China Mobile

LTE moves ahead following completion of TD-LTE 'proof of concept'

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:31:38 -0400

The LTE/SAE Trial Initiative (LSTI) group has announced the successful completion of proof of concepts tests that it claims demonstrates that TD-LTE and SAE (Service Architecture Evolution) are achievable.

For the TD-LTE trial, LSTI identified a core set of proof points aligned with the 3GPP and NGMN Alliance requirements for LTE/SAE. Test results from over 90 measurement campaigns from seven vendors were consolidated and analysed, with regard to ensuring that operators understand the practicalities in the field and that users get an enhanced experience.

The tests achieved the industry's peak spectral efficiency target of 5bps/Hz downlink and 2.5bps/Hz uplink in a live air test using prototype equipment, while 2x2 MIMO delivered 40Mbps rates and 7.3bps/Hz spectral efficiency.

The LSTI group said: "End user rates will vary widely depending on radio conditions and network loading. The minimum offered speed at cell edge during busy hours is expected to be around 0.06bps/Hz/User spectral efficiency (with 10 active users per cell). This aligns with the 3GPP design target of 2-3 times higher than HSDPA."

It added that TD-LTE/SAE could also support guaranteed bit rates, important for real time services such as IPTV, and could work at speeds up to 350km/h, or even 500km/h in good radio conditions. One way over-the-air packet transmit times of under 5ms were achieved.

With the proof of concept completed, the LSTI confirmed plans to move to new phases of its work, including interop testing and friendly customer trials for both FDD and TDD modes. Hou Fang of Huawei, chairman of the LSTI's TDD proof of concept group, said in a statement: "Having stable specifications and accelerating industry-wide interoperability testing within LSTI will simplify the worldwide adoption of LTE/SAE technology regardless of who designed, built or operates these networks and devices."

China Mobile, a keen advocate of TD-LTE, said that it planned to begin large-scale outdoor TD-LTE trials in 2010, adding that it would install 15 TD-LTE base stations at next year's Shanghai 2010 World Expo.

For more on this story:
3G and Telegeography

Femtocells: NSN and China Mobile demo TD-LTE femto, but questions remain

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:37:50 -0400

While claiming the demonstration was a world first, the public display by Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and China Mobile of a TD-LTE femtocell might indicate that the giant Chinese operator is keen to implement LTE in place of the government-imposed 3G standard, TD-SCDMA.

But the intent behind the femtocell demonstration was to prove the indoor penetration of TD-LTE given, according to China Mobile, that the majority of mobile broadband capacity will be consumed inside homes and offices. "TD-LTE femtocells can fully leverage the advantages of TDD frequencies, provide a fast and flexible indoor coverage solution and effectively manage network capacity and cost," said Huang Xiaoqing, general manager of the China Mobile Research Institute.

This early demonstration of a TD-LTE femtocell has given rise to speculation that China Mobile will launch the device as soon as it can go commercially live with LTE to provide hot spot coverage and much improved indoor penetration.

NSN stated that the experimental TD-LTE femtocell was able to deliver speeds higher than were possible using xDSL technology, and indicated, according to Stephan Scholz, CTO at NSN, the company's "innovative research leadership in LTE."

However, this effort to prove the capabilities of TD-LTE has been seen by business commentators as an attempt to encourage wider industry support for the TDD version of LTE. It would appear increasingly likely that China Mobile will be the only TD-LTE operator and will face the considerable challenge of creating a viable eco-system for device vendors to develop handsets based upon this standard.

The long-delayed deployment of China's homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G technology has raised doubts over its future success, not helped by the disappointing subscriber numbers recently announced by China Mobile. The company said that, at the end of August, its 3G subscriber base stood at 1.33 million, an increase of 239,000 on the previous month's tally.

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Softpedia
Press release

LTE : Vodafone to field test roaming and interop

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:02:57 -0400

While Vodafone executives have stated the company will not commercially deploy LTE until 2012, it has announced it will conduct roaming and various interop scenarios starting next March.

The trials, which will be conducted with China Mobile, will be the first to agree to use the MultiService Forum's LTE and System Architecture Evolution (SAE) interoperability test, and will take place at Vodafone's test and innovation centre in Düsseldorf, Germany, and China Mobile facilities in Beijing.

According to a report in Unstrung, the two operators plan to focus on testing the Evolved Packet Core (EPC), the core network for LTE radio access networks. Among the test scenarios are LTE access into the EPC, roaming, backward compatibility with 2G and 3G into the EPC, handover/relocation, and access into the IMS core network.

Separately, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has confirmed it will push ahead with its approach to providing voice over LTE using what it calls Fast Track Voice over LTE.

This line of attack, which NSN is alone in backing, steers away from the more widely-accepted VoLGA proposal and is based on the mobile softswitch developments undertaken by Nokia over the past few years. According to Unstrung, Sandro Tavares, marketing manager for converged core at NSN, said that its solution is much more straightforward than adopting the VoLGA approach. "It gets to the objective of providing voice over LTE networks with the same equipment that our customers already have, and [it's] tied to 3GPP standards."

When asked whether NSN would ever join VoLGA if it got enough operator support, Tavares said "It's hard to say. We really believe our solution makes sense for our customers ... [We] would rather not talk about 'ifs' here. Our fellow competitors have decided to propose this solution, but it would be up to the market to decide."

