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  • WiMAX MENA: Roll-Out Strategy Key To WiMAX v LTE Debate


    Arguing that WiMAX is a better wireless 4G system than Long Term Evolution (LTE) – or vice versa – is a waste of time.

    That’s the view of Dr Hans-Peter Petry, head of radio access and transport at Detecon International, who is adamant that it’s pointless claiming either side in the 4G debate is superior to the other.

    "I would violently fight against those that say LTE is better than WiMAX," he said. "This is absolutely wrong.

    Even so, Petry, who is a speaker at this week’s WiMAX Forum Mena in Dubai, said that a key question in the WiMAX community is how it compares to other wireless technologies.

    He is addressing this in his presentation to the conference, which is entitled: Exploring The Capabilities Of Potential 4G Candidates And Understanding The Best Parameters For Benchmarking And A Successful Rollout.

    As part of this, Petry will "clarify the landscape" – essentially spelling out what makes a technology 2G, 3G or 4G.

    He told smartphone.biz-news this is necessary because many people are confused by what a technology has to offer before it can be classed as 4G.

    "There is a lot of confusion in the market," he said. "A lot of protagonists are confusing people with conflicting messages."

    "For 4G there are very clear pre-requisites and without them being implemented in the technology, you can not claim it is 4G."

    Dr Hans-Peter Petry, head of radio access and transport at Detecon International

    So WiMAX partly belongs to 3G – along with LTE and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) – and only in certain circumstances can they claim to be 4G, according to Petry.

    He said Detecon had defined a metric that enabled each of the technologies to be evaluated in a fair way.

    This included: marketing, geography, services, tariffs, and technology inputs.

    "All these parameters are important for an evaluation," he said. "We have mapped these into a single Service Production Cost (SPC)."

    So it is possible to show the SPC for individual technologies under similar conditions.

    Petry said this has produced some "astonishing results", the outcome of which shows that the decision on which 4G technology to implement is not a question of the technology.

    "Under the same boundary conditions, the difference in the technology is minor."

    Where there are differences, according to Petry, they lie in the roll-out strategies.

    He said this came down to whether an operator is looking for coverage first, then capacity or vice versa.

    "The recommendation is that before you talk about the technology, talk about other things such as roll-out strategy," he said.

    So factors such as the kind of customer, whether the area is green field, brown field, rural or densely populated, all have to be considered.

    Petry said boundary questions then had to be dealt with before, finally, talking about the appropriate technology.

    "Then you can choose the right technology," he said. "Do not choose WiMAX because you think it is better than LTE."

    As a footnote, Petry said he believed LTE would ultimately capture a larger market share than WiMAX.

    That may prove correct, but as the performance and capabilities of WiMAX and LTE get better over time, the competition between them will become less important than that between wireless and wired broadband.

  • Optimism For WiMAX Grows – As LTE Cranks Up Network Plans

    INTERVIEW: With the WiMAX Forum Global Congress about to kick off in Amsterdam, smartphone.biz-news spoke to Mike Roberts, principle analyst with Informa, about the state of the emerging wireless technology.

    While the appeal of WiMAX for users has always been clear it hasn’t made the 4G technology’s path to becoming a widely adopted wireless standard any smoother.

    However, despite setbacks and delays in networks being rolled out, WiMAX does appear to finally be gaining momentum.

    On Tuesday, thousands of delegates will be attending the opening of this year’s two-day WiMAX Forum Global Congress in Amsterdam.

    Mike Roberts, principle analyst with Informa, is chairing sessions at the conference.

    He said he is "cautiously optimistic" about WiMAX, which is taking a small but increasingly respectable share of the mobile broadband market.

    "It’s a newcomer and is not going to take over the market overnight," he said. "Given its strengths we see it taking a very small market share, but that’s growing and will continue to do so."

    Roberts told smartphone.biz-news that one of the themes in Amsterdam will be that WiMAX should focus on its strengths.

    "While that may appear obvious, it still holds true," he said.

    What are those strengths? Well, these are principally fast data rates and low latency.

