Lack of LTE Devices, Still a Worry?

At this years Mobile World Congress, vendors were announcing LTE devices of all shapes and sizes. Besides modems, vendors showed netbooks and portable Wi-Fi hotspots that are compatible with LTE.

Perhaps the most impressive of the devices was the E398 modem unveiled by Huawei. The E398 is the world’s first triple-mode LTE modem compatible with all three major network standards: LTE, UMTS, and GSM. The triple-mode modem is based on Qualcomm's MDM9200TM chipset and will enable end users to seamlessly switch from LTE to either UMTS or GSM. The modem also supports multiple mainstream LTE frequencies.

The Huawei E398 modem will be initially launched in the world's first LTE/GSM shared network in Sweden operated by Net4Mobility, a joint infrastructure venture between Tele2 Sweden and Telenor Sweden.

Toshiba at the Mobile World Congress show this week showed off its Satellite T130 notebook PC with an integrated LTE network module from Sony Ericsson. During demonstrations at MWC the PC-maker demonstrated data download speeds of up to 16Mbps. This is significant as the PC is one of the first few with the high-speed connection option.

The AL600 from ZTE is being developed for the North American market and will operate in the 700MHz band, which Verizon will use in its upcoming network. The modem will also operate LTE in the 2.6GHz band,to cater for European operators. ZTE is also working on a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that lets users share an LTE connection using Wi-Fi.

Samsung’s new LTE netbook, bolstered with the presence of its own in-house designed LTE modem chipset Kalmia has been dubbed the world’s first LTE netbook PC. The device was also demonstrated at the MWC. Kalmia, which enables the development of a small form factor netbook with LTE capability, was brought to the fore by way of a live video streaming via the company’s own LTE network equipment on the Samsung netbook N150.

LG announced its LD100, a LTE data card, at CES in January. Anritsu demonstrated data throughput of up to 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink speeds on the LG device at MWC. LG also demonstrated handover between LTE and CDMA with their VD13 device. The company came up with a device for the Handover back in August, the M13, but the VD13 is an even slimmer device!

Perhaps less well known is that Ericsson is also working on integrating LTE into laptops and notebooks. The company is most known for its mobile networks, but it also sells modules for integrating mobile broadband into laptops and netbooks. Ericsson's module will operate in multiple frequency bands for LTE and HSPA. But it won't start shipping the module until LTE has become a "mass market" technology, and that won't happen until the beginning of 2012, according to Ericsson.

Huawei and ZTE will ship its modems -- the E398 and the AL600 or AL620, respectively -- by the end of the year. Samsung promises to ship its modem during the first half of 2010, according to a spokesman. But operators only expect to get their hands on a limited number of modems, with volume shipments starting in the beginning of 2011, according to Magnus Zetterberg, CTO at Telenor Sweden.

One of the things vendors have to think about more about when designing products for LTE is which frequencies they will operate on as operators will be using various frequency bands for LTE. LTE pioneers Verizon Wireless, NTT DoCoMo and TeliaSonera will all use different frequency bands for their respective LTE network. So for roaming in the U.S, Japan and Europe to work, modems will have to support 700MHz, 2100MHz and 2600MHz with more bands likely to be needed in the future.

With the GSMA focusing its efforts on roaming for LTE, this should help to encourage device manufacturers that there is sufficient momentum and demand for LTE devices. It should also make operators that think that LTE is not ready, think again...

What Advanced Applications Will We See On The LTE Network?

Verizon Wireless announced that it is updating its specifications for LTE devices that will run on the network. These new specifications are aimed at helping developers to design products and services that will run on the operators' LTE network, which is scheduled to launch in 2010 in 25 to 30 US markets.

Verizon Wireless said the updated specs will address network access, SMS requirements and data retry test plans. In addition, new information about lab and signaling conformance, open development device approval will be included. The new specs will be outlined in a webcast on the 20th of January.

What will be interesting to see after the webcast is what new applications and business models the application developers come up with. VZW wants the LTE network to expand existing types of applications while opening up entirely new classes of applications at the same time. One example that has been pointed out by VZW is the possibility of appliances such as refrigerators being fitted with wireless monitoring devices. A missing part, for instance, could be pinpointed via a wireless link, cutting service costs. Innovation in advanced video and gaming services are also envisioned by VZW.

It will be interesting to see if other operators deploying LTE at the moment push as hard for new devices and services for LTE as VZW has. TeliaSonera for instance, who have already launched their LTE network, has an agreement with Samsung who is providing it with a USB dongle. There does not seem to be a plan for anywhere near the same level of activity that we have seen with VZW when it comes to launching new devices and apps. So do operators need to go to all the trouble the VZW is?

Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson are the "founding participants" at VZW's LTE Innovation Center in Boston, MA. A group of venture capital firms are also participating in the core working group at the center. In addition to Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson, other participants in the core working group include Charles River Ventures, Northbridge Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, New Venture Partners, and Redpoint Ventures.

An interview with Tony Malone, CTO of VZW can be found on the LTE World Series You Tube channel. Tony spoke at the LTE Americas conference in Dallas in November 09.

Is the LTE Performance Gain Simply Due to Wider Frequency Bands?

