its MediaFLO mobile broadcast TV and its Firethorn mobile banking technologies to carry it in the near term while it develops its Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless infrastructure and its Snapdragon platform for future inroads in wireless mobile. MediaFLO is operated in 62 markets, but it's expected to get a boost in February when the big switchover to digital TV takes place. Qualcomm purchased $555 million worth of spectrum in the FCC's 700-MHz auction earlier this year, and the purchase will be used to spread MediaFLO. The new spectrum will enable the company to address 108 markets by the end of 2009, according to media reports.

Finaly for some good news:

A large U.S. television broadcaster has announced good results from recent trials in Chicago and Denver of mobile TV using a draft standard from the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). Ion Media Networks, Inc. said it found it relatively easy to set up two mobile channels in each city and reception was better than expected. The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), an alliance of local and national TV broadcasters, hopes to see members roll out commercial mobile TV services late next year. To date mobile TV services using other technologies have failed to deliver and grow a market among cellphone, notebook and car video users.

Ion Media's stations WCPX and KPXC have been multicasting two standard definition mobile channels since August. LG Electronics and Harris Corp., whose technology was selected for the ATSC standard, provided prototype mobile TV receivers and transmission equipment for the tests.

We're seeing fantastic reception out to as far as 40 miles from transmitters, and beyond that we have good transmission outdoors but it's not consistent indoors," reported Jenkins.

Reception was also good in cars at freeway speeds and indoors within 40 miles of transmitters. "We went into parking garages where there were three or four levels of concrete above us, and reception was perfect--that was one of the big technical lessons," said Jenkins.

Spectrum availability was not a problem in the trial. One station in the trial supports an existing high definition terrestrial broadcast, another supports multiple existing standard def channels.

UMB now officially dead, Long live LTE!

As one article put it, "Qualcomm cancels its own 4G system" going further to mention "Ultramobile broadband (UMB) is ultra dead". I blogged earlier about Nortel abandoning its CDMA business and about CDMA operators defecting to LTE and was sort of waiting for this imminent announcement to happen. There were already rumors about this happening since last year. (Not sure if some Hedge fund managers did be on this ;). UMB is also known as CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev C.

Qualcomm Inc officially announced that it has stopped development of Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), its next-generation, high-speed wireless technology, and has been making small-scale layoffs as it looks to cut costs in the weakening economy, Chief Executive Paul Jacobs said. Jacobs said the company was putting resources into LTE technology instead.

The company that created CDMA techology, meant for UMB to be CDMA’s 4G play. The company had high hopes for squeezing out WiMAX, positioning UMB to compete directly against LTE. With a logical upgrade path for existing CDMA carriers, UMB was designed to continue the GSM vs CDMA platform war in the fourth generation of wireless technology.

However, Qualcomm in recent years has gained dominance in the LTE development field as well. With Qualcomm now heavily invested in UMTS/HSPA technology, UMB had Qualcomm playing both sides, ensuring that they would be dominant in all CDMA-derived products (both UMB and LTE use technology originally derived from Qualcomm’s oldest CDMA patents).

With WiMAX becoming embraced, and even deployed, globally, UMB failed to gain a single carrier. The main cause for CDMA carriers defecting to WiMAX, has been Qualcomm’s monopoly on the technology. WiMAX trumps UMB in being an industry standard, not controlled or mandated by a single company.

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has yet to comment on this announcement. However, the CDG has told PhoneNews.com that their driving force going forward will be to foster CDMA as a low-cost network option, especially in developing nations. Qualcomm still hopes to use CDMA for new networks in Africa, using their own hybrid GSM/UMTS/CDMA chipsets for international roaming when those customers travel abroad.

This leaves LTE as the eventual winner and with Operators already planning to roll out LTE network mid next year, WiMAX is going to get tough competetion from LTE. CDMA2000 operators meanwhile will have to now start planning how to move towards LTE (or WiMAX for that matter). 3GPP has laid down clear evolution path to move to LTE from CDMA2000. Other option which I quoted earlier is the eHRPD approach.

Mobile Phone Data and Statistics from 2007

In 2007, 1.15 billion mobile units were sold. Now according to Tomi in a post in Forum Oxford, these 1.15 Billion was split so that 805 million went to existing customers and only 300 million phones sold to new customers.

According to Informa, total number of subscribers worldwide increased by 600 million (from 2.7Billion in 2006 to 3.3 Billion in 2007) in 2007. This would mean that 300 million people got only SIM's and no phones. I am sure this would make green lobby a bit happy because people are recycling phones ;)

According to Informa, 28% of phone subscriptions in 2007 were multiple subscriptions (one person having more that one phone/SIM). In Europe this figure was approx. 50%.

This raises an interesting point; there is a big market for phones with dual SIM capability. It is not so simple though. There are no standards defining phone behaviour with dual SIMs. All the phones that I am aware of have a single transmitter/receiver. This means that even if you have two SIMs, they are both not active at the same time. You would have to manually choose which one is active at any point of time.

Manufacturing of dual SIM phones with two transmitter/receivers is possible but the phones will become slightly bulky and expensive. It can definitely make my life easier so I am all for them, dont know what others feel.

On the flipside, if you lose the phone you lose both your SIMs and are totally cut off till you get atleast one replaced.

We all want LTE now

One headline said, "T-Mobile International wants LTE fast" while the other said "LTE roll-out will accelerate despite recession, claims Motorola" and the third one screamed "Huawei To Launch First LTE Commercial Network In 2009".

I mentioned in an earlier post about attending LTE world summit this month. I am expecting some announcements and surprises in the conference where everyone would like to show off about their progress and readiness to launch LTE.

T-Mobile has announced recently that it plans to skip HSPA+ altogether and focus on LTE. It wants to roll out LTE network by 2010. The main reason for its decision stems from the fact that since MIMO is introduced in HSPA+, it wants to avoid the upgrade cost if LTE is available in couple of years. We have to remember though that HSPA+ is more of an upgrade to the existing HSPA and we can be assured of the reliability and the quality that we have so got used to. On the other hand, LTE may have its own problems and since it will be new technology, it would take time to mature. Can T-Mobile afford to go through this period of uncertainty and maturisation on its own without something to fall back on.

According to Ihab Ghattas, assistant president of Huawei Middle East, the Chinese telecommunications equipment and solutions provider plans to launch its first LTE/SAE commercial network in June 2009, providing LTE/SAE infrastructure to mobile operators.

Ghattas announced the decision in his report "Preparing for the future technology trends - LTE focus" at the meeting held by the SAMENA Telecommunications Council. He said the rapid development and benefits of wireless technology has seen mobile broadband evolve from UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ to LTE, which offers more efficiency than other networks. Expectations are that by 2015 LTE subscriber base will reach 400 to 450 million, generating revenues of almost EUR150 billion.