    Broadband Data

    As a result, Roberts said WiMAX should initially be concentrating on the broadband data segment since it offers users a better user experience than other technologies.

    "It is the latest and greatest technologies bundled together. That’s its great advantage," he said.

    There are also disadvantages to the technology, especially when compared to 3G-based systems such as HSPA and EVDO. But Roberts said these largely come down to coverage.

    "They (3G) are established traditional systems, so they are everywhere. WiMAX does not have that in any countries, but that is a function of maturity."

    Juniper Research recently issued a report noting that growth in WiMAX networks has been slower than anticipated.

    But it forecast that revenue from WiMAX 802.16e broadband subscribers will exceed USD $15 billion globally by 2014.

    To put that in perspective, Verizon reported wireless revenue of USD $15.1 billion for the first quarter of this year.

    The report notes that WiMAX will likely be a replacement technology for low-end DSL service and in developing countries where wired access doesn’t make economic sense.

    Developing Nations Take To WiMAX

    A driving force in these markets is Intel, which expects to make WiMAX accessible to 120 million people in 2010, with global rollouts planned or already happening in nations such as Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and India.

    Roberts said WiMAX had strong appeal in these countries because of their low broadband penetration.

    He said coverage is often not very good because of the cost of creating networks.

    "But everyone wants broadband these days, regardless of where they are, and the obvious way to roll it out is with wireless technology," he said.

    "WiMAX and other mobile broadband technologies have a great opportunity to meet that demand and are going after that opportunity."

    In the US, the WiMAX market is slowly growing, thanks chiefly to WiMAX service provider Clearwire.

    It is, finally, rolling out its WiMAX network – it added 25,000 new subscriptions in the first quarter of 2009, and users in Portland, Ore., where the service launched in January, are using twice the bandwidth than those in Clearwire’s Pre-WiMAX markets.

    The company has the aim of providing a pervasive mobile broadband service nationwide.

    But despite USD $3 billion in recent additional funding, the current economic climate has caused delays in the rollout.

    That said, as PC makers and others in the technology industry infiltrate the wireless market, the more open WiMAX technology is likely to gain more ground.

    Clearwire CEO William Morrow, recently spoke about the capacity and openness of the WiMAX network.

    He pointed out that it offered a way for customers to get streaming video or other applications that carriers are currently leery of.

    Roberts said Clearwire is one of the first really major WiMAX deployments and the faster it deployed, the better it was for the technology.

    "The rollout has been delayed but now its going ahead the take up in some markets is very good," he said. "That is very good for WiMAX."

    Clearwire is looking to target its ultra high-speed service at "road warriors" and others looking to get the most out of their netbooks, smartphones and laptops. It also appeals to heavy broadband users on a local level.

    Clearwire argues that eventually, the economies of scale and interest level will be convincing enough for consumer electronics makers to embed WiMAX into a range of smart devices.

    To improve the road warrior proposition in the absence of widespread deployment, Clearwire plans to introduce a dual-mode modem this summer that can connect to Sprint’s 3G network as well as to the Clear network.

    It says that, while there are no embedded devices on the market right now, it expects there to be nearly 100 by the end of the year.

    Roberts said that WiMAX is very strong in the portable segment – USB modems and notebooks – and is gaining momentum elsewhere.

    He said this is in part because Intel is one of the technology’s major backers and it held a lot of sway in the market.

    HTC T8290 – HTC’s First WiMAX Device

    "A lot of the 100 devices will be in that category," he said. "Where WiMAX still has a lot of work to do is in the mobile device category, although a lot of WiMAX people would say that’s less important to them."

    If WiMAX achieves its goal of having 100 devices by the end of 2009, then that is quite good progress for an emerging technology, according to Roberts.

    But he said it still paled in comparison to the 1000s of mobile devices available to the encumbent technologies, which were also able to offer them at very competitive price points.

    "But WiMAX offers a lightly better user experience for some applications and they will have to differentiate on that basis," he said.

    Play to Strength

    While WiMAX is strong in the portable segments, true, "full-blown" mobility will be harder and more expensive to achieve, according to Roberts.

