
Thursday, 22 April 2010
When Femtocells become Picocells

Wednesday, 21 April 2010
The WiMAX taxis of Taiwan
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Video Calling: Boon or Bane?

Research in Motion Ltd says it is far from certain that video will become the "killer app" that defines smartphones, but even so the BlackBerry maker says developing more efficient delivery is necessary to prevent video from choking airwaves.
The popularity of feature-rich smartphones such as the BlackBerry, Apple's iPhone, and Motorola's Droid has surged, but they use as much as 30 times as much bandwidth as regular mobile phones to run the applications, or "apps," that make them so popular.
The surge in traffic triggered by video and other apps has led to more dropped calls and choppy service. As video on smartphones becomes more popular, it is leading to more congestion, and forcing carriers to spend billions to upgrade networks and buy more wireless spectrum.
"I still don't know and I don't think anyone knows if video is a killer app for smartphones," RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said at a conference hosted by a unit of Toronto Dominion Bank on Friday. "I don't particularly think it is."
Lazaridis said that even if video did not become the defining app for smartphones, it is already presenting a big challenge to networks.
Analysts have praised Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM for its relatively bandwidth-light BlackBerrys, which route most emails through the company's own servers. This is a legacy of the company's earlier days when it was seeking a faster, more secure mobile email service.
RIM also sends web browsing, Facebook, Twitter, and data from a wide number of BlackBerry apps through its own servers.
That makes browsing and using apps on a BlackBerry three to eight times as efficient bandwidth-wise as on the devices of RIM's rivals, said Lazaridis.
"What that means for the carrier, though, is after they have committed all those billions of dollars on new network technology and new network spectrum, they can have three BlackBerrys using the same network capacity as one of the other smartphones."
Lazaridis said RIM would invest more in technology that provides efficiencies to carriers, including when it comes to video.
He pointed to RIM's 2006 acquisition of SlipStream, which specializes in data acceleration, compression and network optimization technology.
"They had some amazing technologies for compressing everything from web content, documents, and video. So, you never know, the research that we do is very important, it's always borne fruit and we are hoping that we can continue to ... provide tangible efficiencies to the carriers."
Monday, 19 April 2010
All eyes on TD-LTE in India and China

