Tag Archives: LTE

First 4G Auction, in Germany.

Posted by on April 13, 2010 No comments

I am very curious to see if the mistake of 3G Auctions between European operators and regulators/governments will come true again. According to a Dow Jones Newswires report, the auction is the first of its kind in Europe and is likely to set a benchmark for similar auctions throughout the continent.

he Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and France are expected to hold auctions this year, with the U.K. expected to auction frequencies next year, says Business Week. Spain, Italy and Portugal have yet to say when their auctions will take place.

“Many European countries will follow our auction closely,” said Matthias Kurth, president of Bundesnetzagentur, the German telecoms regulator. Analysts expect the auction to generate between 3 billion and 7 billion euros, a far cry from the 50 billion raised in 2000.

Spectrum is being auctioned on four different bands: 800MHz, 1.8GHz, 2GHz and 2.6GHz and includes the ‘digital dividend’ spectrum freed up from the switch from analogue to digital TV.

T-Mobile, Vodafone, KPN (E-Plus) and Telefonica’s O2 will bid on the frequencies. E-Plus and O2 – the two smaller players – took legal action against the regulator last year, arguing that the auction rules favour T-Mobile and Vodafone as they already own significant spectrum below 1GHz. While this action was rejected by the courts, Dow Jones Newswires notes that further legal steps are possible.

The 800 MHz frequencies come with specific terms attached. The winners commit to building a network to cover at least 90 percent of the population in rural towns and districts, starting with areas with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, before they can use these frequencies in more densely populated areas.

Federal Network Agency: Four companies admitted to frequency auction.

Houston, we have WiMax.

Posted by on March 30, 2010 No comments

Sprint and Clearwire launched WiMAX service in Houston today, making Texas the “biggest 4G state” in terms of the number of people who have access to the Sprint mobile network.

In addition to Houston, the 4G network is currently operating in Abilene, Amarillo, Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Fort Worth, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, San Antonio, Waco and Wichita Falls. Nationwide, Sprint boasts 28 markets that have 4G capability today.

In 2010, Sprint will launch many more markets, and is expected to cover up to 120 million people by the end of the year.

Clearwire’s CEO Bill Morrow said he isn’t looking to wage a standards war with LTE. In fact, he told the audience at the CTIA Wireless 2010 trade show that he advocates one all-IP standard in the future for worldwide roaming and economies of scale.

Good luck with that. Sounds like code for TDD-LTE. It’s probably not high on the agenda for Intel’s Ron Resnick, Potentate of the WiMAX Forum.

Bill Morrow told BusinessWeek last week that other companies have approached Clearwire about investing in the company. He didn’t name names, but Morrow said the companies that have approached Clearwire are interested in reselling the service in exchange for their investment.

Beceem estimates their share of the WiMAX chipset space about 65% while Paris-basedSequans may have upwards of 25%. But Sequans is the chipset provider behind Sprint’s Evo 4G WiMAX phone. Beceem expects to ship 10 million Mobile WiMAX chips this year.

Sprint has WiMAX in 28 markets and currently covers 34 million people. It expects to quadruple its footprint this year with Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, New York City, Houston, Boston, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis and the San Francisco Bay Area expected to come online this year.

A reported 130 cellular operators around the world expect to move to Long Term Evolution(LTE). Verizon plans LTE service this year in the 700MHz band (which AT&T will also use). Verizon says they’ll start with 25 to 30 markets in 2010, covering approximately 100M people; and extend the footprint to cover their current 3G users in 2013.

AT&T says Verizon’s first LTE phone is ‘going to be a fat brick’. AT&T’s CTO John Donovan, at CTIA, claimed that Verizon was jumping the gun with its LTE rollout, suggesting initial devices are “going to drain the battery like crazy,” noting that “2012 will be the time when you’ll have decent handsets.”

Sprint, Clearwire among companies asking for TD-LTE standard in WiMAX spectrum.

Posted by on March 30, 2010 No comments

Clearwire now appears to be taking a very active role in developing an LTE-based standard that could supplant WiMAX in its 2.6GHz spectrum should the need arise. Along with Motorola, Huawei, ZTE, Cisco, Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, and — surprise, surprise — Clearwire partner Sprint, the company is asking the 3GPP to define a standard for running TD-LTE in the 2.6GHz slot. Unlike the more commonly-used FD-LTE — the standard Verizon is using, among others — TD-LTE operates unpaired, meaning it can operate in slimmer chunks of spectrum than its counterpart. Asking for a standard is clearly a far cry from actually building out a network, but it’s interesting to note that Clearwire and Sprint alike both have their eyes firmly fixed on an LTE-based technology if the WiMAX industry packs it in.

