Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005)

Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005)

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of 802.16-2004 is the lack of support for mobility. IEEE addressed this issue by developing specifications for a separate version of the standard, the 802.16e, which was approved on December 7, 2005 (IEEE 2005).

Also known as mobile WiMAX, the standard is seen to be in competition with 3G cellular technologies. Its radio access method is even more sophisticated than that of fixed WiMAX, utilizing scalable OFDMA and thus achieving an even better link budget. The tradeoff is increased complexity in physical layer processing.

Fast handover signaling is supported, e.g., to allow users in moving vehicles to seamlessly switch between base stations. (Baines 2005) Mobile WiMAX operates in the 2 to 6 GHz range that mainly consists of licensed bands. Mobile applications are likely to operate in frequencies below 3 GHz, while even some fixed applications are expected to use 802.16e due to its better characteristics.

However, it should be noted that there is no backward compatibility with fixed WiMAX. Cell radiuses are expected to be typically 2 to 5 km, and user data rates up to 30 Mbit/s are achievable in theory with full 10 MHz channels. The first certified 802.16e products are expected to be available by late 2006, though wide scale commercial deployments are expected not earlier than 2008.

On a further note, South Korea has its own variant of mobile WiMAX called WiBro which is standardized by TTA. It uses 10 MHz channels in the 2.3 GHz band in Korea, and aims for interoperability with official 802.16e equipment. According to a recent performance analysis, WiBro performs favorably in comparison with 3G High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in multipath fading channels (Shin et al. 2005).

WiMAX (IEEE 802.16-2004)

WiMAX (IEEE 802.16-2004)

WiMAX is short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access and it is defined by the IEEE 802.16 Working Group. Although first intended for fixed applications, the initial WiMAX standards have evolved to form the basis for mobile WiMAX as well.

The current version of the fixed WiMAX standard is 802.16-2004, sometimes also referred to as 802.16d. It is essentially frequency independent, allowing also nonline-of-sight (NLOS) operation in the lower end of the frequency range (frequencies below 3 GHz, according to Richardson (2006)). The radio access interface is based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with 256 subcarriers, although OFDMA2048 and single carrier access modes are included in the 802.16-2004 standard as alternatives. OFDM allows good resistance to interference and multipath fading.

Channel bandwidth ranges from 1.25 to 20 MHz, and either FDD or TDD may be used for duplexing. WiMAX cell size is dependent on the used frequency band, but coverage radiuses of 1 to 2 km for NLOS and 10 to 16 km for LoS are typical with standard base station equipment. With some optional enhancements, however, the figures are 4 to 9 km (NLOS) and 30 to 50 km (LOS) (Baines 2005). Actual data rates are also highly variable and depend on a number of factors.

Although rates as high as 75 Mbit/s have been advertised, according to results of trials conducted by AT&T in late 2005, 2 Mbit/s over a range of roughly 5 to 10 km is closer to reality. For a comprehensive performance analysis, one may refer to, e.g., Ball et al. (2005).

Fixed WiMAX, as defined in 802.16-2004, does not support handovers or any other basic mobility mechanisms. As such, it lends itself only to fixed or, at most, nomadic applications.

MOBILE BROADBAND WIRELESS ACCESS

Emerging telecommunications applications such as multimedia streaming, music download, on-line gaming and content browsing are popular examples of the digital revolution we have been facing as the world gets connected.Fixed broadband access has already become an urban commodity in the developed countries, but so far there have been few means of delivering these bandwidth-consuming services effectively and affordably to the significant number of rural and mobile users.

However, recent advances in e.g. signal processing, radio protocols, and mobile network infrastructure are now enabling the concept of mobile broadband for consumers around the world.

Mobile broadband is defined here as the potential to transfer low-latency user data with speeds exceeding 256 kbit/s while roaming the network with seamless handover between adjacent cells. This paper presents the different mobile broadband technologies with commercial availability already or within a few years.

Related regulation aspects are important factors affecting the regional markets. Analysis of the current market situation, significant vendors’ strategies and foreseen future developments are also used to draw the conclusions about the respective potential of these technologies.

Currently there are a number of different technologies for broadband wireless access for both fixed and mobile applications. Some of them are completely proprietary, based on vendor-specific solutions that are noninteroperable, while others are based on open standards developed by industry working groups. In the following subsections, we briefly describe the fundamental characteristics of the currently most significant wireless broadband technologies, focusing on key metrics such as operating frequencies, channel bandwidth, cell sizes, user data rates and latency, handover capabilities, and timeframe of availability.