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the carrier, handset and component makers, and handset solution suppliers in China in late 2008 began to cooperate for the development of TD-LTE in three phases, the report said.
The first-phase trial of technological concepts completed in June 2009, and the ongoing R&D and experiments in the second phase will be finished at the end of June 2010, the report indicated, adding the third phase will begin with China Mobile setting up three trial networks in the third quarter.
The trial network consists of 17 outdoor TD-LTE base stations made by Huawei Technologies completely covering the 5.28km square site and will be used to provide mobile high-definition multimedia services.
ZTE and Datang Mobile Communications Equipment as well as Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent have also set up TD-LTE access points inside a number of pavilions.
These milestones follow the announcement by China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) in 2009, that Motorola was selected as main equipment supplier to provide indoor TD-LTE coverage for pavilions at Shanghai Expo. During the Shanghai Expo, Motorola will provide an advanced end-to-end TD-LTE solution and the world's first TD-LTE USB dongles. Motorola will also leverage its orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) expertise with professional services to deploy, maintain and optimize these leading-edge networks. Visitors will be able to experience applications such as high-definition video on demand, remote monitoring and high-speed Internet access services.
Motorola, a leading provider of TD-LTE technology, and China Mobile share the same commitment to accelerating TD-LTE commercialization and globalization. "We are very excited to support China Mobile in bringing the world's first TD-LTE USB dongle demonstration enabled by our TD-LTE system," said Dr. Mohammad Akhtar, corporate vice president and general manager, Motorola Networks business in Asia Pacific. "A healthy devices ecosystem has always been critical to the development, commercialization and success of wireless network technologies. We are working closely with partners to drive this ecosystem as demonstrated by the advancement announced today. TD-LTE is now a commercial reality and we are very pleased to see that industry players are joining forces to accelerate TD-LTE globalization."
Interest in TD-LTE continues to grow because of several key factors: the low cost of TDD spectrum that is particularly attractive to emerging and developing markets; operators' continuing need for more capacity and spectrum; and the ability to hand-off between TD-LTE and LTE FDD networks. In effect, this ability to roam between LTE FDD and TD-LTE means operators can use TD-LTE networks to augment their FDD LTE network for more capacity or other applications such as video broadcasting, while operators choosing to use TD-LTE as their "main" network can still offer their subscribers the ability to roam to other operators' FDD LTE networks in different countries. Motorola is one of the few vendors in the industry that has expertise in, and is committed to investing in both FDD-LTE and TD-LTE, as well as WiMAX. By leveraging its orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) expertise and WiMAX legacy, Motorola has built up its leadership position in TD-LTE with a number of industry-firsts.
"The development of terminals and devices has always been a bottleneck in the roll-out of new mobile technology," said Mr. Sha Yuejia, vice president of China Mobile. "We are thus more than happy to see that Nokia Siemens Networks has established a cutting-edge terminal testing environment, an initiative that we support wholeheartedly. After all, a healthy ecosystem needs efforts from all stakeholders."
Nokia Siemens Networks' Open Lab will provide an end-to-end testing environment for verifying the compatibility of terminals and devices with the company's TD-LTE network products and solutions. The lab will also provide consultancy and testing services to device manufacturers. Nokia Siemens Networks' TD-LTE R&D center in Hangzhou is fully integrated into the company's global network of LTE Centers of Competence.
Providing a live TD-LTE experience to operators in the region, Nokia Siemens Networks also recently kicked off a nationwide TD-LTE road show in China. Beginning in Beijing, the road show will cover more than ten provinces in three months, demonstrating the most advanced TD-LTE technology and applications.
US-based Qualcomm and Sweden's Ericcson aim to piggyback on TD-LTE, hoping that it will help them gain a toe-hold in India, the world's fastest growing mobile market. Qualcomm is to participate in the broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum auction. If it does secure its bid in the auction, India could well become the first country after China to roll out TD-LTE.
TD-LTE, or Time Division Long Term Evolution, caters to peak download speeds of 100 Mbps on mobile phones, compared to the 20 Mbps for 3G and 40 Mbps for Wimax. LTE brings to the table additional spectrum, more capacity, lower cost, and is essential to take mobile broadband to the mass market.