Till date, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile and Verizon wireless had announced to launch LTE/SAE based networks. Now we can add Huawei and T-Mobile to this list as well. Companies like Motorola and Nortel have not much HSPA/HSPA+ presence and have invested heavily in LTE, hoping to grab market share by the fact that they are there before others.

According to this another report, Operators relying on mobile or fixed/mobile broadband services to increase their future revenues are not only facing an upgrade of their wireless networks to HSPA+, WiMAX or LTE, but also a massive increase in the backhaul capacity needed to support that data traffic and multimedia applications.

Paul Steinberg, chief architect for Motorola’s wireless infrastructure products, reinforced the message this week, predicting that even 3.5G technologies will start to struggle soon in areas of high usage, and that this will force new approaches to backhaul as well as an early move to LTE, despite economic uncertainty.

In an interview with US-based CommsDay, Steinberg said 3G operators in developed markets will experience increases in data usage in the course of this year, ranging from sixfold to 14fold, but revenue from data services is growing only by 10-30% a year. This will push carriers towards all-IP, flat networks like WiMAX and LTE, with their improved cost of delivering broadband data.

Citing research by ComScore, Steinberg said that reasonable traffic profiles for mobile users by 2011 will range from 2.7Gb of data for typical handset users, to 11.1Gb a month for heavy users with both a laptop and handset. He believes some operators will have to start to roll out 4G-class networks as early as the end of next year to cope with the demands. Motorola is still relying on LTE deployments by six operators next year and 10 in 2010. However small their initial build-outs, Motorola points out that the 16 carriers that have committed to LTE in the next two years account for about 1.8bn subscribers worldwide, about half the global total.

According to Motorola, each LTE base station will require 200Mbps-300Mbps of backhaul capacity, which will stretch most fixed or wireless technologies apart from fiber or Gigabit Ethernet. This will lead to new approaches, such as ‘wireless fiber’ technologies, or relay techniques.

Get a Femtocell and make money

This post again is a concept but I dont see why the operators may not go this way.

The main reason you would put a Femtocell in your house or your shop is because you want cheaper calls and reliable coverage. The Femtocells would probably be setup as Closed Femtocells or better known in 3GPP Release 8 as CSG (closed subscriber groups). It may be beneficial for the operator that the Femtocells are setup as 'open' rather than closed. This can be useful in shops or malls where the shoppers can experience bad coverage in particular part of the shop or mall.

To motivate people to keep open access, they could offer free cash to the Femtocell owners on which outsiders (IMSI's not on the access list) camp and originate voice and data calls. In the web world, similar approach is used by Google Adsense. UK operator '3' has also tried similar cashback scheme before with decent success.

This approach may encourage lots of shops and people (especially during Credit Crunch scenario) to install Femtocells thereby increasing coverage significantly.

On the flipside, I should mention that people might start abusing this and increase the interference in the Macro cell. Also, the operators have to plan the Femtocell rollout in such a way that such interferences would be kept to minimum.

Will there be a winner in LTE and WiMax debate?

In the past there have been so many developments within WiMax and LTE in terms of where the two technology stands. Which technology is on the rise or which will eventually be a 4G technology is a never ending discussion.

On a regular basis I do get to know that either the LTE or WiMax camp claiming victory over another.

In a recent WiMAX World conference in Chicago, some advocates were quick to claim a WiMAX victory in the 4G technology race. The mantra or refrain for most of the sessions was that WiMAX is here and it's paving the way for 4G.

In the past few months there has been significant development in WiMax camp coordinated with the launch of WiMax services. In September Sprint-Nextel's launched the commercial mobile WiMAX service (called Xohm) in Baltimore. This definitely helped the buzz for WiMax to reach a new high. But as always together with the excitement, lies some anxious moments as everybody is now watching Xohm's debut to see how it fares with consumers.

There is no doubt that plenty of stake is riding on Sprint's Xohm launch. Clearwire also has got its own anxious moments with this launch as it was in last May that Clearwire announced it would merge with Sprint Nextel's WiMAX business to create a new company, also called Clearwire. The deal, which is expected to close by year-end, includes a $3.2 billion investment from Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner and others.

Although the above scenario really present a competitive and rosy picture for WiMax but even one of mobile WiMAX's biggest fans, admits that it's unlikely that WiMAX (or any one technology for e.g. LTE) will win the 4G debate.

In my view and so as I believe most of the people expects that the wireless industry will always have at least two technologies, perhaps more. My view can be supported with the idea of most of the operators going for HSPA+ technology. With operators eager to generate more revenue with the ever increased data rate requirements together with the delay in LTE there is no choice but to go for HSPA+. Which in my view has always been the best way to move forward as I am always a big fan of HSPA+ till LTE arrives?

This means that there may be some operators that will evolve along the HSPA+ path and never opt to deploy 4G or a 4G-like technology.

If the situation were to develop like I mentioned above then I don't think it is going to be as black and white as one (technology) wins and one loses. A lot of people don't realize that the most of the successful wireless operator or one of the most successful wireless operators today uses a technology that is only used by 13 percent of subscribers around the world.

But that's not all, inspite of all these and hence the Future of 4G will includes several interactive panels with experts who will delve into all aspects of the 4G debate. I am sure that whenever there is debate between LTE and WiMax it starts with the WiMax camp pointing out that Mobile WiMAX is the first out of the gate. Ok I agree then people argue that LTE is often considered the more evolutionary technology. The question probably isn't whether they can co-exist, they have enough common elements that it's feasible, it's whether there are enough reasons for them too.

So many times in the past including me has got into the debate of whether WiMax and LTE should or will be merged together?

In my past blog I have championed the cause of LTE and WiMax working together.
But as always there are many experts whoc belive that they ae going to work together. One of them is Peter Jarich, the research director of Current Analysys who firmly believe that LTE and WiMax are not going to merge. I can see where Pter is coming from because most of these phrases of working together are mostly biased towards politics and just from a political standpoint of getting all the parties together it's just not going to happen.

As I said in my previous blog regarding LTE and WiMax harmonization the guys have to fight it out. Now that might be bad for the carriers but it's good for the vendors who supply weapons to both sides and it's always good for consumers who get more choice.

Once thing which is quite clear though is that the presence of a rapidly maturing WiMAX ecosystem certainly has had the effect of accelerating LTE well before all the revenue potential was drawn out of HSPA and EVDO. In the past year LTE has certainly gained momentum in standards development, carrier decisions and an LTE wireless ecosystem being created. After all these significant developments in LTE analysts have started to believe that there is no reason to slow it down by merging it with WiMAX. There is, however, a reason for speeding it up to compete with WiMAX.