Hutchison 3 X-Series

Under fire in the UK, mobile operator 3 had to perform well today under the watchful eye of Canning Fok, here from Hutchison Whampoa, in Hong Kong. He's actually Canning Fok Kin-Ning, Group Managing Director, Hutchison Whampoa Limited.

After the speech from Canning Fok - an extempore explanation of the world as seen from the Far East, where Hutchison has many times been accused of getting it wrong, and has many times made a shedload of money, the stage was handed over to Frank Sixt, Group Finance director. It's not his job to justify the performance of 3 UK, but to say where he wants to go.

Here's his explanation of what he wants to do, and where mobile broadband should be. Of particular note is his condemnation of the "3" approach to an Internet connection - the "walled garden" - which, he says, is not the way forward.

Thanks Canning. We have indeed waited a long time to be able to do this.

We are bringing the world of broadband internet for the first time into people’s mobiles. Not by way of a data card in a lap-top or a PDA. Not by way of something you have to sit in a hot-spot to do. In your mobile: the thing that people have with them, in their pockets, all the time.

Our networks were designed to do this.

So we see what we are doing as a natural next step for our businesses: delivering the internet, mobile, to people.

We start by delivering, in this X-Series, the first ever suite of core broadband internet applications available on a mobile. These are not "products". They are things that give people the ability to use their mobiles to do things that they already love to do …but until now could only do in front of their PC’s, TV’s and AV kits at home.

To do this, we have worked with the very best people in the Internet: Skype, Yahoo, Google, MSN, Sling Media, E-bay, and Orb networks, along with Nokia and Sony-Ericsson. All of these people are huge leaders in their own right. They are here with us today, which is unprecedented in the mobile world. Why? Well I think it is because they believe that what we are creating together is something that their customers will value.

And frankly, to make that true, we as a mobile operator have had to look long and hard at our own values.

People want choice, so we are changing the business model for delivering mobile media and internet products. Essentially, we are tearing down the walls around the garden and, as a dear friend of mine likes to say, going naked into the big world outside.

And people want to be treated fairly, which is to say knowing for certain what they are going to pay and what they are going to get for it. So with the X-Series, we are setting a course that will take us away from the per minute, per message, per click, per event and per megabit charging universe we live in today, and towards one simple but compelling proposition: IT’S FREE WHEN YOU USE IT.

The Applications

Let’s talk a little more about the X-Series applications we are launching today.

They are not futurology. They will be available through our own stores, our web-sites and our partners’ websites, starting in the UK in December and in 3’s other markets in Q1 next year. They are here for you to try, live, today. And I hope many of you will join us in final user trials leading up the launch here in the UK in December.

They are also not static. As with all internet products, this is just our first X-Series.

Each of the product categories will evolve new functions and features which will extend into mobility in future X-Series’ as appropriate.

And we will also be tackling new function and content categories from the internet to be launched in the second X-Series in 2007

So what is the X-Series today? What does it do for a customer that his mobile doesn’t do today?

• Voice: An X-Series user will be able to make and receive unlimited Skype voice calls with Skype PC users anywhere and Skype 3 mobile users in countries where we operate networks. Making Skype calls will be free.

We are all very privileged to have Niklas Zennstrom, one of the co-founders of Skype, with us here today, and he will be talking about Skype’s revolutionary move into full mobility with 3.

• Chat/IM: An X-Series user will be able to chat using unlimited text instant messages to or from a Messenger, Yahoo or Skype IM contact on a PC anywhere, or to another 3 X-Series user in countries where we operate networks. Sending and receiving text instant messages will be free...

• Open Internet Access: An X-Series user will be able to search the internet using a Google or Yahoo search engine, depending on their choice and country of residence; browse the internet without limitation; and shop on E-Bay real-time. Searching and browsing and bidding will be free. What you buy on E-bay depends on what you bid!

In a few moments you will be hearing directly from David Thevenon at Google, Sharon Bailey from MSN and Dominique Vidal from Yahoo, all of whom are here in person to tell you about their products as showcased in the X-Series, as well as their roadmap for future mobile broadband evolution. We also have a couple of important messages from Meg Whitman and Terry Semel who couldn’t be here in person, but send their love, for which I am personally very grateful.