Mobile Business Briefing: Report: Industry giants back US TD-LTE move.

Verizon to blanket ‘one third’ of America with LTE this year, double coverage in 15 months.

Posted by on March 25, 2010 No comments

At CTIA,  a few details on the company’s most up-to-date LTE deployment plans, and it sounds like things are pretty well locked into place at this point. Tony Melone, the company’s Senior Vice President and CTO, seemed remarkably enthused that a bona fide LTE network would be launching “in the not too distant future,” and when pressed for specifics, he stated that they would launch “25 to 30 networks this year, covering one third of America by the end of 2010.” Beyond that, we’re looking at a footprint twice that size “15 months” after the initial rollout, and by the end of 2013, the company’s 4G coverage map will be the same size, “if not larger,” than its existing 3G map. Of course, the carrier insisted that they wouldn’t be abandoning 3G advancement while being fixated on 4G, noting that it was moving “fast and aggressively” on both fronts, with hopes that its LTE network would eventually eclipse even the 3G networks (in terms of coverage size) of competitors. Them’s bold words, VZW, and we’ll be carefully watching to see if that really does come to fruition.

About devices, for starters, VZW affirmed that data-centric devices would be splashing down on its commercial LTE network first, possibly as early as the end of this year. When we asked specifically what kinds of devices he meant, he stated that “aircards, USB data sticks and MiFi-type devices” would be first out of the chunnel, with smartphones being “about a quarter behind.” Naturally, we asked why there would be a delay, and he stated that getting a smartphone onto a new network is more difficult than a simple data-only product; there are obvious voice-related issues to work through that aren’t present when you’re only sucking down torrents, and it’ll take some time before full-on phones join the fray. He assured us the earlier data-only device launches wouldn’t be “a public trial,” and he noted that a conservative estimate as to when we’d see LTE phones on Verizon would be “the first half of 2011.” Though, he did confess that folks would likely be pushing for earlier ship dates, and we may see a few phones drop closer to January than July if all the stars align.

Oregon’s 700MHz Network.

Posted by on March 17, 2010 No comments

Oregon’s State Interoperability Executive Council (SIEC), has voted to prepare a waiver that seeks permission from the FCC to build a public-safety statewide broadband wireless network, reports FireChief.com

“Oregon can create a network that lets public-safety responders send more detailed data at faster speeds over a dedicated statewide network,” saidTualatin Valley Fire and Rescue ChiefJeff Johnson, who chairs the SEIC.

“Oregon didn’t have a base radio system that was modern enough to work for the state’s public-safety agencies”, said Johnson, who also is the current president of theInternational Association of Fire Chiefs.

Johnson said there are several benefits for the state if it is able to create its own broadband data network in the dedicated 700 MHz spectrum. The move would expedite the introduction of high-speed data capabilities within the coverage area of the Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network(OWIN). The move also would position Oregon for an eventual merger with the proposed nationwide public-safety communications network, says the article.

The National Interoperability Information eXchange (NIIX) is a national web-based resource for interoperability plans generated by the states and regions between states. They’re into Project 25 radios with an aggregated bit rate of 9600 bits/s.

OWIN spokesperson Bill Gallagher said if granted the waiver, the state would be able to entertain public/private partnerships, which may eventually be the key to deploying broadband service for those underserved areas in the state that don’t have it. Currently, deployment of the nationwide network is stalled because of an unsuccessful attempt to auction off some of the spectrum to a private carrier.

The current estimate to build Oregon’s network is $414 million, Johnson said.

FireChief: IAFC President Pitches Oregon’s Broadband Network Request.
Urgent Communications: Oregon builds State wide Network.

100Mpbs LTE from Sweden.

Posted by on March 15, 2010 No comments
TeliaSonera has announced that it has upgraded its base stations in central Stockholm to deliver speeds of 100Mbps, with other LTE base stations undergoing the upgrade process beginning this spring.
However, the company has admitted that practical peak download speeds will be ‘up to 80Mbps’, although these will vary depending upon the users’ location.
The network currently provides LTE coverage to central Stockholm as well as Kista Science City, the upmarket Hammarby Sjostad neighbourhood and the Alvsjo area – including transport hub and Stockholm International Fairs complex.
Telia said it planned to build out its LTE network in 25 locations in Sweden during the third quarter of this year. This will include LTE being launched in Lund, Västerås, Malmö, Gothenburg, Uppsala and Linköping using equipment from the existing LTE suppliers Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.
Telegeography: Telia says LTE users to get 80Mbps practical speeds.