I can make a pretty strong argument that LTE would be at least four years later if WiMAX were not pulling it forward. WiMAX also comes with its own strengths that could add some intrigue to the battle. It's an IP standard from its base up and performs better in TDD and less mobile environments. LTE performs better in FDD and a high-user count model. That means the two could be complementary-albeit competing.

Would it be better if we had one technology and not two?

Well the debate continues……

CDMA Femtocell race heats up in USA

Airvana has said that its 'Betting the Farm' on femtocells in 2009. Recently it has entered a definitive supply agreement with Hitachi Communication Technologies, Ltd. ("Hitachi Com"). The agreement covers Airvana's HubBubT CDMA femtocell, Femtocell Service Manager, and Universal Access Gateway, and follows a joint development relationship announced in July 2008.

As part of the companies' previously announced joint-development agreement, Airvana has customized its HubBub CDMA femtocell, which is unique in the industry for its support of both 1x-RTT and EV-DO services; its Femtocell Service Manager, a scalable auto-configuration and remote management system; and its Universal Access Gateway, a carrier-class femtocell network gateway; to support the advanced features of Hitachi Com's Convergence Server. Under the terms of the agreement announced today, Hitachi will provide marketing, sales and support activities, primarily in the Japanese market, for the Airvana femtocell products. Delivery of the Airvana-Hitachi Com joint solution will provide operators with rapid deployment capabilities of advanced femtocell solutions. Hitachi's infrastructure equipment is used in networks serving more than 30 million Japanese CDMA and EV-DO subscribers.

According to Unstrung:

The company is slightly different from many others trying to crack the home base station market, in that it is developing both UMTS and CDMA boxes and pushing ahead with voice and data support straight out of the gate.

Airvana's main rival in the mini-CDMA field is Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which already has its Airave box in use at Sprint Nextel Corp. and possibly in tests at Verizon Wireless . Some analysts, however, expect that Verizon could also have its eye on Airvana's gear.

Competition is bit tougher on the GSM/UMTS side of the fence, involving everyone from established players such as Ericsson AB to well funded youngsters like RadioFrame Networks Inc. and ip.access Ltd.

Readers familiar with Airvana, however, will spot that although the technology is new [ed. note: sorta] the company's strategy for entering the market is the same as it took with 3G CDMA infrastructure: Partner with the big boys and gals and supply them with the technology that carriers end up using in their networks.

In other news, Tatara Systems Inc. is going full steam ahead for femtocells now that it has sold its mobile broadband business to Smith Micro Software Inc.

Now, femto-focused Tatara will use the money from this sale to develop its convergence gateway product used in the femto gateways that will sit in the network between the femtocell access points and the mobile core. In IMS networks, Tatara's convergence gateway acts as an SIP-application server.

According to a press release last month:

Ericsson and Tatara, the leaders in SIP-based network integration and femtocell convergence, have successfully demonstrated this solution, which enables CDMA network operators to cost effectively integrate femtocells into their IMS networks. This provides both enterprises and home subscribers in-building service levels that meet or exceed the service levels and voice quality of macro networks, while enabling improved economics and delivery of advanced services.

The solution combines Ericsson’s IMS Core Network infrastructure with a SIP-based femtocell and the Tatara Convergence Server (TCS) for CDMA-1xRTT.

AUO to show off upcoming innovations

AU Optronics Corp.'s recently announced vision for the next decade, AUO announced a series of forthcoming innovations, including the world's first 24-inch 2D/3D mix mode panel, a range of 4.3-inch to 15-inch multi-touch panels, and the world's first 2.8-inch image/fingerprint scanning technology on QVGA mobile device panel. AUO plans to showcase these new technological achievements in the upcoming FPD International 2008, to be held in Yokohama, Japan.

With the 3D display's inevitable growing popularity, there will be a variety of future applications in various fields, including market advertising, video games, medical imaging, industrial design, education training and more. AUO presents the world's first 24-inc h 2D/3D mix mode display panel supporting Full HD, by controlling designated areas on the panel to accomplish parallax. Without wearing glasses, the same monitor can simultaneously display high-resolution 2D images as well as high-depth 3D images.

Another 24-inch 3D display that requires specialized glasses, on the other hand, can also diminish the side effects such as dizziness after a long observation. In addition, the lenticular lens technology's 2D/3D switchable 7-inch 3D display panel, again without the need of specialized glasses, simplifies the switch between 3D images and reading conventional 2D text, solving previous 2D text reading difficulties and inconvenience.

Dedicated to the development of in-cell multi-touch panel technology for years, AUO released a series of in-cell multi-touch display in new sizes ranging from 4.3-inch to 15-inch, some of which can even be integrated into computer applications. A 15-inch in-cell multi-touch display panel utilizes p hoto-sensing technology and is sensitive to both a light pen and a finger touch.

For instance, users can dance their fingers across as on the black and white keys of a virtual piano on an LCD display, playing a melodious tune; or use the light pen as a remote control in a thrilling video game; or simply be delight along with others in this amazing multi-touch functionality. In the future, it can eventually be applied to TV remote controls, making further inroads in improving the usability of these age-old human-computer interfaces. Other multi-touch panel innovations include a 12.1-inch WXGA panel with finger-supported input and a 4.3-inch hybrid in-cell multi-touch panel that support both stylus input and finger input. These will indisputably make future handheld devices and notebook computers more intuitive and easier to use and can even possibly replace the function of the keyboard altogether.

Along with the modern pursuit of a novel, convenient and trendy lifestyle, smartphone devices will also continue to be innovated. Aside from its basic information platform, it can also be a new medium and interface that will provide a new life experience. Great news for both health-conscious and beauty lovers alike: AUO is releasing for the first time a 2.8-inch VGA UV-sensing mobile phone panel that can not only sense UV rays but also alert users in real-time their exposure to harmful UV.

In addition, AUO boasts another groundbreaking innovation, the world's first 2.8-inch QVGA mobile phone panel with image / fingerprint scanning technology, with the high s ensing resolution of up to 288 dpi, bringing mobile phone technology to a new level. After the image is scanned, the technology can enhance the image and then show the scanned image in real time. This new technology realizes consumers' dreams to utilize fingerprint identity while shopping in the future. Yet another 2.2-inch mobile phone panel applies modern optics technology to be borderless, increasing the viewable size of the screen active area. The borderless panel model will revolutionize mobile phone aesthetic design for the future.