And if that isn’t enough, the X-Series is also bringing "place shifting" into mobile. As you know, "place shifting" is probably the most important thing that has happened in the media world since the tape recorder, the VCR and the TIVO box introduced "time shifting" into the industry vocabulary. So how about this:

• Your TV where you are: Not very long ago Blake Krikorian and his colleagues invented something called a Slingbox. I’m told this was so that he and his friends could watch their favourite baseball games on their laptops when they were stuck in hotel rooms.

Now, an Slingbox X-Series user will be able to watch anything he is able to watch on his own TV, at the same time, on his mobile. Blake is with us here today and I’m sure you will love talking to him about Sling Mobile… or sports.

• Your PC where you are: Thanks to an equally inspired idea, Joe Costello and Luc Julia created a marvellous internet product called Orb Media for accessing and managing the digital stuff on your PC.

Joe and Luc understood that as you own the stuff on your own hard drive, it stands to reason that you should be able to have as much access to it as technology can deliver.

Now, an X-Series user can access all the digital content… music files, playlists, digital photos, videos and so forth… that are stored or accessed on his own PC at home… but on his mobile using Orb Networks.

Of course, as I said before, none of this works except on the best of handsets, and none of it would ever have worked except with the close collaboration of the world’s smartest handset manufacturers. We are very proud to have here with us today two of the very best: Dr. Kai Oistamo from Nokia and Miles Flint from Sony- Ericsson.

In a nutshell, our vision for the X-Series product suites is that 3 together with the best partners in the business should always bring people more of the best can be offered in mobility, and we should always do it faster and in a better way than our competitors.

Business Model

In terms of business model we are as I said leaving the "walled garden" behind us.

This is not just a slogan.

As you know, quite apart from the X-Series, Hutchison’s 3 Group companies already offer some of the best in mobile TV, mobile Music, Mobile Games and Mobile communities through our Planet 3 portal offerings around the world. Of course we want our customers, including our X-Series customers, to like… and buy what they like… from the shelves of Planet 3. But with the X-Series, our customers will be empowered to choose from competing products wherever they can find them on the net. And the searching and browsing that get them there will be free.

As I said before, our networks were designed to deliver mobile broadband.

We think forcing people into a walled garden of content and services in a mobile broadband world is simply wrong. Entrapping people with a view to forcing product choices on them… at high prices… is unacceptable. And it is not acceptable to make choice so expensive that it is no choice at all. We believe that more choice, which is the hallmark of the internet, is as inevitable a trend in mobility as it has been on the net. This isn’t a tide we want to hold back, In fact, this is the wave we’ve been waiting for. Surf’s up.

A New Charging Model

Finally, the last important step we are taking with the X-Series is to lay the foundations for the mobile broadband charging models of the future.

You will have noticed the word "free" popped up a lot in my description of the X-Series products.

That was not by accident. In the world of broadband internet, you pay for your connection, for your bandwidth, your hardware and your software and for your proprietary content. But you don’t pay to make a Skype call. You don’t pay to chat with buddies by way of instant messaging. You don’t pay to search and browse the net. You don’t pay to listen to your own MP3 files or watch the TV channels you have already paid for. Why?

Because the broadband Internet is based on a completely different economic model than that of most mobile today. As internet and media technology have evolved, customers can do more for less money. So more and more, it makes sense to attract customers on the Internet… or on cable or satellite… by enabling greater and greater choice, and higher and higher usage levels, at fair, simple and transparent prices.

Contrast this with the world of traditional mobile phone operators: we charge per minute, per message, per click, per event and per megabit …per unit of everything. We often make more money if users do less. Why? Because up until the advent of mobile broadband, we thought network capacity was our scarcest asset, and so had to be rationed and sold at the highest possible per unit price.

We believe it is natural that this charging model should begin to change. With the rapid development of all IP mobile networks, HSDPA and HSUPA network upgrades, peer to peer technologies, and a host of efficiency improvements in every aspect of a mobile operators’ business our economics are beginning to change. As a result, the cost of enabling internet and media applications in mobility will decline just as it has in the broadband world. Rationing is ending.

Where that is the case, we also believe in sharing the benefit of these changing economics with people. That is why we think our charging model for the X-Series should start to look more like the internet. As mobile broadband evolves, we will benefit more from more people talking more, messaging more, and searching and browsing and streaming and downloading more on our networks, rather than from fewer people doing less at a higher price. That is why X-Series customers will only be charged flat access fees for mobile broadband. In the early days, those fees will be somewhat higher for high bandwidth consuming activities like Sling and Orb. But in all cases, we will follow the principle that WHAT IS FREE WHEN YOU USE IT ON THE INTERNET OUGHT IN PRINCIPLE TO BE FREE WHEN YOU USE IT IN MOBILE BROADBAND.