Verizon LTE = 50Mbps @ Boston.

Posted by on March 8, 2010 No comments

The company is reporting that engineers have managed to coax up to 40-50Mbps down and 20-25Mbps up out of its test networks currently deployed in Boston and Seattle — not what we can expect in a real-world environment where you’re on a train surrounded by obstacles and other people trying to use the network, but a pretty nice, round set of numbers nonetheless. In actual usage, they’re reporting more down-to-Earth figures of 5-12Mbps down (count on 5) and 2-5Mbps up (count on 2), which still bests EV-DO Rev.

The company has been aggressive in promoting its first-mover advantage on LTE in the North American market. Though TeliaSonera already launched commercial LTE service in Scandinavia, Verizon is poised to be the first to launch the service in the United States. Rival AT&T Mobility plans to launch the service next year, while MetroPCS has said it will launch its own LTE service in the second half of this year.

Verizon Wireless also indicated that it is on track to deploy its LTE network in 25 to 30 markets later this year, blanketing some 100 million Americans. According to the 3GPP2 spec, fourth generation networks are supposed to reach 100Mbps downlink speeds under peak conditions. Both Ericsson and Novatel have reached 42Mbps downloads with their HSPA+ networking technology.

4G Data will blow your…4G explained.

Posted by on April 30, 2009 No comments

4g-speed

The current state of mobile networks is that we use 2.5G and 3G networks—mid-second-gen and newer third-gen data protocols. On the Verizon and Sprint side, known as CDMA, 2.5G is referred to as 1XRTT, or just 1X. On the AT&T and T-Mobile side, GSM, the 2.5G flavor is EDGE. Verizon and Sprint’s 3G is EVDO, while AT&T and T-Mobile have HSDPA (you might not know that one, since they usually just say “3G”).

Second gen wireless was basically just the leap to a digital network, and third gen is a closer attempt at true mobile broadband—kind of. Right now, with their 3G networks, they can all get you typical speeds of around 1 Megabit per second downstream, give or take (though the specs are rated for peak speeds of 3Mbps down on EVDO Rev. A, and 3.6 on HSDPA). 3G has a bit of breathing room left in it—EVDO Rev. B is capable of downstream speeds of 14.7Mbps , while the current HSDPA spec will go up to 14.4Mbps downstream with the right equipment, and depending on how far down the HSPA spec sheet you wanna go, maybe even faster.

But the fourth generation is already on its way. Technically, no wireless technology is officially 4G. But that’s what everybody’s calling WiMax and Long-Term Evolution, because they both promise crazyfast mobile internet speeds that leave the current 3G in the dirt. In the US, the main WiMax player is Clearwire, which Sprint owns 51 percent of after they combined their operations into one company and actually gave WiMax a chance to live. LTE is championed by AT&T (which makes sense because it was developed initially by companies who mainly build GSM networks like AT&T and T-Mobile’s). Verizon also selected LTE, which blew everyone away at first because Verizon isn’t in the GSM camp, but it makes sense because Verizon’s parent company, Vodafone, is gung-ho for LTE in Europe, where everyone’s on GSM.

WiMax and LTE,  use the same fundamental technology, they both use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing access and they’re both IP (internet protocol) based. More simply, you can kind of think of the difference between WiMax and LTE as a software, not a hardware thing (kind of like Macs and PCs using the same Intel chip). Alcatel-Lucent, who makes the 4G wireless hardware, is actually building hardware that is on a common platform. In fact, some point in the future it’s possible to harmonize”LTE and WiMax.

Here’s what the fundamental difference is: Time division duplexing versus frequency division duplexing. AT&T TDD is like CB radios or walkie-talkies—when one person is talking, the other person can’t talk. The same channel is used for downstream and upstream, so the transmission is divided up over very tiny increments of time. Clearwire’s says they currently use a 2/3 downstream and 1/3 upstream split, so 2/3 of the time, you’re swallowing data, and 1/3 of the time. With LTE, it’s more like a modem or phone conversation. It separates the available bandwidth into two parts—one operating downstream full time, and one operating upstream—so you both can talk back and forth at the same time.

The special think about WiMax and LTE is, how fast can they really get. The amswer is,  The channel width. LTE and WiMax use really fat wireless channels, so they can move a lot of data at once. For example,  peak speed for LTE in 10MHz is about 140Mbps and peak speed in 20MHz is about 300Mbps. The thing about them being OFDM is that it makes them more flexible than 3G, since they can use a wide range of spectrum—LTE can use anything from the 1.4MHz channel up through 20MHz—whereas current 3G always uses 5MHz.