Other small and mid-sized innovations also include: a 6.5-inch WVGA ultra-high contrast display panel that utilizes new pixel design with a high contrast ratio of 2000:1 and the 4.3-inch in-cell multi-touch panel that will be implemented in the up and coming Mobile Internet Device (MID), one of the top platforms and user interfaces.

Dr. CT Liu, vice president and general manager of AUO Consumer Product Display Business Group is full of confidence and passion regarding the future. He reiterated AUO's commitment to its new vision.

He said: "In addition to the ceaseless pursuit of technological innovations, AUO will also continue to shape cutting-edge thinking in this field. LCD's have progressively become a cross-technology phenomenon, making advancements in the domains of mobile internet devices, smartphone devices, and essentially the entire range of portable audio-visual systems. AUO vigorously strives to further develop display technology and is committed to excellence. With the various needs of entertainment, life and the workplace in mind, we expect our new panel innovations to provide more value and enrich the overall quality of life."

Mobile Fingerprint Scanners

Police in UK will reportedly be issued with mobile fingerprint scanners so they can check peoples' identities in the street.

The hand-held devices are no bigger than a BlackBerry smartphone and will apparently be issued to every police force in the UK under a scheme called Mobile Identification At Scene (Midas).

They will enable officers to scan suspects' fingerprints on the spot and compare them against records on the police national biometric database, Ident1.

It is claimed the scanners will save police time and cut the number of wrongful arrests.

Currently, officers have to take suspects to custody suites to check their fingerprints - a procedure that takes an average of 67 minutes.

Details of the hand-held technology, which may ultimately be able to receive pictures of suspects, were revealed at a conference presentation by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NIPA).

The devices are expected to be in widespread use within 18 months.

I was trying to find out a bit more about these devices; which technology they use and how is the data transferred over the air but no luck. Any information would be useful.

Customisable services on their way

According to a survey in Mformation:

80 percent of respondents to the survey indicated that they would use mobile services more if greater personalization were possible. 67 percent of mobile subscribers stated they would be willing to pay a premium to personalize their mobile devices and the applications and services on them. In fact, 86 percent of people said this would enrich their mobile experience. The research also revealed that over two thirds (68%) of mobile users find buying a phone frustrating when they know that there are applications and services on it that they will never use. This clearly demonstrates that greater personalization offers an opportunity to unlock pent-up demand.

The research also found the following results:

• Revenue-generating mobile data services such as mobile email (43%), Internet (51%) and picture messaging (46%) are gaining ground as the most frequently used applications.
• There are still a large number of people who never or rarely use these applications (email – 57 %, Internet – 49%, picture messaging – 54%).
• More than half of people who don’t currently have access to these applications would use them if they were made available in a simple and compelling manner (email – 62%, Internet – 58%, picture messaging – 68%).

94 percent of consumers are already attempting to personalize their phones with items like specific ringtones or accessories. However, 89 percent said that they would like a higher level of personalization through the ability to pick and mix applications, services, and other characteristics of the handset such as form factors and designs. Moreover, 81 percent would switch to a provider that offered greater choice for customization.

Now, a forthcoming update to the Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA DM) standard for mobile phones will make it easier for users to personalise their handset, for which there is enormous potential demand

Matt Bancroft, Mformation vice president, said that operators have a strong role to play in making this happen, and stand to gain as many respondents indicated that they would switch carrier and be prepared to pay extra for the ability to customise their handset.

Bancroft suggested that the OMA DM extensions, due to be ratified in 2009, will enable users of feature phones to customise their handset as much as high-end smartphone users already can.

"In essence, the update adds a new managed object defined for delivery, installation, activation and management of applications," he said.

The new extension, called Software Component Management Object, is already available as a pre-ratified version in Mformation's management tools for mobile operators, according to Bancroft.

"It also means profound things for software developers. A billion and a half mobile phones are sold each year, so there will be a much broader market for applications in the next 12-18 months once this standard becomes available," he said.

Femtocells may not be that close to deployment yet

Recently Zahid Ghadialy in his blog mentioned about the first deployment of Femotcells by NEC and Ubiquisys. Since then you must have thought that the femotcells will pick up and will be commercialized very soon. I am not hundred percent sure this is the case though as I have come across few articles which suggest that operators are no way near to the launch of femtocells for various reasons.

While the enthusiasm for femtocells continues unabated, several of the mobile operators that have once taken the lead are having second thoughts due to unresolved technical issues and unclear business cases.

These concerns came to the surface during the Femtocell Europe 2008 conference when SFR said it had delayed selecting a femtocell supplier because of undefined industry standards. The company said that the expected deployment of the technology now would not commence until sometime next year.

SFR, of which Vodafone Group owns 44 per cent, participated in Vodafone's group-level request for proposals for femtocells last year, but it also issued its own RFQ separately. "We're assessing another technology in parallel," said Thierry Berthouloux, network solutions director at SFR. "However, we have decided to extend that assessment period and have put this process on hold to give equipment suppliers time to consolidate roadmaps. There's no point making a decision today."

In my view it is very important that if femtocells have to be a success then there should be agreed standard so that there is no confusion as such towards the technology. When I say confusion what I mean is that if there is a set and agreed standard then most of the questions or doubts will be answered. According to those close to the situation, the issue for the major operators in agreeing to a standard is the need for clarity on 3GPP status and the lack of resource being provided by the larger femtocell vendors to achieve this.

Although the above scenario does present a bleak picture but all is not lost for femtocells commercialization. Some operators although having some concerns have not given up on femtocells and are continuing with their trials and testing.

Once of such operator is Telefonica O2, which having already conducted consumer and equipment trials earlier this year, is now looking to another femtocell pilot early next year. Although this retesting will mean O2 will miss its earlier forecast of a commercial femtocell launch during Q1/09 but at the same time it does presents a hopeful image for O2’s commercial launch of femtocells.

The femtocells developer Ubiquisys, which took part in O2's trial this year, said a phased approach should not be unexpected and would be typical of the way operators evaluate new technologies and products, such as femtocells.

But in my view O2’s retrial itself is not enough and I firmly believe that if femtocell technology has to be a success then other operators must join O2 as well, given that O2 has been a firm advocate for the technology anyway. It is true that there are operators other than O2 who might be interested in the technolgy and hence will be interested in the deployment of femtocells. But the delay in O2 plans might draw a conclusion for these other operators that the business case for 3G home access points and services remains in question. This might also bring into doubt reports that 2010 would be the year of significant deployments for femtocells in Europe.

Whatever is the outcome I do hope that the industry gets their acts together and work their socks off towards the success of femtocells?