That is why Skype calls, text instant messages, internet searches, browsing chat, and other features will be free from the outset for X-Series customers who pay modest access fees. And even with higher bandwidth products like Orb and Slingbox, use of which will be subject to higher access charges, their use will be free when you use them. There will be fair use limits, not unfair limits on usage.

We believe that giving people the benefit of the favourable economics of the broadband world will lead to more people giving us the benefit of their custom! That is the proposition that as a Group we will be putting forward in all of our markets under the X-Series offerings.

So there you have it: Free phone calls forever to Skype users. Free instant text messaging to your buddies. Access to anything you want to access on the net using unlimited search. Your TV where you are. Your PC on your mobile. Your life where you go. Welcome to the X-Series from 3.

Biography, Frank J Sixt Group Finance Director, Hutchison Whampoa Limited

Mr. Sixt is currently Group Finance Director for Hutchison Whampoa Limited, to which position he was appointed on 1st January 1998. He is the Chairman of TOM Group Limited and TOM Online Inc. He is also an Executive Director of Cheung Kong Infrastructure. Holdings Limited and Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited and a Director of Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited, Partner Communications Company Ltd and Husky Energy Inc.

Mr. Sixt was formerly a senior partner of the law firm, Stikeman Elliott in Canada specialising in taxation and corporate law. Born in Montreal, Quebec in 1951, Mr. Sixt holds a BA degree and an MA degree from the McGill University, and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from the University of Montreal. He is a member of the Bar and of the Law Societies of the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, Canada.

He has been resident in Hong Kong since 1983, and is married with a son.

original posted on wirelessnews

Cost of Mobile Broadband

By the end of 2006, the device vendor average sale price (ASP) for HSDPA devices will be as high as $350 versus $370 for EV-DO Revision A (EV-DOrA) devices, according to analysis in Future Mobile Broadband: HSPA, EV-DO, WiMAX<E, a new strategic report by Informa Telecoms&Media. This means the retail price of these devices will be around $450 or higher. The average bill of materials (BOM) for a handset supporting HSDPA is expected to be in the region of $200 vs $215 for a device supporting EV-DOrA. In comparison the BOM for HSUPA mobile phones is estimated at $250 in 2008 when these devices will be first launched.

A great deal of progress has been made rolling out WCDMA and EV-DO Release 0 (EV-DO) 3G networks worldwide. The industry is now focusing on developing higher bandwidth, 3.5G networks - here referred to as mobile broadband networks (HSDPA/HSUPA, EV-DOrA and EV- DOrB). These networks are promising mobile phone users a broadband experience with throughputs exceeding several megabytes per second.

However, mobile broadband applications require powerful devices with sophisticated computing performance and good battery life. To enhance enduser experience and make good use of mobile broadband services, mobile devices will require high processing speeds, large RAM memories, wide highresolution displays and large storage capacities. This implies that the cost of building such devices will be much higher than that of their predecessors.

It is the objective of all handset manufacturers to minimise as far as possible the production cost of a mobile broadband device in order to target lower tiers of the mobile handset market. Not only does this make their handset more profitable, but it also makes it more attractive to both operators and end users. The bill of materials optimisation has become ever more crucial, and the raft of outsourcing agreements in the industry is a symptom of the need to reduce costs. The industry is also adopting more integrated reference design approaches with the aim to reduce component counts which significantly help in reducing the overall cost of the device.
However, it is important to note that with increased complexity in designing mobile broadband devices - and the desire for added functionality and features - comes an increased bill of materials. Wider and high-resolution colour displays, needed for a better mobile broadband experience, are obviously more expensive than screens used in typical 2.5G and 3G devices.

Mobile broadband devices also need to be powered by faster, less power consuming and therefore more expensive processors. These devices will also embed high resolution camera modules exceeding 3 megapixels and will come with extra capabilities such as GPS, Bluetooth, WLAN and other functionalities.

These will further increase the cost of the hardware required and the total production cost due the extra development and integration to time involved.
In addition, mobile broadband services will initially be launched in hotspotmetropolitan areas. To ensure always-on connectivity to the mobile network, device vendors will need to integrate multimode modems supporting both new mobile broadband networks (e.g. HSDPA) and legacy networks (e.g. GSM, GPRS, WCDMA). Consequently, these multimode handsets supporting mobile broadband services may be more expensive than expected, and may also consume more power than anticipated.