The government has slotted the sale of two 2.3 GHz blocks of spectrum on April 11, providing 20 MHz spectrum in each of the country's 22 telecom circles. The base price has been set at $ 385 million. However, Qualcomm will need an Indian partner for its TD-LTE foray in the country since foreign direct investment is limited to 74%.
The US telco aims to use the 2.3 GHz spectrum band offered for TD-LTE-based BWA services. Sources in the know told TOI that the company would bid aggressively to corner one of the two BWA slots up for sale. There are 11 bidders for the BWA auction.
Asked to comment on the market dynamics, Sandeep Ladda, executive director, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), said: "Though the Indian market is huge, it won't be smooth sailing post auction. We are adding 1 crore customers a month and in January, we added 1.9 crore customers, but the implementation of the new technology has its own cost. And India is a very cost conscious market."
Eager to play by the rules in India, Qualcomm has notified that it would enter into a joint venture with an Indian partner to launch its services and later exit from the joint venture after the network becomes operable.
Recently, the forum launched a global initiative to accelerate advanced WiMAX features that would double peak data rates and increase average and cell edge end user performance by 50 percent.
Mo Shakouri, vice president with the WiMAX Forum, said enhancements to the current generation of WiMAX weren't on the forum's roadmap, but were brought to the forefront at the urging of several WiMAX operators already facing capacity crunches. The forum reports that the average usage of data on WiMAX networks is close to 10 GB. Clearwire recently reported that mobile users average more than 7 GB of usage per month. In Russia, mobile WiMAX operator Yota sees more than 1 GB per month in data traffic from subscribers using its HTC smartphone. For laptops, it's 13 GB per month.
"Demand for data is moving so fast that we were pushed by many people to add this functionality," Shakouri said.
The WiMAX Forum has also been prodded to announce more detailed plans for 802.16m, and step up the timeline for its development via a new group called the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative, which is made up of vendors Samsung, Alvarion, Motorola, ZTE, Sequans, Beceem, GCT Semiconductor and XRONet. The companies will work in tandem with the WiMAX Forum and WiMAX operators to accelerate the next-generation standard. WiMAX 2, the marketing name for the 802.16m standard, is expected to expand capacity to 300 Mbps peak rates via advances in antennas, channel stacking and frequency re-use.
The forum previously forecast 802.16m would hit in 2012 or 2013. But increasing demands for data--coupled with Qualcomm and Ericsson urging Indian mobile broadband license bidders to go with TD-LTE--motivated the forum to put some stakes in the ground and declare that WiMAX 2 equipment will meet certification by the end of 2011.
"There has been a lot of noise about TD-LTE, and the WiMAX Forum had not specifically given dates regarding timelines for 802.16m," Shakouri said. "Basically our announcement around 802.16m came about because of the noise in India."
The formation of the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative is a marked change from the way the first generation of WiMAX was developed. Sprint Nextel was the entity driving the majority of the standards work as it was eager to get to market and begin building an ecosystem. Vendors are now taking the lead and driving equipment readiness before the 802.16m standard is finalized by the end of this year. Shakouri said the standard is 95 percent finished.
"Those companies are going to take a more active role inside the forum," Shakouri said. "They have all come together to speed up the process."
The group of vendors plans to collaborate on interoperability testing, performance benchmarking and application development before the WiMAX Forum establishes its certification program to narrow the gap between the finalized standard and commercial rollouts.
So how much of a threat is TD-LTE to WiMAX? Shakouri said the answer depends on spectrum decisions. "At this moment, the spectrum we are focusing on is separate, aside from what Qualcomm announced in India," Shakouri said. He also said that a TD-LTE ecosystem is at least two to three years behind WiMAX.
Many analysts speculate that TD-LTE will become the crossover technology that will prompt WiMAX operators to flip to LTE. Clearwire was part of a group of operators and vendors that last month asked the 3GPP standards body to begin working on specifications that would enable TD-LTE to be deployed in the 2.6 GHz band, which Clearwire uses for WiMAX. During the CTIA Wireless 2010 trade show last month, Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow reiterated the company's interest in deploying LTE when the technology catches up to WIMAX. He also called for one standard down the road.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Femtocell Technology Map from Ubiquisys

Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Pomegranate concept mobile: With video projector, live voice translator, harmonica, coffee maker, shaving razor, etc

Tuesday, 13 April 2010
HSPA finds success with Mobile Broadband Growth

- According to a report from AdMob, smartphonedata traffic grew 193% year-over-year in the month of February 2010. Smartphonesaccounted for 48% of its traffic in February 2010, up from 35% the year before. AdMobattributed this primarily to iPhoneand Android traffic.
- Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann is expected to double revenues by 2015 with €10 billion coming from mobile data traffic. Obermann said it would double the number of 3G smartphonesin the network to around 8 million by the end of 2010
- A recent report by In-Stat, stated that mobile broadband is now the second-largest access technology behind DSL, making up 18% subscribers
- Telia Sonera reported that the strong demand for mobile devices, including mobile broadband and Apple iPhone™, continued. Mobile data traffic in Nordic and Baltic operations increased close to 200% while the number of mobile broadband subscriptions rose by more than 60% during 2009.
- AT&T reported that Text messaging grew 50% YoY and picture messaging grew 130%
- According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 54.5 million units Q4 09, up 39.0% from Q4 08. Vendors shipped a total of 174.2m units in 2009, up 15.1% from the 151.4m units in 2008. Converged mobile devices accounted for 15.4% of all mobile phones shipped in 2009, up slightly from 12.7% in 2008
- The number of people subscribing to broadband internet services in Australia grew rapidly with wireless broadband and 3G mobile services continuing strong growth in 2009, according to a new report by ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). 3G now accounts for more than 50% of all mobile subscriptions, an annual increase of 44%. Internet subscriptions reached 8.4 million in June 2009, compared to 7.2 million in June 2008. Broadband subscriptions increased from 5.66 million to 6.72 million in the same period, with wireless subscribers gaining 162% to 2.1 million
- Vodafone's Data traffic has risen 300% in the past two years. Data now represents 11% of all European service revenues. Smartphones represent 20% of handsets sales. Around 40% of the company's European 3G/HSPA networks now support 7.2 Mbps. In the coming 6 months, Vodafone plans to upgrade 20-25,000 sites across Europe to HSPA+
- UK consultancy firm, Coda Research Consultancy, has predicted that mobile data consumption in the US is set to reach 327,000 terabytes a month by 2015, indicating a 40-fold rise in mobile data consumption over 5 years
- Mobile data traffic from PC modems and routers is forecast to increase 4-fold between 2010 and 2014, according to a report by ABI Research. 2,000 petabytes of data will be sent and received in 2010, a figure that will rise to about 8,000 petabytesin 2014
- Semiannual US wireless industry survey was released at CTIA in March 2010 revealing that wireless service revenues totaled $77 billion for the last half of the year. The real growth is coming from wireless data services -mobile Web, text messages, and other non-voice services. In the latter half of last year, revenue for wireless data service totaled > $22 billion, nearly a third of overall wireless services revenue and up 26% YoY. Steve Largent, President and CEO of CTIA, said in a statement. "Mobile broadband will increasingly play a vital role in people’s lives."
- A new study by Juniper Research has forecast that more than 1 in 10 mobile subs will either have a ticket delivered to their mobile phone or buy a ticket with their phone by 2014, representing a five-fold growth over the next five years.
- Strategy Analytics recently forecast that the number of active mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide is expected to rise to around 1.3 billion by 2014
- ABI Research announced that shipments of mobile broadband-enabled consumer products, which includes e-book readers, mobile digital cameras, camcorders, personal media players, personal navigation devices and mobile gaming devices will increase 55-fold between 2008 and 2014 with total shipments reaching 58 million units per year in 2014
Monday, 12 April 2010
GSA report on Evolution to LTE

