LTE

Nokia pulls out of WiMAX

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:32:55 -0500

In yet another blow to the ambitions of the WiMAX camp, Nokia has announced its intention to end production of the only WiMAX device in its portfolio, the N810 tablet PC. According to a Nokia spokesman, the device had reached the end of its lifecycle, remarkably quickly it seems as the N810 was only launched nine months ago. Nokia did not rule out re-entering the WiMAX device market but this does not seem a realistic possibility. The Finnish vendor was an early and keen supporter of WiMAX but seems to have cooled on the technology.

This has not been a good week for WiMAX, which until recently was being touted as a key player in the fourth generation wireless space. Its most significant supporter, Intel, announced it was writing off the US$950 million it invested in WiMAX, leaving the highest profile WiMAX operator, Clearwire of the US, dangling in the breeze. Support for Long Term Evolution (LTE) is another key factor in depressing the hopes of WiMAX. With all the US and Chinese CDMA operators now on board, more than 80 per cent of mobile operators are committed to evolving through the LTE path leaving little room for WiMAX.

For more:
- go to ITPro.co.uk and Tech Tree

Related articles:
Nokia hoists the WiMAX flag 180 feet
Nokia ends production of N810 WiMAX tablet

2008 Year in Review: Vodafone head sees LTE as an umbrella standard

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:19:10 -0500

By openly stating at the Mobile World Congress that LTE should encompass WiMAX, the former CEO of Vodafone, Arun Sarin, voiced the opinion of many on how to defuse a potentially costly and damaging battle between these two burgeoning wireless standards.

Sarin praised the progress made by both technologies during 2007, albeit that WiMAX was technically ahead with networks and end-user devices near to commercial deployment. However, Sarin urged the LTE camp should reposition itself to accommodate WiMAX. "The issue for me is simply resources in our industry: We only have a finite number of R&D engineers and if we split them into two camps, then we would be diluting what we can do in the future. The LTE standard is an accommodating standard and there is a TDD section that I think WiMAX could fit into."

Whilst Sarin's remarks caused many to review their strategy at the time, few public statements of support came from either the vendor or operator community. We had to wait in Europe until Q4 of this year before the CTO of T-Mobile, Joachim Horn, broke ranks by stating that the company would not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but would instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE. This public declaration followed statements from operators outside Europe, namely China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless, that they also intended to aggressively push forward with LTE.

In an attempt to gain the attention of these four major operators, Ericsson--which had just announced Q3 operating profits down 40 per cent, stated there would be commercial deployments of LTE starting in late 2009. According to John Cunliffe, Ericsson UK's CTO, trials of LTE would begin by the end of this year with commercial services, handsets and base stations surfacing during the latter part of next year. The company has already conducted drive testing of LTE in Sweden which produced peak download speeds of 154Mbps, a mean of 78Mbps and a minimum of 16Mbps--albeit that these figures bear little relationship to "real-world" throughput.

Horn was rather more cautious regarding deployment timescales, maintaining that LTE test networks would not be seen until mid- to late-2010.

Significance: LTE holds significant promise for mobile operators if they are allocated adequate spectrum and deployment costs are kept low. This latter issue may be the trigger to drive network RAN sharing between operators, something that has largely stalled over the last two years. It also has the ability to consolidate existing wireless technologies under a single umbrella standard and provide a technology framework that could last several decades.

Related articles:
T-Mobile CTO: I'll invest in LTE, not HSPA+
LTE ready for late 2009, says Ericsson
Vodafone CEO: WiMAX has a home in LTE

Will LTE be to mobile operators what NGNs are to fixed?

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:43:38 -0500

With all the excitement surrounding LTE, it is easy to overlook how the practicalities of migration will impact mobile operators. Migration to LTE will need to be approached in the same way that fixed telcos have viewed next-generation network (NGN) deployments - long term and holistically. Article

Femtocells: Out of the home and into the streets

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:31:10 -0500

Major global operators today backed the vision of taking femtocells out of homes and offices into the wider environment as part of their Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployment. At the LTE World Summit in London, China Mobile, T-Mobile and Telus all expressed support for this idea that first was advanced by Vodafone earlier this year. Femtocell specialist picoChip gave reality to this concept by announcing further details of what is claimed to be the industry's first complete LTE picocell and femtocell reference designs. These new platforms will enable high capacity networks for metro, hot-zone and rural deployments. According to the picoChip view of LTE, all deployments will consist of small femtocell base stations. Speaking at the World Summit picoChip co-founder and CTO Doug Pulley stated that the macrocell was dead and that it was a fallacy to think that existing cellsites could be used for LTE services.

For more on this story go to Unstrung and Mobile Europe

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Femtocells and the consumer proposition
New femtocell designs 'sniff' out networks

T-Mobile CTO: I'll invest in LTE, not HSPA+

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:23:14 -0500

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

According to Chief Technology Officer Joachim Horn, the company will deploy HSPA as long as no hardware upgrades or replacements are necessary, and will look to improve network efficiency using software techniques. This effectively means T-Mobile can boost its current 7.2Mbps HSDPA network up to 14.4 Mbps on the downlink--and not to the next step of 28.8Mbps (and higher) that is enabled by HSPA+. The major drawbacks, according to Horn, are the necessary base station upgrades and the need for MIMO antennae.