Furthermore, while traditional devices are based on relatively simple software solutions, mobile broadband handsets may require advanced OS, microbrowsers and memory management units. These enable them to manage data content, ensure realtime data exchange and provide users with an enhanced experience through manipulation of the user interface.

In short, 3.5G mobile broadband handsets including HSDPA, HSUPA, and EV-DOrA devices will require much higher performance hardware and software components than these used in their 3G predecessors to be able to offer appropriate experience and quality of service to mobile broadband services.

The hardware manufacturing costs of handsets are viewed as being volume/time-elastic as, for example, whenever production is doubled, a significant reduction in manufacturing cost is achievable due to the increased economies of scale. As a technology such as HSDPA becomes more popular, the cost of components, such as HSDPA chipsets, will fall significantly as economies of scale in manufacturing the components and therefore the handsets themselves reap cost benefits. Many of the technologies that will be involved in mobile broadband handsets have only recently been introduced and there is some way to go before the cost of implementing these technologies into mass market handsets is realistically achievable.

However, Informa Telecoms&Media expects to see a marked decrease in the manufacturing costs of some components used in mobile broadband devices including displays, processors, DSPs, memory and others. This reduction will be partly due to the high volume production associated with demand from other consumer electronics products such as feature-rich phones, digital cameras, and portable multimedia devices.

On the other hand, Informa Telecoms&Media expects to see only a slight decrease in manufacturing costs of mobile broadband chipsets because of the complexity of designing, testing and implementing these components. It will therefore take some time for the technology related to mobile broadband chipsets to mature, which will impact both the volume and cost of production of these components.

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) and royalties associated with different software platforms and wireless technologies are other factors influencing the ASP of mobile phones. IPRs are generally very high when new technologies are introduced to the market. IPRs associated with WCDMA technology, for example, are still very high, in the range of 25 per cent, while IPRs associated with HSDPA devices are expected to be much higher because these phones handle a number of high-end features. In 2006, software royalty fees together with IPRs are expected to account for up to 33 per cent of the total cost of HSDPA devices while these fees (royalties and IPRs) could be as high as 39 per cent for EV-DOrA devices.

While handset manufacturers are basing their business models on low margins and high volume supply for traditional phones, they will be banking on high margins and low volumes for mobile broadband mobile phones. Given the relatively high cost and low volume demand of these devices, manufacturers are forced to base their profit on the value of the device rather than on volume. The average vendor margin for mobile broadband phones is expected to be relatively high compared with that of traditional phones. There will be a significant gap between the ASP of mobile broadband phones on one hand, and 3G and 2.5G phones on the other hand.

Traditionally, handset vendors have been the beneficiaries of the operators' drive to increase subscriber numbers. Operators purchased handsets and then sold them on reduced price to encourage service uptake. This practice is commonly called device subsidy. However, increased device pricing for mobile broadband handsets will make it difficult for operators to subsidise them, which could deter users from upgrading their existing devices to new mobile broadband devices, because the price differential between the existing and mobile broadband devices is too great for the perceived additional benefit.

For more information on Future Mobile Broadband: HSPA, EV-DO, WiMAX&LTE, please visit www.informatm.com/futuremobilebroadband.

© Copyright 2006 Informa UK Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mobile operators team up to take on next-gen DSL.

Some of the world’s biggest mobile operators are teaming up to take on fixed broadband and try to avoid the expensive mistakes of 3G.

That has highlighted the fierce debate over which standards will win out, and the most cost effective way to move to the next generation of mobile technology.

“We are competing against DSL,” says Joachim Horn, managing director of technology at T-Mobile in Germany. “The world will become copperless. Everything will be mobile at the edge.”

T-Mobile is a founder member of NGMN Ltd, set up by the operator members of the Next Generation Mobile Networks industry body in September. Other founder members include KPN, Orange, Vodafone, Sprint Nextel, NTT DoCoMo and China Mobile.

The body is an important step towards plans to roll out 3G LTE (long-term evolution) services—the next stage in the development of cellular networks based on GSM/WCDMA—as early as 2010.

But there are still hurdles to be overcome before trials can get underway, including standards and intellectual property issues. Nokia says the standard for LTE technology should be completed in 2007, and that it will begin offering commercial solutions from around 2009.

