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Mobile standards: Playing leapfrog(Total Telecom Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The rumblings over 3G commitments and coverage reverberate louder, but that has not stopped vendors and operators looking to the next mobile step 4G. But spectrum issues and recriminations over standards threaten to bring matters to a head before the first shots have been fired in anger. One of the big incumbent vendors, Nortel, says operators should look no further than mobile WiMAX for 4G. It says by using such technology, operators currently at the second generation, as well as fixed operators without wireless network, could leapfrog the big brands which are stuck with getting the most from their 3G investments. Talking exclusively to Total Telecom at ITU Telecom World 2006 in Hong Kong, John Roese, chief technology officer at Nortel Networks, said his company does not want to invest in 3G any further. Instead it plans to jump to the next wave of 4G technology. Roese claimed the standards process for mobile WiMAX is by far the most advanced, and said Sprint Nextels decision to deploy mobile WiMAX was a seminal event for the industry, making WiMAX a far more compelling technology. In France, alternative network operators including Free and Maxtel are already betting on new services based on the mobile WiMAX 802.16e standard (Total Telecom, May 2006, p.14). Other operators like Japans DoCoMo are already committed to working on 4G technology such as 3G Long-Term Evolution (Total Telecom, July 2006, p.22). I would tell DoCoMo they should explore WiMAX, said Roese. His comments coincide with a spate of WiMAX announcements over the past month. They include: the Japanese government working with Nortel and Toshiba to test WiMAX services; Maxis and Alcatel-Lucent teaming up for WiMAX trials in Malaysia; Nortel winning a deal with Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan to install a mobile WiMAX network; a possible deal between BSNL and Intel to deploy network in India; Germany tendering for a nationwide licence; Brasil Telecom beginning work on the first WiMAX network; as well as WiMAX deals between operators and vendors in the UK, Fiji, Bulgaria, Bangladesh and Colombia. But not all are convinced by WiMAX. Paul Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm, said although his company would support the technology according to demand, it is not that good. Qualcomm, of course, is firmly behind its proprietary Flash-OFDM technology. But Nortels Roese believes that and other mobile broadband technologies such as UMTS TDD have fallen by the wayside; he said three 4G technologiesmobile WiMAX, 3G LTE and cdma2000 Rev Cis enough. The latent wrangling over standards is enough to drive end users to distraction. All the talk of 4G is set against a backdrop of less than expected demand for 3G services and ongoing arguments over coverage commitments. In the UK, Hutchisons 3 has threatened to take legal action against regulator Ofcom if it doesnt follow through with its edict to enforce operators to cover 80% of the population by the end of this year. Analysts say while 3 and Orange have met the target, O2s 3G network covers only about 55% of the UK population while Vodafone and T-Mobile are just above 70%. Threatening to hold things up further is a lack of spectrum in some markets. Youll need more spectrum, and a lot of it, said Paul Callahan, VP of business development at cdma2000 EV-DO network specialist Airvana. Standards bodies such as 3GPP are working towards a 4G standard, evolving from WCDMA/HSDPA/LTE, but that is still some way off. Tom Quirke, director of marketing at Motorola in the UK, says that is likely only by around 2013. LTE, WiMAX and cdma2000 Rev C will all have an OFDM radio interface, and will be IP-based. They promise speeds of more than 100 megabits per second. The first commercial mobile WiMAX offering from Korea Telecom was tested by analysts from Senza Fili Consulting in October. Analysts there described their experiences as quite impressive. I was able to use Skype from the 19th floor of the hotel, when the coverage that KT promised was up to the fourth floor, said one. Within the coverage area, rates ranged from 500 kbps to 2 Mbps in the downlink, and 250 kbps to 500 kbps in the uplink. This is quite a good performance as many users like me kept the network busy trying out the service, so unlike in most demos this was an intensively used network. Additional reporting by Ian Kemp Copyright 2007 Terrapinn Ltd |