The femtocell market is primed to grow in 2008 and hence the global revenues generated by the femtocell equipment vendors are forecast to grow as well. Whatever the discrepancy over the market size, the perception of significant growth in femtocells illustrates the potential opportunity both technically and commercially.

LTE Femtocells: Stepping stone for killer applications

I am speaking in the LTE World Summit on 19th November and the title of my presentation is LTE Femtocells: Stepping stone for killer applications.

I am interested in hearing peoples opinions and views about this topic. You can emails me [my first name].[my last name]@yahoo.com. If you give me ideas then in return I will send you my presentation after I have presented it in the conference.

You can download the brochure from here.

LTE and LTE-Advanced Official Logos now available

3GPP has finally decided to release the official logos and they will be using them extensively to promote LTE and LTE-Advanced. At the same time, the 3GPP website will be revamped and made to look a bit modern. This is the offical comment:

To establish the LTE term as a 3GPP brand, I have been working with the legal team to establish our claim to be the owner of the term.

In May 2008, the ETSI legal team submitted the term LTE as a trade mark, this will allow us to use the term and to be a guardian to ensure that it is not hi-jacked by external organisations. The process has now been completed for France, which allows us to extend trademark protection for “LTE” through an International Registration.

Two new logos have been created to promote the Technical Specifications and Reports for LTE and LTE-Advanced. The logos will be used to identify 3GPP deliverables that contain features that enable LTE or LTE-A.

The logos will also allow 3GPP to leverage its lead in LTE, by use of the logo on marketing material (Web sites, Brochures, Booths, etc.).

via: LTE watch.

10Million+ iPhones in 2008

Apple sold 6.89 million iPhones in its FY2008 4th quarter ending Sept. 27. According to the Merc,, the iPhone was the US leader for smartphone sales during that period, surpassing the BlackBerry.

This figure is slightly below the estimates of the biggest iPhone boosters, and totals only 9.3 million phones for the year. However, MacWorld reports that Apple has confirmed that it passed the 10 million mark in the past few weeks after the end of the quarter. This means that with the Christmas season their 2008 sales should easily surpass 12 million units.

Before the iPhone was released, many (notably including Steve Ballmer) predicted they would not hit 10 million.

The company has so far sold 6.9 million iPhone 3G units, eclipsing the 6.1 BlackBerry sales pushed by RIM in the same quarter.

“Apple outsold RIM last quarter, and this is a milestone for us. RIM is a good company that makes good products, and so it is surprising that we could outsell them in any quarter after only 15 months in the market,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

According to Tomi Ahonen at ForumOxford:

Apple reports it sold 6.9 million units of the 3G iPhone. That compares with 6.1 million units of the original 2G iPhone. During the past 4 quarters, total 2G and 3G iPhone sales were 11.6 million, so Apple did clear its stated target of 10 million iPhone sales during fiscal year 2008 by a happy margin of 16%.So the installed base of iPhones (2G and 3G) is 13 million today, and more than half of all iPhones in use today are 3G versions.

Bank inside a Phone

Yes you read it correctly, A Little World (ALW), a Mumbai-based company, which has come up with a unique idea: turning a regular mobile phone to play the role of a bank’s branch.

Faced with the challenge of creating affordable solutions to enable penetration of banking in rural areas, ALW came up with this solution. The equipment costs not more than Rs 30,000 (pounds 400 or $700) through which a bank’s branch becomes functional and offers facilities like depositing/withdrawing money, electronic money transfer, crediting of pension money and also having an online passbook.

Other peripherals that make up the branch are a printer-cum-fingerprint scanning machine, cash box to store upto Rs one lakh in cash and a high resolution camera. The mobile phone can store data of upto 50,000 customers including the entire identification profile comprising a picture and six fingerprint templates among other details.

A big opportunity was unlocked after RBI announced a new policy initiative to allow banks to do business using the ‘business correspondent’ model. Under this, a bank ties up with third parties like ALW’s clients Zero Mass to conduct business in far-off areas on behalf of the banks. All the mobile phones have latest security features and are connected to ALW (the technology and backend partner for Zero mass) servers using GPRS or EDGE technology. The ALW server is in turn connected to the core-banking server of the client bank due to which a transaction is made possible just like it happens in a conventional way.

The critical necessity to opening a branch though is the availability of mobile coverage at the villages and ALW has tie ups with all the major GSM mobile phone operators in the country. Zero Mass currently has tie ups with 24 banks to operate their banking operations in remote and unserviced areas across 18 Indian states.

Christened as ‘Zero Platform’ for branchless banking based on mobile, a branch is typically set up in the village grocery store or panchayat office. Peripherals like the printer and camera are connected to the mobile phone using Bluetooth technology and the entire system has been designed so that it can function even during power cuts, which the villages often experience. “The selected handset (either Nokia or Motorola) has features for encryption and decryption of data through which we can make use of a public medium like GPRS to send data,” says ALW’s Chief Technology Officer Anurag Gupta.

In a short span of a year, ALW has set up over 2,800 branches for Zero Mass across the country and has plans to increase the total number of branches to 5,000 by December this year. The accounts are opened free for a period of 10 years and Zero Mass currently boasts of over 12 lakh accounts with around 20,000 added everyday. “The mobile phone operated branch is a great idea. I fail to understand why others in the same space like us have not made use of existing technologies to come up with feasible solutions like this which offer exponential growth opportunity due to low capital expenditure,” says Gupta.

Zero Mass’s motto is to increase electronic transactions like payments and crediting of accounts , Gupta says. Keeping this in view, customers are encouraged to use the account for electronic money transfer, insurance premium payments, depositing of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) wages and pension funds in the account. As a pilot project, mobile recharge payments are also being done through Zero Mass-operated branches.

ALW gets a certain amount as technical fees for rendering its services while Zero Mass gets a percentage as commission for each deposit and withdrawal transaction made at the branch. Gupta, also a director at Zero Mass, says the way forward for the company is to make use of the platform for more profitable transactions offering bigger commissions such as mobile phone recharges and railway ticket booking.

Femtocells for Radiation proofed homes

Over the weekend, I visited an old colleague who has moved in a new development. I was surprised to get nearly no reception on both my phones which are on different networks. Just outside their house the reception was ok but inside there was none. On inquiring I found out that the developers in some new construction are giving option to people to have their house "Radiation Proofed". This means that they will paint the interior with ssome special paint and put a thin film coating on the windows. So now the occupants of the house are protected by harmful radiation from mobile antennas, other WiFi signals, UV radiation, etc., etc. What people dont tend to realise is that their mobiles will become nearly useless in the house. This will be the case untill Femtocells are rolled out.