But some players are reluctant to wait, and are forging ahead with the deployment of alternative “3G-plus” technologies.

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo is working on technology it has dubbed Super 3G, which will deliver a new core network architecture and air interface (Total Telecom, July p.22). In June, Miki Nakajima McCants, international spokesperson for NTT DoCoMo, told Total Telecom the operator was “at the stage of testing the components and technologies that will constitute the 4G system.”

And in August, Sprint Nextel pinned its colours to the mobile WiMAX standard announcing it plans to invest US$3 billion to implement a nationwide network.

“Sprint’s strategy is largely predicated on high levels of demand for ‘personal broadband’ services, which will essentially provide cable or DSL-like broadband speed and always-on IP connectivity in a mobile environment,” says Philip Marshall, VP, enabling technologies, at Yankee Group.

The ability to compete head-on with fixed broadband services will be critical for all mobile operators.

But not everyone is convinced that operators will commit to costly 3G LTE.

“Rolling out LTE will require high spending in both network infrastructure and handset subsidies, so operators really need to be convinced of the necessity of the technology upgrade,” says Ovum analyst Julien Grivolas. “Based on today’s applications in the mobile field, nothing really justifies it.”

Dresdner Kleinwort sees a significantly larger potential market for LTE than it does for WiMAX, however.

“We believe the acceptance of WCDMA is so formidable that the case for using the LTE version of OFDM…should be highly compelling,” says Dresdner Kleinwort analyst Per Lindberg.

A big leap LTE will be part of 3GPP Release 8, and is expected to enable data speeds of 100 megabits per second on the downlink and 50 Mbps on the uplink. The new networks will be based on packet-switched technology as well as a new OFDM air interface, meaning the move to LTE will represent a bigger leap for carriers than the upgrade from WCDMA to HSDPA/HSUPA.

“NGMN must start to eliminate some of the earlier technologies,” says T-Mobile’s Horn, working towards one integrated network. “We have increased complexity by adding layers of technologies.”

Last month, T-Mobile USA announced it will spend 2.1 billion ($2.7 billion) building out a 3G UMTS network in the US. It said services will begin mid-2007 using spectrum acquired for $4.2 billion in recent FCC auctions.

But the cost of rolling out 3G LTE—and other next-generation broadband mobile technologies—will be critical to carriers’ investment decisions (Total Telecom, January p.26). Operators are keen to avoid repeating the levels of investment ploughed into the migration to 3G.

“We cannot afford to do that again,” says Christoph Caselitz, president of mobile networks at Siemens Communications. Spectrum will be another key issue. No-one wants a repeat of the European 3G auctions, “taking 100 billion out of the economy,” says Klaus-Dieter Kohrt, senior vice president, government and industry relations, at Siemens.

In addition to spend on new radio equipment, operators will have additional costs to contend with.

“Backhaul has to be significantly enhanced, as we are speaking about theoretical speeds of up to 100Mbit/s in the downlink,” says Grivolas.

“Backhaul networks already represent one of the biggest operating expenses to mobile operators,” says Jeremy Steventon-Barnes, director of strategic solutions at Tellabs. “3G LTE running costs could easily spiral out of control resulting in high pricing and reduced profitability.”

Intellectual property rights are also vexing some operators. “We are not happy today with the IPR regime,” says Horn at T-Mobile. Royalties and patents are necessary to drive innovation, he concedes, but operators need to be able to figure out the cost level in advance.

According to Ovum’s Grivolas, IPR is a “big collateral issue” for LTE. “Service providers…clearly want to limit the influence of IPR licensing on equipment pricing and avoid what happened with WCDMA.”

Kohrt at Siemens says the US has five standards already and does not need another. “Multiple radio standards fragment the market and drive up the cost of interoperability,” he says. In the long term, that could also fragment operators’ next-generation mobile strategies.

“Although Sprint has selected Mobile WiMAX 802.16e as its path to 4G during the next 24 to 36 months, other mobile operators will follow the long-term evolution of the 3G standard,” says Yankee’s Marshall. “This will create a high-stakes game of leapfrog.”

© 2006, Total Telecom. All rights reserved.

What Price Mobile Broadband?

By Gabriel Brown | Chief Analyst | 01.04.07

Broadband on the move was always the promise of 3G.

Now, three years after the first 3G networks were deployed, the availability of High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) radio technology allows mobile operators to finally offer wireless broadband services at speeds of up to 3 Mbit/s per user.