Those looking for conspiracy theories might accuse T-Mobile of attempting to force equipment vendors to place greater emphasis on the development of LTE as against further refining HSPA+. Given that China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless have each made aggressive statements regarding their intent to push forward with LTE, then those interested in such plots have more to go on.

However, there is a question as to whether these operators, including T-Mobile, can wait for LTE--especially given the marketing hype around mobile broadband offers.

Horn is acutely aware of this issue and doesn't believe LTE test networks will be seen until mid- to late-2010. Horn seems content to adopt a long-term strategy: "LTE is suited in the long run, [around] 2020, to be the technology that you can consolidate all technologies onto--GSM and UMTS. That's a vision for 12 years from now."

For more on this story go to:
Unstrung

Related articles:
T-Mobile claims it tested LTE. T-Mobile story
China Mobile wants to test LTE ASAP. China Mobile story

LTE ready for late 2009, says Ericsson

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:30:31 -0400

Perhaps in an attempt to deflect attention away from its Q3 results (operating profits down 40 per cent), Ericsson has stated that there would be commercial deployments of LTE starting in late 2009.

According to John Cunliffe, Ericsson UK's CTO, trials of LTE would begin by the end of this year with commercial services, handsets and base stations surfacing during the latter part of next year. The company has already conducted drive testing of LTE in Sweden which produced peak download speeds of 154Mbps, a mean of 78Mbps and a minimum of 16Mbps--albeit that these figures bear little relationship to 'real-world' throughput.

How quickly operators shift towards LTE was brought into question by Cunliffe pointing at the growing success of HSPA-based 3G mobile broadband services. "There is a roadmap for HSPA. We have 7.2Mbps in the UK at the moment, and coverage is good with plenty of handsets supporting it. With high levels of modulation like 64QAM and MIMO, we can get 42Mbps out of HSPA ... and even 80Mbps with further optimisation."

As operators continue to heavily promote mobile broadband services, including increasingly generous monthly download allocations, HSPA and/or LTE might just become the favoured connection for broadband access - bringing into question the longevity of Wi-Fi.

For more on this story:
- go to ISP Review

Related articles:
China Mobile wants to test LTE ASAP. LTE story
Mobile industry pushes LTE. LTE story

Picocells and femtocells to be part of initial LTE architecture

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:20:03 -0400

It is likely that femtocells and picocells will form an integrated part of the initial rollouts of LTE networks, say analysts at ABI Research. According to senior analyst Nadine Manjaro, LTE deployment is expected to boost shipments and revenues. "In most parts of the world, LTE will be deployed using higher frequency bands. Higher frequencies penetrate structures less effectively than low frequencies, so femtocells and picocells offer an attractive way to compensate for lower indoor signal strength and provide LTE's touted bandwidth. Our forecasts show an upswing in femtocell and picocell penetration that coincides with the expected LTE deployment timeframe." Article

Femtocell design tested for LTE compliance

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:02:03 -0400

With LTE being seen as a major boost to the future success of femtocells, the joint testing of a reference design against the proposed LTE standard should help with its chances.

The joint testing has been conducted by picoChip, a U.K.-based femtocell silicon developer; mimoOn, a German-based SDR specialist; and the test equipment vendor Agilent Technologies. The objective behind the test was to verify that the femtocell reference design met the requirements of the LTE standard as measured by the recently developed 3GPP LTE modulation analysis option from Agilent.

picoChip and mimoOn, which have been co-operating on the reference design for the past 12 months, recently announced the availability of what they suggest are the first LTE femtocell and picocell reference designs, the PC8608 Home eNodeB and PC8618 eNodeB respectively. The design is based upon the same hardware platforms as picoChip's WiMAX products.

For more on this story:
- go to EE Times Germany

Related stories:
Qualcomm buys into femtocell developer. Qualcomm story
Femtocells--big market, bigger questions. Editorial on femtocell

Nokia behind TD-SCDMA Italian network deployment

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:58:25 -0400

With China Mobile struggling to deploy a 3G TD-SCDMA network in time for the Beijing Olympics, news that Nokia is behind plans to deploy a trial network in Italy using the same technology is somewhat odd. The network, which will supposedly be targeted at corporate users, is to be built by the Chinese telecoms vendor Potevio and Italy's Mywave Electronics. Potevio, is a joint venture between China Putian (51 per cent) and Nokia (49 per cent). Potevio is reported to be already running TD-SCDMA trials in Tianjin and Qinhuangdao in China, with other TD-SCDMA test networks being installed in Hong Kong, South Korea, Canada, Romania and Ghana. No timescales have been given regarding the Italian network deployment.

A recent report published by ABI claimed that, although China's TD-SCDMA 3G technology will be deployed on a small scale during the Beijing Olympics, local operators are very unlikely to invest heavily in any 3G given that LTE is fast becoming the future technology of choice.

For more on this story:
- go to Telegeography

Related stories:
China Mobile to issue TD-SCDMA tender after Olympics. China Mobile story
ZTE supplying telecom services for Beijing Olympics. ZTE story

WiMAX growth to be contained by LTE - Top 5 Trends

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:16:51 -0400

The timeline for LTE has been adrift, letting WiMAX gain footholds in European markets. Now that the supporters of LTE have ramped up their efforts the required standards should appear late this year, instead of 2012 as previously planned. This move will stop WiMAX gaining traction, and the race as to which will become the winner is much closer, if not over.

These trends are all on different timelines but are being driven by the need for operators to reshape their business models within mature markets. Some will be short-term, others will take much longer to implement.