    "You can argue the extent to which some WiMax networks need to go there," he said. "Most will be based on mobile WiMAX but do not need a full-blown mobile service.

    "It could be more for people on notebooks rather than talking on the phone – that’s WiMAX’s real core strength and the obvious place to start.

    "If it tries to go against straight mobility, then it will come up against very intense competition."

    Also in the US, Sprint rolled out a pilot WiMAX program in Baltimore last year. The network delivers average download speeds of two to four megabits per second, half the rate of cable Internet but several times faster than the 3G mobile service used by many of today’s smartphones, according to Sprint’s tests.

    The company plans to introduce WiMAX in 10 American cities this year and five more in 2010.

    Since few mobile devices have WiMAX chips in them, Sprint’s plan requires a proprietary antenna that plugs into laptops, similar to the early Wi-Fi cards that have since been built into computers.

    Growth Gets Noticed

    The flip side to WiMAX’s expanding network is that competing technologies take notice of the progress.

    So carriers like Verizon Wireless have speeded up their next generation network plans (in this case LTE).

    Ericsson and TeliaSonera have just flipped the switch on the world’s first commercial LTE cell site in Stockholm, Sweden.

    The site will be part of a full-scale deployment that’s scheduled for next year.

    AT&T has also just announced it is to accelerate the ramp up of LTE, a move which places it in a head-to-head competition with Verizon Wireless.

    The latter is already racing to install its LTE wireless infrastructure.

    "Success does not go unnoticed," said Roberts. "The LTE crowd has seen WiMAX coming to market and they have accelerated their plans in response.

    "I may be being a little cynical, but in Ericsson’s case they have turned on the base station although no-one can use it as there are no devices available.

    "But it is a step towards commercialising LTE."

    Despite this, he is optimistic about the future prospects for WiMAX: "If you look at WiMAX in isolation there are a lot of very positive signs.

    "If you look at it in broad terms, there are also positive signs. But there is competition and WiMAX will have to compete with the incumbents."

  • Mobile VoIP Huge Challenge For Mobile Operators


    Traditional network-based mobile carriers face the real prospect of losing a major slice of their voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP.

    This could mean that within 10 years, more than 50 per cent of mobile voice traffic will be carried using end-to-end VoIP, according to Gartner.

    Its says that the threat posed by mobile portal VoIP is likely to have a huge and direct impact on the USD $692.6 billion global mobile voice market.

    If that all seems a little bleak for mobile operators, there are some bright spots.

    Gartner suggest that despite the significant potential for mobile VoIP, conditions for the rapid expansion in its use are not yet right.

    What’s more, the analysts reckon they aren’t likely to be so for at least five years – and perhaps not for as much as eight years.

    Tole Hart, research director at Gartner, said that mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017.

    But he said that once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings.

    "In 10 years time we expect that 30 per cent of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub," he said.

    A number of third parties, such as Skype, Truphone and fring, which carry VoIP traffic using a mobile phone, have cropped up in the past couple of years.

    These offer access to voice services via Wi-Fi and/or the carriers’ wireless voice networks.

    This has been the most efficient way to offer the service to date because of the inconsistencies of voice services over third-generation (3G) data networks.

    However, with the advent of 4G networks (WiMAX and Long Term Evolution [LTE]), and increased use of smartphones with open operating systems, Gartner says that it is conceivable, perhaps even inevitable, that wireless voice services will be run completely over VoIP.

    "Ten years from now, more than half of mobile voice traffic will be carried end-to-end using VoIP," said Akshay Sharma, research director at Gartner.

    "Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks.

    "Third parties will adopt a voice option for their communications hub."

    The Gartner analysts warn that there will also be a number of factors that will inhibit the adoption of third-party, end-to-end VoIP services.

    These include:

    • the delay in rolling out 4G networks because of current economic conditions
    • the general plan to put 4G only in the main cities and build out from there

    Nevertheless, they conclude that in five to 10 years time, as 4G networks become common, mobile VoIP services will have a strong impact on the communications market.