Without a doubt, this represents a triumph of technology, engineering, and perseverance. But was it worth it? Can 3G deliver broadband services at prices low enough to attract mass-market customers already faced with an abundance of connectivity at home and at work?

This is one of the questions behind the new Unstrung Insider report, Mobile Broadband Pricing Strategies & HSDPA, which examines and evaluates 78 price plans from 24 different operators in 17 countries to identify winning strategies for mobile broadband service provision.

Vital to the debate is the commercial launch of HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access). With almost 90 networks launched in 2006 and a slew of further network upgrades scheduled for 2007, this technology looks capable of re-casting the economics of wireless Internet services. (See Release 5 to the 3G Rescue and Will the Real 3G Please Stand Up?). It certainly works well enough, according to this end-user review from the U.K., Vodafone’s 3G Broadband Service.

Simply put, HSDPA delivers a vast change in 3G capability thanks to the introduction of more advanced multiplexing and modulation techniques. For the end user, it increases data rates from peaks of 300 kbit/s with regular 3G to almost 3 Mbit/s in advanced HSDPA networks. On the network side, it allows operators to support roughly six times more simultaneous users per cell than before.

Combined with other benefits, such as lower latency (currently in the region of 100 ms to 200 ms), this dramatically improves operator economics and, in theory, means service providers can offer faster, yet lower-cost, services. It's the killer combination that could shake 3G from its slumber.

Pricing services that run over this new network, however, poses a dilemma that echoes the packet- versus circuit-switched culture clash that ripped through the wireline market. It's clear that a metered pay-per-minute/megabyte model is inappropriate, yet how exactly to price services that consume what is still a scarce resource (wireless bandwidth) is difficult, even for operators that are masters at creating tariff structures designed to maximize yield from a mobile customer base.

This challenge has led operators to adopt, or at least to trial, a dizzying variety of pricing schemes. Tariff strategies analyzed in the report include tiered service by data rate; variable data transfer limits; application-specific pricing that sometimes includes a premium voice over IP (VOIP) option; unlimited data plans; extended contract periods; bring-your-own modem deals; special launch offers; discounts for voice subscribers; bundled DSL packages; and embedded modules for laptop leasing schemes.

Such diversity reflects the large number of operators covered in the report that are each working with specific local market conditions. But amid the confusion, from those more enlightened operators, what looks like the sweet spot of mobile broadband pricing is emerging in the form of price plans with data transfer limits of 1GB per month or more on 12- or 18-month contracts with bundled modem cards and overage charges or fair use conditions to mitigate the risk of network congestion from streaming media applications. The average price of this kind contract is around $66 a month.

This highlights another major finding from the research: Very few operators have substantially altered pricing to reflect the improved economics of HSDPA and most have maintained existing tariff structures designed either for regular 3G or, in many cases, even 2G GPRS services. Operators are thus looking to sell faster speeds at old prices.

It’s too early to know if this is a good strategy. There is still not much hard evidence to say that lowering wireless data prices will substantially increase the overall market size, and clearly operators are using high tariffs to fend off low-margin bit-pipe scenarios that they've fought so hard to avoid.

But somehow, it just feels wrong that some of the cost benefits of mobile broadband technology shouldn't feed through to customers in the form of lower prices. Intuitively, that would seem to be in the best interests of service providers.

source: ©— Gabriel Brown, Chief Analyst, Unstrung Insider

What is Mobile Broadband?

Mobile broadband is defined as broadband access (e.g. cable and DSL) in the cellular environment. The term is synonymous with FLASH-OFDM, a 3G alternative system.

Just as the cellular phone revolutionized voice telephony by freeing the user from wires and stationary constraints, mobile broadband is doing the same for high-speed data. Users are no longer confined to desks, no longer tethered to wires, no longer restricted to a stationary environment.

Mobile broadband is a step up from local wireless data applications like WiFi (and eventually WiMax), which gets rid of the wire, but not the confinement. Users still must be stationary and in a certain area (mostly inside) when using such technologies. One can think of WiFi as the data equivalent of the cordless phone, whereas mobile broadband is analogous to the cell phone, enabling everywhere access to high speed data – at any range of motion.

Mobile broadband performs like DSL and cable, with typical user speeds of 1 to 1.5 Megabits per second (Mbps) and latency (network delay) below 50 milliseconds. This is 20 times faster than wired dial up service and twice as fast as any other mobile data technology in existence.