For more on this story:
Unstrung 1 & 2

Emerging markets start to mature

Paul Rasmussen — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:37:05 -0400

The opportunities presented by emerging markets have become increasingly complex. Some are already exhibiting the signs of voice saturation, others are looking to deploy mobile broadband services, while some Indian and Chinese operators seem determined to expand beyond their national boundaries.

This diverse level of market development is apparent in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere, but is most evident in southeast Asia/Pacific.

This region, in which I will include China and India, is displaying almost the full range of cell phone market characteristics--from unsophisticated voice and text messaging up to operators such as China Mobile and Bharti Airtel that are aggressively looking to invest in new and high-growth market segments.

The challenges are many. Some large operators face slowing growth rates in their home markets, a situation some have countered by forcing their way into developed regions--as illustrated by Bharti Airtel's merger deal with South Africa's MTN. And smaller operators are suffering an overabundance of competition.

Operator glut

According to Marc Einstein, industry manager for Frost & Sullivan Singapore, there are a number of countries with an operator oversupply. In Indonesia there are 11 operators, India likely will have 12 by the end of this year, seven are active in Vietnam, Bangladesh has six, and Cambodia has eight mobile operators with a population of only 14 million.

This situation looks untenable given the inevitable fierce competition triggered by this level of operator saturation. "I wouldn't be surprised to see a cash-rich firm such as China Mobile enter a number of these markets and acquire some of the more proficient," maintains Einstein.

However, this profusion of operators is but one issue. "More importantly, we have seen negative growth quarter-on-quarter from some of these operators because competition is so ferocious. Globe Telecom in the Philippines reported negative revenue growth for the year, which is not something you would normally see in emerging markets," he said.

Also, SIM subscriber numbers in some countries are already in excess of 100 percent of population, such as in Thailand. Vietnam and the Philippines are already in the 80 percent range.

Second wave of growth

To create advantage in such a market, a growing number of mobile operators are looking to migrate their customers to 3G. The strategy behind this move is to entice a progressively more sophisticated population to use their wireless handset as their primary access point for the internet.

Indeed, the uptake of these new data services, albeit initially slow, is sparking a new behaviour, claims Saberio Romeo, industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan. "We haven't seen this in Europe or North America, where consumers have followed the evolution of mobile technology. Emerging markets are evolving on a different track, and at a faster pace."

These changes have given rise to a new label--transitional markets. Such markets carry trends from both emerging and mature markets. For example, some operators in the Asia/Pacific market are looking to outsource aspects of their business--previously the preserve of mature operators. On the other hand, these operators appear opposed to network sharing, a topic being explored by a number of operators in mature markets.

"There is almost no progress with network sharing," says Peter Elliot, head of wireless and broadband for PA Consulting. "This seems to be due to the different political model that operates in these newer markets, as against what we see in Western Europe."

A place for the big boys

Do these conditions provide opportunities for the likes of Vodafone, Telefonica or France Telecom?

According to Elliot, these multinational operators are still looking to expand into new markets while retaining very tight control over operating expenses in their European subsidiaries. "They are pushing out European investment plans into the future, as against emerging markets where there is little evidence of any change to their expansionist strategy."

Verizon joins cellco giants to boost common mobile widget platform

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:13:01 -0400

The development of mobile widgets has taken a giant step forward following the announcement that Verizon Wireless has joined the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL)--recently formed by China Mobile, Softbank and Vodafone--to focus on a single global platform for mobile widgets.

While the JIL has a broader remit than widget development, the group has decided to focus on this particular technology to encourage the expansion of new and innovative services. If successful, this move to a common platform should enable widgets and applications to run on different handsets and OSs across numerous mobile operators, while safeguarding customer security, data privacy and billing systems.

While this action will be seen as an attempt by four of the world's largest operators to put themselves in the driving seat in terms of mobile web apps, it will bring them into competition with the likes of Qualcomm, which is already pushing forward with its own widget application platform.

However, the JIL has stated that leter this year it plans to launch a range of tools including a common mobile widgets specification, developer kits, an online repository, and distribution and payment mechanisms to ensure developers can roll out their products to customers in more than 70 countries across North America, Asia, Europe and Africa.

For more on this story:
Mobile Entertainment

Voda chief calls on Verizion Wireless and China Mobile for greater collaboration

Paul Rasmussen — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:11:09 -0500

Vodafone's CEO, Vittorio Colao, has indicated to Verizon Wireless and China Mobile that greater co-operation between the three firms could provide significant benefits to subscribers, and that their joint purchasing power should be used to obtain substantial savings from handset and infrastructure vendors.

Colao said in an interview with the Financial Times that, with China Mobile being dominant in China, Verizon Wireless being very strong in the US, and Vodafone having significant operations in Europe, Africa and India, there was the potential for much better collaboration. "If these three companies could work more closely ... in the management of customers, procurement and service creation, we could be unbeatable."

The three firms agreed last year to co-operate on 4G technologies--the first time all three will potentially have a common technology platform to base their service development efforts and joint procurement plans upon.

For more on this story:
Financial Times

Related stories:
China Mobile joins Vodafone, Verizon in LTE trial
Vodafone head sees LTE as an umbrella standard
Mobile industry pushes LTE
Wireless carriers among top brands worldwide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more on this story go to:
Unstrung

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

Nokia behind TD-SCDMA Italian network deployment

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

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

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

For more on this story:
- go to Telegeography

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