WiMax is no slouch either, technically capable of up to 72Mbps.

Another thing about those superfat channels is that they don’t reach as far out from the tower, and your response drops (obviously) as you get farther away.  They’re going to need to build more cell sites. That’s why building out 4G is very pricey.  If you thought 3G rollout was slow, 4G might be slower.

Here’s what the real-soon-future looks like: Verizon isn’t dicking around, and is doing commercial rollouts of LTE in 2010, while AT&T is following up with their commercial trials in 2011. (AT&T says Verizon “is in a big rush to move to LTE because their 3G technology gives them no room” to increase bandwidth and that red is a stupid color, nyah nyah nyah.) Clearwire has rolled out WiMax to a few cities already, and plans to have 120 million covered by the end of 2010. Verizon says they’re getting about 60Mbps in testing, but expect it to be more like cable modem speeds when it launches—like Clearwire has now. For the reasons we mentioned above, and also because there won’t be devices that can handle that kind of ridiculous speed—as you probably guessed, battery life being a major reason.

Will one standard eventually beat the other into submission, slinking away into the night, arm and arm with Betamax and HD DVD? Well, LTE does have a lot of momentum—the two biggest carriers in the US are rolling with it, and as part of the GSM family, you can bet all of the GSM carriers all over the world will be on board. In fact, there’s no real technological reason to pick one over the other and just like now where multiple technologies exist for economic reasons, it’ll be the same thing with WiMax and LTE.

2010, Verizon LTE.

Posted by on February 19, 2009 No comments

Verizon plans on a full deployment of LTE by 2010, utilizing the newly acquired 700 mHz spectrum. Trials are already under way, with 3 markets set to start real-life tests sometime in the second half of this year.

No pricing plans were set, and no specifics were mentioned of actual data download speeds; rather, Verizon CTO Richard Lynch would only say that the real speeds would not be known until the real-world tests are made. Peak trial speeds have been set at 60 Mbps so far. Two lucky to-be-named cities will be recipients of the 4G action — which sounds suspiciously similar to Sprint and Clearwire’s current WiMAX situation — where the company will get a better sense of the data rates commercial users can expect.

From the other hand AT&T is in no hurry to deploy LTE since it is very careful on how it deploys HSPA, which is slow to evolve enough as it is.  AT&T will observe Verizon’s rollout of LTE and learn from any mistakes made from it, so as to avoid making the same mistakes on its own rollout.

NetworkWorld: Verizon conforms details of US LTE deployment.

2009, Verizon Wireless & LTE, together.

Posted by on December 11, 2008 No comments

Verizon Wireless CTO Dick Lynch said the operator expects to have Long Term Evolution technology in service somewhere in the U.S. by December 2009. Lynch, speaking at Cisco Systems’ C-Scape conference in San Jose, also said Verizon will offer femtocells, which will likely include WiFi as an added feature, shortly after introducing LTE.

“A femtocell of LTE or an access point of WiFi is a really critical component of the way customers want their broadband delivered,” Lynch said.

Verizon’s move represents an aggressive timeframe for LTE, which has largely been understood to hit the market in 2010. However, speakers at this week’s LTE America’s conference indicated they were skeptical that a 2010 LTE launch was attainable, according to an article in RCR News. LTE was supposed to be standardized by the end of this year, but the date has now been pushed to March.

Qualcomm has also recently issued an aggressive timeline for releasing engineering samples of its LTE/HSPA+ device modem. It is trying for the second quarter of 2009. The company, however, cautioned commercial availability of of the MDM9000 “still depends on a number of very uncertain factors, many of which are dependent on mobile network operators’ plans and investment priorities about how and when to roll out this next stage of wireless technology,” said Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president and general manager for Qualcomm Europe, speaking at the company’s inaugural European Innovation Summit last week.

Why the rush for Verizon? Ken Hyers, analyst with Technology Business Research, said in a recent interview that Verizon desires to push aggressively with LTE because it’s running out of data capacity on its CDMA EVDO network and must compete with higher speed HSPA+ AT&T Wireless is rolling out before its own LTE launch.

“The operator’s entire reputation is built around network quality and coverage and having the best network,” Hyers said. Verizon “will have to continue increasing data capacity.”

RCR Wireless: VZW plan to deploy LTE in 2009 could rely on non-standard technology.