- 64 networks in 31 countries have committed to LTE network rollout.
- Upto 22 LTE networks would be in service end of 2010
- 39 or more LTE networks will be in service end of 2012
- Digital Dividend Update - March 2010
- UMTS900 Global Status - March 2010
- Spectrum for LTE Mobile Broadband - Sep. 2009
- From TD-SCDMA to TD-LTE - Sep. 2009
- Low Frequency Options for Mobile Broadband - Sep. 2009
- UMTS 900 case study - June 2009
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Back after the break
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Renewed focus on TD-LTE
Industry momentum behind Time Division LTE continues to grow with news that a number of major operators and vendors are working with the 3GPP to allow the standard to be deployed in the USA, using the 2.6GHz spectrum band. Clearwire and its partners own the majority of that spectrum. Most of Clear’s 2.6 GHz spectrum goes unused.
Light Reading Mobile notes that China Mobile, Clearwire, Sprint Nextel, Motorola, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco Systems are asking for the 2.6GHz spectrum (2496MHz to 2690MHz) to be defined as a TDD band for LTE.
Outside the United States, part of the band (2570MHz to 2620MHz) is already specified for TDD. The new work will extend this compliance. The report adds that specifications for the US 2.6GHz band for TD-LTE is scheduled to be completed by March 2011.
LTE pioneers TeliaSonera, NTT DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless, will all use different frequency bands for their respective LTE networks, explains TechWorld. So for roaming in the U.S, Japan and Europe to work, modems will have to support 700MHz, 2100MHz and 2600MHz, with more bands to be used in the future. That will be a challenge for roaming, says Light Reading.
The appeal of TD-LTE has widened well beyond China. The recent announcement of Qualcomm to bid for TDD spectrum in India to support a TD-LTE deployment confirms--although it was not required to validate--the emergence of TD-LTE as global technology, likely to command a substantial market share.
Why the sudden interest in TD-LTE?
There are four main factors driving a growth in support for TD-LTE:
- The FDD LTE and TD-LTE versions of the 3GPP standard are very similar. As a result, devices can support both the FDD and TDD interfaces through a single chipset--i.e., without any additional cost. This is a hugely important new development: TD-LTE will benefit from the wide availability of FDD LTE devices that will be able to support TD-LTE as well. Unlike WiMAX, TD-LTE does not need to prove to have a substantial market share to convince vendors to develop devices. Vendors do not need to develop new devices, they simply need to add TD-LTE support to the existing ones.
- There is a lot of TDD spectrum available, and in most cases it is cheaper and under-utilized. 3G licenses frequently have TDD allocations and upcoming 2.5 GHz auction in most cases contemplate TDD bands.
- The increasing availability of base stations that can be cost-effectively upgraded will make it possible and relatively inexpensive for WiMAX operators to transition to TD‑LTE using the same spectrum allocation. The transition will still require substantial efforts and be justified only in some cases, but it will make it easier for WiMAX operators to have roaming deals and to have access to the same devices that LTE operators have.
- Industry commitment to WiMAX 16m, the ITU-Advanced version of WiMAX and successor to the current WiMAX 16e, is still limited.
What's next?
In the near term very little will change. TD-LTE is still being developed and it will take time before it gets deployed beyond core markets like China and possibly a few others like China. In Europe, for instance, mobile operators will deploy LTE in the FDD spectrum and only when they will need additional capacity they are likely to move to TDD. Unlike FDD LTE, TD-LTE will move from initial deployments in developing countries, with a later introduction as a mature technology in developed countries--a quite interesting trend reversal.
WiMAX operators will also be barely affected by TD-LTE in the short term. WiMAX is years ahead in terms of technological maturity, devices and ecosystem. This gives them a strong advantage in comparison to TD-LTE operators: They know the technology already, they have a network, and they have customers. They also have the choice whether to switch to TD-LTE or not--and, more importantly, they have no pressure to do so before TD-LTE has reached the maturity they feel comfortable with or until the WiMAX 16m prospects become clearer.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Huawei's "Two Cloud" solution for Mobile Broadband

Based on our roadmap of early success in mobile and fixed broadband network construction, Huawei now responds to the mobile broadband dilemma facing global operators with the unique "Two Clouds" solution.
Employing optimal topologies for access networks providing DSL-level bandwidth for users across the board, the two clouds work together to deliver the most cost-effective means of enhancing user experiences.
- A high speed cloud, consisting of Pico and AP BTSs, is typically deployed in densely-populated urban areas to deliver an average bandwidth of 2 Mb/s.
- A continuous cloud of macro BTSs is applied for wide coverage delivering a bandwidth of 256 to 512 kb/s.
Huawei's "Two Clouds" model allows operators to profitably deploy mobile broadband networks while utilizing an intelligent site management framework to automatically adjust bandwidth and reducing construction, operation, and maintenance costs.
Incorporating this framework, flexible network mapping permits manageable, controllable mobile broadband networks, ensuring continuous network coverage in various scenarios, and provides users with inexpensive, quality broadband services. Very convincingly, Huawei's "Two Clouds" concept can reduce the cost per bit by as much as 70%.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Dilbert Humour: So why is it called 4G?
Friday, 26 March 2010
E-UTRAN Mobility Drivers and Limitations
It was also easier to visualise the Intra-frequency and Inter-frequency handovers in UMTS and you can probably do the same to some extent in LTE but with things getting more complicated and carrier aggregation, classifying handovers in these categories may be difficult.
3GPP TS 36.300 has an informative Annex E which details the scenarios in which handovers and cell change can/will take place.