FLASH-OFDM mobile broadband technology provides wide area coverage and works in mobile and fixed environments (the latter as a replacement for DSL and cable). This makes it ideal for the nuances of a wide area (e.g. campus environment). Students, faculty, and other campus employees are constantly moving across a wide area. Therefore, it’s not just in-building coverage they require, but everywhere and always on access (outside, in-dorm, in bus, in-library, etc) to exchange information, research and create.

How does it work?

Mobile broadband network works like a typical cellular network. The area is divided into cells, allowing for frequency reuse so that many subscribers can access the network simultaneously. Each cell contains an antenna tower and a base station, which handles all incoming and outgoing data traffic. The cells together make up a wireless access network, which will enable users in that coverage area with fully mobile broadband connectivity.

Users would subscribe to the service through Citizens, a prominent service provider in southwest Virginia . They would also need to purchase a PC card or desktop modem, which will be plugged into the laptop for plug and play mobile broadband access.

Mobile Broadband vs. WLANs

Currently, the only wireless access being deployed on campus is WiFi, a radio technology used for wireless local area networks (WLANs). WiFi is used primarily in classrooms because of its restrictions to stationary usage. In short, it is broadband access without the need for wires. One can think of it as the cordless phone equivalent for data.

The disadvantages of the WiFi technology are as follows:

No mobility or wide area coverage: WiFi does not truly represent a wireless experience. Users must be able to access wireless data with the range and ubiquity of cellular phones. WiFi, on the other hand, represents the cordless phone in that they are still confined indoors and to one location. Additionally, most dorms and other campus living spaces do not offer WiFi access because of the cost involved of deploying access points. Therefore, WiFi doesn’t really act as an upgrade over wired LANs.

Security concerns: Because WiFi operates in unlicensed spectrum (the same spectrum as microwaves and cordless phones), there are major security concerns. Hackers can intercept data that is being transferred over the air, including financial information.

Interference will drastically limit performance: again, because WiFi operates in unlicensed spectrum, it is prone to interference from microwaves, cordless phones, and other WiFi users (many WiFi users in a small area will negatively impact each other).

Mobile broadband addresses these concerns. It allows for fully mobile (at vehicular speeds), wide area coverage, which means everywhere/ anytime broadband access. In this instance, students and professors aren’t the only group to benefit off from wireless access; everyone in the campus community does.

Security is better maintained because FLASH-OFDM operates in licensed spectrum, meaning that it shares its spectrum with no other technologies or devices.

Interference is also avoided because of this licensed spectrum attribute, which equates to better overall performance.

Conclusion

FLASH-OFDM is the ideal network for wide area. All segments of the population can benefit from everywhere broadband access at full mobility.

FLASH-OFDM mirrors the performance of cable and DSL, but extends it all over the area and across town. The community can work on the bus, in the courtyard, cafeteria, shopping mall, and everywhere in between.

FLASH-OFDM is the most advanced technology in the wireless space, with faster speeds than other mobile technologies, and larger, more flexible coverage than WiFi.

Mobile Broadband

To understand Mobile Broadband it is important to understand the terms broadband and mobile separately first.

Mobile access technology is a technology used for communication; to transmit data between network element and user device via radio frequency waves. In order to facilitate the service continuity, network infrastructure is required to manage radio resource and mobility. The information data is routed via different network elements in the infrastructure. Example of this type of network infrastructure are GSM Network Evolution (WCDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA, HASP) or CDMA Network Evolution (CDMA2000 1X EV-DO, EV-DO Rev A, EV-DO Rev B, Flash OFDM).

Broadband is the system of sending and receiving small packets of data, from one computer to a server computer and hence forth. Conventionally this data would get transferred using cables with optical fiber. Data flows via these cable wires like packets of information and get delivered and vise versa.

Increasingly sophisticated technology in modulation technique and cellular network architecture provides a platform for data to be delivered via cellular radio network in a more power and spectrum efficient way. Its objective is to provide continuous wireless access to packet data networks. However from the data rate and latency performance perspective, it is quite close to the fixed broadband access; such as cable modem and ADSL.

The advantages of mobile broadband are numerous: simply a user can be connected on the move:- everywhere and anytime.

EvDO provides very high data throughput, with a theoretical maximum speed of about 2 megabits per second. HSDPA speeds theoretically can reach 3 mbps and faster--so fast that some people call HSDPA a "3.5G" service.