    Competing with mobile portal VoIP will be wireless carriers that offer circuit and VoIP voice and data services, and resellers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that also offer services off the carrier networks.

    Gartner expects this opening of the VoIP channels to spawn a number of voice services from companies that offer voice services to communities using voice as a communications link.

    This means that the biggest competitors to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and e-mail, as people may prefer to use these types of communication because of their non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming nature.

    Although the impact of the technology shift will be gradual as 4G networks roll out, Gartner advises carriers to start thinking now about how the transition will occur and how they might cooperate and partner with other types of service providers.

    It suggests that third-party providers, such as Google and Yahoo, should look to offer voice services today using the carriers’ networks and Wi-Fi to leverage their portfolio of services.
    Mobile social communities, such as Facebook and MySpace, which benefit from messaging traffic as it keeps eyeballs on their sites, should also have a voice option.

  • Telefónica Performs First LTE Tests – 10x Faster Than Current 3G


    Telefónica today conducted its first tests on a real 4th Generation network with LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology, installed at its Demonstrations Centre in Madrid.

    The initial tests consisted of a VoIP call and a videocall using an LTE mini-network installed by Ericsson, Video conference, and data and images downloads at speeds in excess of 140 Mbps.

    These are around 10 times those possible with current 3G networks using HSPA technology.

    With LTE and in recent experiences from manufacturers with which Telefónica works on a regular basis, laboratory tests have been conducted showing download speeds in excess of 326 Mbps, while uploads have been possible at up to 86 Mbps.

    Telefónica says that before the 4th Generation or LTE arrives, it will continue to improve the capacity of the current 3rd Generation network.

    This currently gives both voice and data coverage to around 90 per cent of the Spanish population.

    Half way through this year, Telefónica is to start rolling out its HSPA + technology network, unveiled at the last Mobile World Congress with 21 Mbps download transmissions. This will mean it will also be able to offer the first commercial services and data devices this year.

    Information download speeds of up to 21 Mbps and 5 Mbps for sending information will be possible, as new functionalities and terminals become available, reaching 84 Mbps speeds until the arrival of LTE.

    Telefónica currently covers more than 81 per cent of the Spanish population with HSDPA – for downloading information, which it expects will surpass 85 per cent by the end of the year.

    With HSUPA – for sending information – this cover will reach 50 per cent by the end of 2009.

  • Alliance Could Fuel Global LTE Adoption


    An alliance between Vodafone, Verizon and China Mobile could provide sufficient stimulus to drive the adoption of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard on a global basis.

    That’s the expectation of Vodafone’s chief executive, Vittorio Colao, who has suggested that closer ties between the three companies could be forged.

    He said the three operators could create an "unbeatable" alliance that would allow them to drive adoption of the LTE standard on a global basis, according to the Financial Times.

    It would also allow them to focus on Internet services and provide them with added bargaining power in the purchase of handsets and other mobile equipment.

    "If you think of three players, China Mobile is very strong in China… Vodafone is very strong in Europe, Africa, India. Verizon is very strong in the US," he said.

    "If these three companies could work more closely… in the management of customers, procurement and service creation, we could be unbeatable, quite frankly."

    The LTE standard is oriented around upgrading UMTS to a so-called fourth generation mobile communications technology – essentially a wireless broadband Internet system with voice and other services built on top.

    The aim is to improve spectral efficiency, lower costs, improve services, make use of new spectrum and refarmed spectrum opportunities, and better integration with other open standards.

    Vodafone owns a 3.2 per cent stake in China Mobile, China’s largest mobile operator, and a 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless, now the largest mobile operator in the US.

    All three companies have previously pledged their support for LTE.

    China Mobile announced at last year’s GSMA Mobile World Congress that it is to join Vodafone and Verizon in trialing LTE, using a version of LTE known as TD-LTE.

    This is an evolution of China’s homegrown 3G standard, TD-SCDMA.

    Verizon Wireless is planning to launch LTE services before the end of this year, potentially making it the world’s first mobile operator to go live with the new standard.