It is best to go and see Annex E in detail. Here is a bit of summary from there:
Intra-frequency mobility: intra-frequency mobility is the most fundamental, indispensable, and frequent scenario. With the frequency reuse being one in E-UTRAN, applying any driver other than the “best radio condition” to intra-frequency mobility control incur increased interference and hence degraded performance.
Inter-frequency mobility: as in UTRAN, an operator may have multiple carriers/bands for E-UTRAN working in parallel. The use of these frequency layers may be diverse. For example, some of these frequency layers may utilise the same eNB sites and antenna locations (i.e., co-located configuration), whereas some may be used to form a hierarchical cell structure (HCS), or even be used for private networks. Some frequency layers may provide MBMS services, while some may not. Moreover, E-UTRAN carriers/bands may be extended in the future to increase capacity.
Inter-RAT mobility: the aspects that need to be considered for inter-RAT are similar to those for inter-frequency. For mobility solutions to be complete with the inter-RAT drivers, relevant updates would be necessary on the legacy (UTRAN/GERAN) specifications. This will add to the limitations, which are evidently more effective in inter-RAT.
The drivers for mobility control are:
Best radio condition: The primary purpose of cell reselection, regardless of intra-frequency, inter-frequency, or inter-RAT, is to ensure that the UE camps on/connects to the best cell in terms of radio condition, e.g., path loss, received reference symbol power, or received reference symbol Es/I0. The UE should support measurements to suffice this aspect.
Camp load balancing: This is to distribute idle state UEs among the available bands/carriers/RATs, such that upon activation, the traffic loading of the bands/carriers/RATs would be balanced. At least the path loss difference between different bands should be compensated to avoid UEs concentrating to a certain frequency layer.
Traffic load balancing: This is to balance the loading of active state UEs, using redirection for example. In E-UTRAN, traffic load balancing is essential because of the shared channel nature. That is, the user throughput decreases as the number of active UEs in the cell increases, and the loading directly impacts on the user perception.
UE capability: As E-UTRAN bands/carriers may be extended in the future, UEs having different band capabilities may coexist within a network. It is also likely that roaming UEs have different band capabilities. Overlaying different RATs adds to this variety.
Hierarchical cell structures: As in UTRAN, hierarchical cell structures (HCS) may be utilised in E-UTRAN to cover for example, indoors and hot spots efficiently. It is possible that E-UTRAN is initially deployed only at hot spots, in which case this driver becomes essential for inter-RAT, not just for inter-frequency. Another use case would be to deploy a large umbrella cell to cover a vast area without having to deploy a number of regular cells, while providing capacity by the regular cells on another frequency.
Network sharing: At the edge of a shared portion of a network, it will be necessary to direct UEs belonging to different PLMNs to different target cells.
Private networks/home cells: Cells that are part of a sub-network should prioritise the camping on that sub-network. UEs that do not belong to private sub-networks should not attempt to camp or access them.
Subscription based mobility control: This mobility driver aims to limit the inter-RAT mobility for certain UEs, e.g., based on subscription or other operator policies.
Service based mobility control: An operator may have different policies in allocating frequencies to certain services. For example, the operator may concentrate VoIP UEs to a certain frequency layer or RAT (e.g., UTRAN or GERAN), if evaluations prove this effective. UEs requiring higher data rates may better be served on a frequency layer or RAT (e.g., E-UTRAN) having a larger bandwidth. The operator may also want to accommodate premium services on a certain frequency layer or RAT, that has better coverage or larger bandwidth.
MBMS: For Release-9, no new mobility procedures compared to Release-8 are included specifically for MBMS. In future releases the following should be considered. As MBMS services may be provided only in certain frequency layers, it may be beneficial/necessary to control inter-frequency/RAT mobility depending on whether the UE receives a particular MBMS service or not. For MBMS scenarios only, UE based service dependent cell reselection might be considered acceptable. This aspect also depends on the UE capability for simultaneous reception of MBMS and unicast.
While the issues mentioned above drive E-UTRAN towards “aggressive” mobility control, the limiting factors also have to be considered:
UE battery saving: The mobility solution should not consume excessive UE battery, e.g., due to measurements, measurement reporting, broadcast signalling reception, or TA update signalling.
Network signalling/processing load: The mobility solution should not cause excessive network signalling/processing load. This includes over-the-air signalling, S1/X2 signalling, and processing load at network nodes. Unnecessary handovers and cell reselections should be avoided, and PCH and broadcast signalling, as well as dedicated signallings, should be limited.
U-plane interruption and data loss: U-plane interruption and data loss caused by the mobility solution should be limited.
OAM complexity: The mobility solution should not demand excessive efforts in operating/maintaining a network. For example, when a new eNB is added or an existing eNB fails, the mobility solution should not incur excessive efforts to set up or modify the parameters.
More details available in Annex E of 3GPP TS 36.300
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Home Relays for LTE-Advanced

Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Femtocells for Beginners

Monday, 22 March 2010
Speech for Mobile to become big industry

Produced by the publishers of the industry’s best-read magazine, Speech Technology, SpeechTEK Europe is the sister of the highly successful New York annual event series and aims to capitalise on the wealth of speech innovators based here in Europe.
The conference has been developed by a Steering Committee which comprises some of the industry’s most respected thought leaders. Here they share their insights into the future for speech technologies, how they are developing, and where they will be used.
Loquendo’s Vice President of International Sales, Rosanna Duce, predicts that voice control will be a major growth area in the next five years:
“One important emerging speech technology is undoubtedly the voice control of all kinds of devices, for example, PDAs, mobile phones, DVD players.” She comments, “These technologies are currently being expanded and upgraded to allow all functions to be accessed using voice, thus eliminating the need to use a keyboard. Consumer demand seems to suggest that the option to dictate text messages will be a major source of growth in this area, as will be the reading of incoming messages by a TTS application bundled with the phone/PDA.”
Nava Shaked, CEO of Business Technologies, agrees,
“The combination of voice search engines, internet and mobile is a real opportunity for speech technology growth and influence. This includes the introduction of previously unseen applications for voice user interface and transcription. The combination of voice and video is also promising and will be inevitable in our interaction with multimedia.”
James Larson, the Conference Chair, supports these views,
“Multimodal applications on mobile devices will enable customers to not only speak and listen, but to also read and type and use additional modes in interaction. These apps will be easy to learn, easy to use, and much more natural than current voice-only apps or GUI-only apps. They will always be available, and customers can use them wherever they are, not just at their desktop or in their car.” He concludes, “Multimodal applications on mobile devices will dramatically change how we interact with appliances - TV, radio, environmental control - with the internet, and with other people.”
The SpeechTEK Europe conference programme explores these trends and the implications for the industry as a whole. Real world applications and case studies are a particular feature of the event, so delegates can see for themselves how speech is working in a variety of different environments, how to select and implement the technology, and how to evaluate its performance.
The full SpeechTEK Europe programme is available at: www.speechtek.com/europe2010 along with registration information, details of registration savings, and free entry exhibition tickets.
Friday, 19 March 2010
IPv6 transition in cellular networks gaining momentum