My ex-colleague is very interested in the Femtocells now since he has no reception on mobiles in his house but unfortunately he will have to wait for some time.

Google search revealed an article titled Cellphone Signal Blocking via transparent window film (via engadget ... but for some reason the engadget site hangs ... so I have given actual cellular news link) which gives information on someone recently making these films.

Anyone aware of some more of these kinds of films? Any ideas on how much radiation-proofing they can provide? Should we all be having these once Femtocells are here and then just having controlled radiation in our house? I am interested in hearing opinions and suggestions.

Economic turbulence might effect funding of LTE and WiMax?

What a past few weeks we had in term of banking crises. There is no doubt that the recent turbulence in the banking sector has developed nervousness in everybody regarding the future we are going to have. I firmly believe that although the bail out has been carried by respective governments for the banks the turbulence will slip into the real economy before it starts getting better.

There is every possibility that in the near future the economic turbulence will have an impact on the funding of the projects. Some people may argue that efficient and good planning will take us through and hence the projects will not be affected. But the only question I am asking though is where the money will come from?

I do have a suspicion that as far as telecoms are concerned some of the major projects that will get affected in terms of funding will be LTE and WiMax.

We could we see analysts recalculating their projections for WiMAX and LTE soon in light of the struggling economy. There are many people out there who are putting a question mark in front of the plans that the major operators have got for LTE and WiMax. For example this week Forbes is questioning whether Sprint and the new Clearwire, which is expected to include Sprint's WiMAX network in the fold by the end of the year, can pull off a nationwide launch in a troubled economy. While Clearwire will have $3.2 billion from partners Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner and Brighthouse, it will need to raise an additional $2 billion to complete the network. These extra $2 billion would have been easy to generate may be a year ago but no in the current climate where there is already a shortage of money.

I am a firm believer that sometime these crises are good as this makes analysts, planning personal, designers and engineers realize to work hard and sort out the problems which they might have been complacently ignored in good times. Keeping in line with this thought, Clearwire could gain an advantage if the credit crunch lingers. Competitors AT&T and Verizon Wireless plan to deploy LTE and would likely freeze any deployments. For AT&T, such a deployment could be more than five years away as the operator doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to deploy the technology.

As I mentioned above sometimes these crises force the analysts to think hard and make sensible decisions.

For this reason I can now see that some of the companies have started taking HSPA and HSPA+ seriously which I though was always a good bet for fast mobile broadband till we get LTE. Some of operators and vendors have now reiterated their position that its HSPA and HSPA+ 3G network technology still had a lot of life left in it, and that LTE technology would not be rolled out for at least another three years and probably not on a large commercial scale for another five years.

Certainly the idea of throwing LTE on the backburner is not good for vendors that want to see operators invest in new technology soon. I am not saying this either but in the current economic climate operators and vendors can take HSPA and HSPA+ seriously do that the ARPU(average revenue per user) keep rising. If they are able to do so then the revenue generated can be used to fund the LTE/WiMax project. And once the economy starts rolling again which I’m sure will do in six months, money can pumped in heavily and vigorous plans can be drafted for LTE/WiMax.

The bigger question which arises is whether the operators can hook consumers on new technology in a tough economy. I believe they certainly can because HSPA and HSPA+ have lot to offer to consumers.

There are some analysts though which does not believe that that current economic climate will significantly impact communications usage and growth. They argue that communications are critical and relatively cheap compared to the real costly items for disposable income such as air travel, cars, home upgrades, schools, clothes, etc. They say communication revenues will probably increases and I think they might have a point here.

With the medicine provided by the governments of rich nations in terms of liquidity yet to reach to the patients, it will be a while before things start to look bit better. Let’s hope that the economy starts rolling again.

WiMAX publicity videos from Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) has couple of interesting videos on youtube on WiMAX.

The first one is more of educational video showing how WiMAX is useful for everyone in everyday life:



Honestly, other technologies could be as useful as WiMAX. The other one is more of marketing presentation showing ALU offers on WiMAX.



Interesting.

LED-Fi: Replacement for WiFi Hotspots

Before we start, I have to confess that I made up LED-Fi. I was thinking more of LiFi but there is already a LiFi technology from Panasonic (not al all related ti this one though).
According to a post in cellular news, Lightbulbs Could Replace Wi-Fi Hotpsots in future:

­Boston University's College of Engineering is launching a program, under a National Science Foundation grant, to develop the next generation of wireless communications technology based on visible light instead of radio waves. Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power light emitting diodes, or LEDs, to create "Smart Lighting" that would be faster and more secure than current network technology.

This initiative aims to develop an optical communication technology that would make an LED light the equivalent of a Wi-Fi access point.

"Imagine if your computer, iPhone, TV, radio and thermostat could all communicate with you when you walked in a room just by flipping the wall light switch and without the usual cluster of wires," said BU Engineering Professor Thomas Little. "This could be done with an LED-based communications network that also provides light - all over existing power lines with low power consumption, high reliability and no electromagnetic interference. Ultimately, the system is expected to be applicable from existing illumination devices, like swapping light bulbs for LEDs."

Little envisions indoor optical wireless communications systems that use white LED lighting within a room - akin to the television remote control device - to provide Internet connections to computers, personal digital assistants, television and radio reception, telephone connections and thermostat temperature control.

With widespread LED lighting, a vast network of light-based communication is possible, Little noted. A wireless device within sight of an enabled LED could send and receive data though the air - initially at speeds in the 1 to 10 megabit per second range - with each LED serving as an access point to the network. Such a network would have the potential to offer users greater bandwidth than current RF technology.

Moreover, since this white light does not penetrate opaque surfaces such as walls, there is a higher level of security, as eavesdropping is not possible. LED lights also consume far less energy than RF technology, offering the opportunity to build a communication network without added energy costs and reducing carbon emissions over the long term.

The ability to rapidly turn LED lights on and off - so fast the change is imperceptible to the human eye - is key to the technology. Flickering light in patterns enables data transmission without any noticeable change in room lighting. And the technology is not limited to indoor lights; its first real test may very well come outdoors, in the automotive industry.

I can understand how the downlink would work but not sure how uplink data transfer would work.

Similar technology using Light Bulbs has been available for some time. See this and this.

More defections to LTE camp

Nearly a year back, I blogged about Verizon defecting to LTE rather than going for UMB as it would be its natural evolution path. Last week Canada's Bell Canada and Telus Mobility announced plans to overlay their CDMA networks with HSPA technology by 2010 with an eventual move to LTE technology.