    However, a four-month delay in the switchover to digital TV in the US – which was confirmed yesterday by the US Senate – could now jeopardise this timeframe.

  • Mobile WiMAX Revenues Grow – But Freeze Likely


    Worldwide mobile WiMAX infrastructure revenues nearly quadrupled in the third quarter of 2008 over the third quarter of 2007, according to the latest figures.

    Scott Siegler, senior analyst of Mobile Infrastructure research at Dell’Oro Group, said that with LTE still a couple of years away, WiMAX has become the first next generation technology with commercial service.

    “Mobile WiMAX revenues were very strong in the third quarter of last year, and we anticipate revenue for the fourth quarter to set another record," he said.

    "However, as we look into 2009, we expect the WiMAX market to be hit rather hard by the economic downturn."

    Siegler said building out brand new networks from scratch requires tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of capital.

    He anticipate many network buildouts will be put on hold or delayed into 2010 as a result of the tightening in the credit markets, the increasing cost of capital and the decrease in demand for broadband data as consumer spending weakens.

    "With initial LTE rollouts coming in the 2010 to 2011 timeframe, these delays will shorten the time to market advantage WiMAX currently has over LTE,” he said.

    The report also shows that the top four Mobile WiMAX vendors in the quarter – Samsung, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent and Alvarion – represented nearly 90 per cent of the total market.

  • Forget Megapixels – Most Camera Phones Not Up To The Job


    When it comes to cameras – and that includes camera phones – many consumers are fixated by the megapixel count.

    Yet John Turner, product manager for multi-media at Symbian, said higher resolution was definitely no guarantee of quality.

    He said this was especially true since the majority of camera phone photos are taken in the darkened environs of bars and nightclubs.

    "There is a four to six megapixel sweet spot for camera phones," he said. "But customers have in their minds the idea that resolution equals quality, so they are always going to want more resolution.

    "The majority of pictures are taken in a pub or nightclub but only a quarter of all phones have in-built flash.

    "So camera phones are not catering for that primary use. That will change over the year to come and improve things a great deal."

    Camera Phone Sales Outstrip Cameras‘

    Camera phones have increased so rapidly in popularity since the first snap-on versions were introduced in Japan in 1999 that they now threaten the market for traditional digital cameras.

    So much so, that by 2009, more camera phones will have shipped cumulatively than "normal" cameras have shipped in the entire history of photography.

    Turner said the camera fitted well with the trend towards a convergence of digital devices, allowing it to be integrated with the cell phone, Internet and GPS.

    He said this was to the consumers’ benefit – with just one device to carry and charge, while allowing users to connect with social networking sites, tag photos with locations and so on.

    But this has also created a few challenges, according to Turner, because consumers now expect camera phones to function as well as cameras.

    So it’s now taken for granted that "standard" features, such as higher resolution, better storage performance, better battery life, smile detection and image editing, will also be on the camera phone.

    Megapixel Fixation

    The fact that consumers regard megapixels as a headline indicator of performance is something that retailers and manufacturers haven’t been quick to discourage.

    Indeed the megapixels count continues to climb rapidly, with 12 mpx expected to be offered on some handsets next year and 16 mpx the year after – putting them firmly in amongst the mid-range digital camera market.

    Ericsson AB of Sweden recently announced that through technologies such as “HSPA Evolution” and” LTE” (long term evolution), by the year 2012, they would develop mobile phones with cameras from 12-20 megapixel and Full HD video shooting capabilities.

    The future might also bring an XGA resolution display (1024×768 pixels) with a digital camera and new camcorder technologies to mobile phones.

    Turner said this striving for greater resolution didn’t necessarily translate into better photos, since issues such as shutter lag were making a "hard problem even harder".

    He said Symbian was working closely with partners such as Scalado to address these challenges.

    Symbian is also spending money on improving multi-media in general and making it easier for its partners to introduce new features, such as accelerometers and HD multi-media processing.

    Turner said this would be seen in big changes that were going to be made to the operating system by the end of the first half of 2009.

    So no more blurry, out-of-shot party pics then. What camera phones features do you regard as the most essential for developers to concentrate on?