IPv6 is good and we all know that. I has been talked for years but practically it hasnt found much success. Verizon made some noise last year but I am not sure of the conclusion.
Just to recap, IPv4 was introduced back in 1982 and IPv6 work started since 1995. IPV4 uses 32 bit (4 bytes) addresses while IPV6 uses 128 bit (16 bytes) addresses. Theoretically we would now have 2^96 times more addresses than in case of IPv4.
Most of network infrastructure manufacturers have their equipment ready for IPv6 as some of the handset manufacturers. The main driver being that someday soon IPv4 addresses would be exhausted (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority will run out of IPv4 addresses in September of 2011, based on current projections) and their equipment would be ready to provide IPv6 addresses without any problems.
Recently, IETF-3GPP Workshop on IPv6 in cellular networks was held in San Francisco, USA on 1 - 2 March, 2010. There are lots of interesting presentations available here for people who want to dig a bit deeper. The concluding report that summarises the presentations and discussions are available here. Here is a brief summary from one of the reports (with links at the end):
Summary
- Scenarios for IPv6 migration were discussed based on 3GPP Technical Report 23.975
- The discussion focused on validating the scenarios
- General IPv6 transition and deployment guidelines were outlined based on input from IETF
- Solutions for migration and v4-v6 co-existence were presented
- Solutions included existing RFCs and working group items but also proposals in Internet Drafts
- Gap analysis wrt transition scenarios was discussed
Conclusions on scenarios
- Scenarios 1 and 3 based on dual-stack and IPv6-only deployments were generally recognized as valid
- Scenario 2 was also recognized as valid, addressing two separate problems related to insufficient RFC1918 space and subscriber identification
- See doc IPW100027
- Scenario 4 did not receive wide support from the workshop, largely because it was felt that it addressed a problem already solved by other scenarios
- Variants of some of these scenarios were brought up during the discussions, conclusions were not reached on these
- These may need further discussion
Conclusions on solutions
- It was recognized that necessary support in the network and devices is already available to “switch on” IPv6 in 3GPP networks
- Some networks reported running dual stack
- Some networks reported running IPv6-only now
- Solutions enhancing existing mechanisms for dual stack deployments and new solutions for IPv6-only deployments drew wide support
- Gateway-initiated Dual Stack Lite
- Stateful IPv4/IPv6 translation
- IETF and 3GPP are expected to focus further work based on the conclusions of the workshop
- Note that the workshop itself does not have the mandate to make formal decisions
- 3GPP is expected to identify possible normative specification impacts, if any, of the preferred solutions
- A need was identified to provide more operational guidelines about IPv6 deployment to 3GPP operators
- The best location for these guidelines is FFS (e.g. 3GPP TR 23.975, GSMA, etc)
- IETF and 3GPP are expected to focus further work based on the conclusions of the workshop
- Note that the workshop itself does not have the mandate to make formal decisions
- IETF is encouraged to continue working on stateless and stateful IPv4/IPv6 translation mechanisms
- These mechanisms are being worked on in IETF BEHAVE group
- IETF is also encouraged to consider new solutions that are not yet working group items
- Gateway Initiated DS Lite
- Per-interface NAT44 bindings addressing IPv4 address shortage
- Note that the workshop has not set any timelines
Further reading:
- 3GPP TR 23.975: IPv6 Migration Guidelines, Release 10 (http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/23_series/23.975/)
- 'IETF-3GPP Workshop on IPv6 in cellular networks' Workshop Presentations (http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/workshop/2010-03-01_IPv4-to-IPv6_with-IETF/Docs/)
- 'IETF-3GPP Workshop on IPv6 in cellular networks' Workshop Summary Report(http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/workshop/2010-03-01_IPv4-to-IPv6_with-IETF/Report/)
- 3G Americas Report on 'Transitioning to IPv6' (http://3gamericas.org/documents/2008_IPv6_transition_3GA_Mar2008.pdf)
- Is IPv6 Finally on the Verge? - Light Reading (http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=189143)
- Jari Arkko's Publications (http://www.arkko.com/publications.html)
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The size of Mobile Market (Amazing Pic)

Mobile Apps market to grow to '$17.5bn by 2012'

- The overall mobile apps downloads are expected to increase from over 7 billion in 2009 to almost 50 billion by 2012 growing at the rate of 92% CAGR
- The revenue from mobile apps which includes both paid downloads and revenue from advertising and virtual goods is expected to increase from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $17.5 billion by 2012 at the rate of 62% CAGR.
- The overall global subscriptions base is expected to exceed 5 billion by the end of 2010 with over 27% of them being data subscribers
- Non-carrier appstores jumped from a mere 8 to 38 last year
- In 2009, advertising contributed almost 12% to the overall apps revenue.
- The price range of applications in various stores can vary from $0.99 to $999.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Ringtones to help you in your daily life..