In a recent blog, I mentioned that operators moving from EV-DO to LTE can go via HSPA path or can also go for eHRPD. Fortunately, 3GPP saw that some operators may move to 3GPP camp and leave 3GPP2 due to economy of scale and much more variety of handsets, test tools, etc. Going back to the news item:

The move follows Verizon Wireless' decision to deploy LTE in the 700 MHz spectrum it won earlier this year. However, Verizon is skipping an HSPA deployment, choosing to continue investing in its EV-DO network that will likely complement the new LTE network for some time. Telus said the HSPA deployment would enable "a smoother transition to long term evolution (LTE) technology."

"Bell's transition to the global 4G LTE standard with a combined EV-DO and HSPA network path aligns us with more than 30 major carriers worldwide planning a similar move to LTE," said Stephen Howe, CTO with the operator. "This broad global technology ecosystem will mean a fast, efficient and cost-effective network transition to 4G LTE, and access to the broadest possible range of next-generation phones and data services."

Telus Mobility and Bell Canada both won spectrum in Canada's AWS-1 auction.

Which way: Femtocells or UMA?

Discussions are again resurfacing about which technology should be used to improve coverage; Femtocells or UMA. Honestly, I have not been a big supporter of UMA (and you dont have to agree with me) and earlier this year when Nokia raised doubts about the technology, i stopped following it completely. Kineto has been the biggest supporter of UMA and is still carrying the torch.

Kineto recently received over $15 million in investment from Motorola that it plans to use to increase its reach in UMA. Last month it had received investment from NEC. One of the reasons for the resurgence could be because the UMA technology has matured since being used for some time. T-Mobile has already rolled Hotspot @ Home using UMA. Also more phones are now available supporting UMA.

One of the drawbacks that will always be present in case of UMA is that special handsets will be required that would support WiFi as UMA is based on 802.11. This means more expensive phones and higher consumption of power leading to smaller battery lives. One more problem with UMA is the interference due to other ISM band devices and there are many technologies like Bluetooth, etc that are competing for the band.

The drawback in case of Femtocells could be that their price is still quite high as complete Node B + RNC functionality is generally available in a Femtocell and at the same time all the aspects have not yet been standardised. Along with these, Femtocells that use the same spectrum as that of the operator can cause interference with the Macro cell. This would in turn require very clever management of spectrum frequencies, etc.

A possible long term solution could be (but I dont see anyone agreeing to it right now) that phones with UMA technology become more common and a combined UMA + Femtocell equipment is rolled out by the operator. At the end user premises, depending on the strength of rf reception, the equipment can either use UMA or normal Femtocell functionality. If this idea is agreed upon, then there would still be couple of years before all interworking and other technological problems are ironed out.

Femtocells and the stealing of Spectrum

When Femtocells are finally rolled out, it would be possible for anyone to create their own little mobile cell anywhere to enhance their coverage. At least that is what the Femtocells are supposed to help with. This would also mean that the spectrum would be open to abuse by someone who wants to abuse it.

Let's take a scenario in which someone buys a Femtocell from an operator in UK. The Femtocells will be operator specific since they will contain lots of parameters and addresses that would be terminating in the operator network. Then that person can take the Femtocell away to another country (say India) and connect the Femtocell to an Ethernet port in India. The IP packets would be routed via IP to the operator and the user is now connected via Femtocell to the UK operator even though he in in India. He would get the same treatment as in case he was in UK.

Let me point out that this would be illegal because the Spectrum in India would belong to an operator in India or this spectrum may be used for something completely different.

The operators and the device manufacturers are aware of this potential abuse. As a result they are going to use a two step approach. The first is that they would allow Femtocell to register from a registered telephone line via an IP address. They may have access to ISP data or would be aware of the range of IP address being used by the ISP. The Femtocell user will hence have to register their Telephone line and ISP with the network operator and if they change them then this would need to be informed to the operator. The second is that they would check the location of the device via GPS. This can have two problems. The first is the cost of the Femtocell will increase and the second is that unless the Femtocell is near a window or an open area, there would be no GPS signals received and the GPS approach may not work. One of the obvious use of Femtocell in London city for example is in the basements where there is absolutely no coverage due to their location.

Note that from the above you can see that even if the Femtocells are advertised as PnP or Zero Touch, etc., there would still be some overhead that will always be required.

Even if we assume that both the above approaches are being used, it may stop mass market fraud but may not be able to deter individuals who are smart enough to work around them. For example the user in India (example in the start) may use VPN to tunnel the IP packets to their home or registered address in UK and from there the packets will go to the operator network. Similarly it is not too difficult to fool the GPS receiver into believing its location.

The operators are aware and working on something better then the above strategy. I have not come across any papers yet suggesting work around these problems.

This also highlights an important problem regarding emergency calls. Should the emergency calls go via Femtocell or should they be re-directed to Macro cell. Again a clever algorithm would be needed for this. There could be a configurable parameter in the Femtocell which can check during the startup if Macrocell is present or not. If Macrocell is present then emergency calls should be re-directed and if not present then the user should be able to initiate it via Femtocell.

There are probably many more problems that would be highlighted once Femtocells are rolled out.

What on earth is this 4G, anyway?

Over the past two years I have been hearing a lot about next generation technologies. It all started by 3.5G i.e. HSPA evolution etc and hence the debate entered into the area of 4G.
Everybody comes along on the blogs, articles, tech magazines etc and make himself/herself comfortable as per their liking with the word 4G.

Some people use the term "4G" to describe WiMAX technology. This terminology i.e. 4G used by WiMax camp does indeed upset some people specially the ones in the LTE camp.

Everyday I come across individuals who have different view regarding the 4G terms. Some do shockingly tell me that neither WiMax nor LTE is a 4G technology rather LTE evolution or LTE advanced will be termed as a 4G technology.

I have literally reached to stage now where I think I should give up now and just leave to almighty to decide what actually a 4G technology is. If you ask me about my personal opinion on this then my view is quite clear in this. I categorize 1G as analog mobile, 2G as digital, 3G as CDMA, and 4G as anything using OFDM. It's pretty simple, it is straightforward, there's not a lot of haggling.

Wikipedia says "There is no formal definition for what 4G is; however, there are certain objectives that are projected for 4G. These objectives include: that 4G will be a fully IP-based integrated system. 4G will be capable of providing between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s speeds both indoors and outdoors, with premium quality and high security."

By the Wikipedia definition, three out of four definitions are met under the existing definitions of WiMAX; nobody thinks that the current definition of WiMAX is going to be able to crank up to 1 Gbit/sec, but life, as they say, ain't so simple.

A spokesperson for Nokia has said "There's no official owner of who defines 4G," and you would think if anyone could tell you what 4G was/is/will be, it would be Nokia.

ITU-R is in the process of defining IMT-Advanced, but, funny enough, the standards body has backed away from the phrase 4G. IMT-Advanced is a "big tent" term that will/may/should encompasses 802.16m and LTE-Advanced which in turn are faster than WiMAX and LTE standards respective. Maybe?

If I understand this descent into acronyms and definitions, even the forthcoming, first generation LTE would not qualify as a 4G technology. That is, if we call IMT-Advanced as the term formerly known as 4G - but not called 4G by ITU-R.

I know this whole argument of 4G terms upset many people. They think and rightly so that the whole concept behind a 'Standards Body' is so that such arguments are moot. These guys think that people use different terms to coin their own standards for marketing, one-upmanship and generally nonconformist attitudes.

Well let's hope that some day somebiody will come out with a clear idnetity of the 4G technology which is acceptable to everybody. Meanwhile my friend in the picture above is working hard to find out what 4G really is.

Revolution of Mobile Phones Arhitecture and Design

The war for the best phones design is heating up and giants like Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are doing everything they can to outdo each other in terms of design and different application provided on the phone.

There is no doubt this is the era is youths and you would be surprised to see their skills and various things they can do with their mobile phone.

The biggest question which arises is what exactly and how much one need from their mobile phone. If we consider all sections of the society then in my view five things which makes a mobile phone attractive are Talk, text, Music, Games and Mapsor does it so?

Well after the release of iPhone with touch screen the competiton has definitely taken a new dimension.

Continuing in this direction last week Nokia released a new phone at a press unveiling in London, the previously rumoured touch-screen Tube, which it now calls the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone.

This device, which has been pegged as Nokia's answer to the iPhone, is both Java and Flash-enabled.

Since the release of iPhone Nokia has been taunted for not having a handset that effectively competes with Apple's 3G iPhone. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs debuted the 3G iPhone, he took some swipes at the Finnish manufacturer by pointing out that the iPhone 3G managed to download a website in 21 seconds while the Nokia N95 took 33 seconds to load the same page.
This latest Nokia phone will have host of features that will be run off of Nokia's latest Symbian operating system, the S60 5th edition. The phone is the latest entrant into the arena to see which handset can become an IPK i.e. an iPhone Killer. As with many such devices, the 5800 has some features similar to Apple's iPhone 3G, and a few that make it unique.The phone will come in three different versions: a quad-band GSM with 850/1900 WCDMA, a quad-band GSM with 900/2100 WCDMA and Quad-band GSM with no 3G capabilities. It has both a 3.2-inch touch-screen display and a 3.2 megapixel camera, WiFi, GPS and HSDPA capabilities, stereo speakers, a touch-screen, drop down media bar menu and finger and stylus user interface controls. It has 8GB of memory, available through a microSD slot. A 16GB slot will be available next year.

It does get a wow out of your mouth after looking at the above specs for this latest Nokia phone.
One of the striking things that Nokia is proposing with its latest touch screen phone is the Music service which could be the start of something new. As per this music service users can download all the music they want and get to keep and play it forever.

Nokia's glitzy launch in London of its latest touch screen phone comes with Music service will have pleased music lovers and the gadget press alike, but UK mobile operators have expressed their displeasure by vowing not to sell the service over their networks.

While these operators will closely monitor this free music download service, their refusal to cooperate with Nokia stems from two, significant issues. Firstly, Nokia is insisting upon a profit-sharing deal albeit that operators can see little margin in selling the handset. Secondly, the operators will be saddled with much increased network traffic caused by the unlimited downloads associated with the service. The fear is that this could run into several Gigabytes per month per handset, which could cripple operators' existing data networks.

Insisting that the situation was not all gloom, Nokia claims to be negotiating with several operators in the hope it can sign several deals in time for Christmas. However, given the majority of the larger European operators already have, or are planning, a music download service, Nokia's Comes with Music can only be seen as a threat.

However, a recent study by market researcher TNS Technology revealed that people aged 16 to 64 wanted to download 64 music tracks a month--which, on a yearly basis, equates to over £600, making the Comes with Music service at £130 look more of an attractive proposition.
Keeping the competition alive, Research in Motion officially also recently unveiled the first touch-screen smartphone in its history. Known as the BlackBerry Storm, or 9500, this new BlackBerry is a 3G device and comes with a "responsive touch screen" that attempts to simulate the tactile experience of actual hardware.

Hewlett-Packard is also planning on releasing a consumer-oriented smartphone. The unnamed device will be released first in Europe, sometime in the late fourth quarter, and will be marketed by a mobile carrier and sold in retail stores. The phone will run on Windows Mobile 6.1, be a touch-screen device and have a full QWERTY keyboard. A worldwide release is scheduled for sometime in 2009.

This war of producing the best design for the mobile phone is definitely good for the consumers especially for the ones who feel proud in carrying a smarter gadget in the form of their mobile phone.

Future Mobile Terminals: Multiservice, Multinetwork, Multimode

There is an interesting paper in IEEE Wireless Comms Magazine 2008, " ENABLING MULTISERVICE ON 3G AND BEYOND: CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS" and a gist of that article could also obtained from this presentation by one of its authors.

• MultiService: The UE should be able to perform multiple services simultaneously. Though this is possible to quite an extent in the present phones, there are still limitations and few allowed combinations that will have to be changed
• MultiNetwork: These MultiServices should not be restricted to a single network at any time. A user could be having a voice call using HSPA+ network while he is watching youtube clips using 802.11n.
• MultiMode: For these MultiServices on MultiNetworks, the users will have to use MultiMode terminals with n different kinds protocol stacks. So the terminal would support WLAN, UMTS, HSPA+, LTE, 802.21, WiMAX, Bluetooth, DVB-H, etc. (sorry if missed something else)

This Multinetwork environment providing Multiservice with Multimode terminals is also referred to as Hetrogeneous Wireless Network or HWN.

The real challenge which has not yet been present on the current terminals is that these multiple technologies not only independently provides services to a user, but also interacts with others in a collaborative manner to provide a given QoS guarantees. This will probably require revolutionary design change from the existing approach of multiple protocol stacks each independent of each other.

Another big challenging problem to solve would be automatic handovers horizontally and vertically. A horizontal handover migrates a connection between two homogeneous networks. A vertical handover deals with the migration between heterogeneous networks (e.g., from cellular to WLAN). The terminal will need to have intelligence to handover a particular service horizontally or vertically independent of other services. The terminal will also have to take into account the delay and the loss associated with the handover.

This is all very interesting concept but the complexity and challenges will mean that this wont see light before 2016 or rather 2020.