There have been various LTE trials going ahead in 2009 and of course the surprise LTE network launch by TeliaSonera who have estimated LTE user data rates to be in the range of 20-80 Mbps. Similar figures have been promoted in other operator trials.

Quite often operators and system vendors refer to the achievable peak rates, ranging from 100 Mbps to as high as 250 Mbps. However, in cases where LTE is deployed in high density, metropolitian areas, these peak data rates are unlikely to be achieved.

Omnitele has just announced that it expects actual data rates to be a lot less than the figues above. Through analysing LTE performance in technical studies and simulations using Omnitele’s state-of-the-art network planning tool analysis on the performance gain of LTE compared to HSPA technology comes mainly from the wider frequency band (up to 20MHz compared to 5 MHz for UMTS). Switching from CDMA to OFDM also has an effect, as does MIMO according to Omnitele. However, significant expectations being put on the performance of MIMO and yet the most critical element of performance which remains under the control of the designer is the antenna, The 3GPP is still proposing how to define requirements for MIMO antennas and it is a pretty complex topic with apparently little consensus developing so far.

Actual LTE user data rates are highly dependent on radio conditions and number of users sharing network resources. Most of the first commercial LTE deployments are said to utilise 20MHz bandwidth and 2x2 MIMO antenna schemes. When breaking down the performance of LTE features in different channel conditions and simulating them in a realistic metropolitan network environment, Omnitele estimated the achievable average LTE user data rates to be in the range of 15-25 Mbps per 20MHz frequency bandwidth.

LTE outperforms the current baseline HSDPA in terms of data rates by a factor of ten and HSPA+ technologies by a factor of 3-4. But it will take more than improved radio performance to really get the best out of LTE.

Is Network Sharing and Joint Ventures the Best Model for LTE Deployment?

With the joint venture announced between Telenor and Tele2 in Sweden, is it just too expensive for operators to be building their own LTE networks?

Operators such as Orange and T-Mobile in the UK are already looking to merge their 3G networks, at great cost. £600m-£800m is the estimated cost that will be taken up by decommissioning redundant duplicate radio network infrastructure, as well as reducing the number of retail outlets and combining the customer service centres and general administration functions. T-Mobile will contribute the 50% share of their joint radio network with Hutchinson 3G to the pot, (who incidentally already use Orange’s 2G network for fill-in coverage). Assuming T-Mobile and 3 put both their radio networks into the joint venture, you’ll end up with the interesting situation of 3 using a joint 3G network shared with Orange and T-Mobile, and a GSM network operated by Orange and T-Mobile.

So what does a joint venture between two operators look like? The Telenor and Tele2 merger seems a lot more simple. They have created Net4Mobility, a company that is a product of the joint venture that will build and manage the joint network for the two operators, have a competely new infrastructure (radio, backhaul, core, OSS etc). The joint venture will be 50/50 between the two operators. Net4Mobilty will be using its own 2.6GHz spectrum and will also use both Telenor's and Tele2's 900MHz spectrum.

Sharing spectrum and network infrastructure massively reduces the CAPEX and OPEX when compared to the investment that would need to made if the two operators deployed LTE seperately. But is this also a move to compete on customer experience and product differentiation? The Swedish market is one of the most competitive for mobile broadband and perhaps the operators have decided that they simply cannot continue to compete on who has the cheapest flat rate plan for data.

DoCoMo LTE Launch Date Finalised

Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo will launch commercial LTE service in December of next year, skipping the interim upgrade to HSPA+ which many operators have decided to do and delay the launch of LTE to when the devices are ready and when there is some real feedback from operators that have trialed and deployed LTE.

NTT DoCoMo President and CEO Ryuji Yamada made the announcement yesterday at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress. Yamada said that it would be most efficient to go straight to LTE. DoCoMo have invested heavily in LTE to make sure that it works for them and HSPA+ would just be a distraction especially as the amount of data traffic on its network has been doubling every year according to Yamada. HSPA+ in that case will only be a very short term solution.

The LTE network is expected to considerably boost the operator's data revenues, which should comprise more than half its overall sales by 2011. DoCoMo will spend $3.4 billion on the deployment, initiating the buildout in high-traffic areas, where it will overlay its existing 3G network with LTE. The operator will first offer its LTE service on data cards and LTE-capable handsets are slated for 2011.

DoCoMo plans to turn off its 2G network in 2012, so needs to migrate all of its customers onto 3G and LTE before then. This again is a different strategy to other operatrors that see 2G as being around for at least another 10 years.

Operators Don't Just Want to be a Dumb Pipe

The net neutraility argument continues. The FCC is due to vote on new net neutrality rules tomorrow whilst Verizon has warned the commission not to pass rules barring operators from favouring certain types of content or applications over others or from degrading traffic of Internet companies that offer services similar to those of the carriers. But does net neutrality understate the role of sound network management practices and ignore the real benefits that smart networks deliver?

Most operators are now seriously attacking the idea that they should be considered "dumb pipes" whose sole job is to neutrally push traffic from content providers. With user experience and the personalisation of services expected to be a key differentiator between networks, when operators do decide to invest in LTE, they plan to generate revenues from offering tiered pricing and an extensive API offering. Knowing what the customer is using his/her data for will be crucial to offering the right service to the right customer.

Taking away the operators' ability to favour certain content and to create tiered services may take away the financial incentive to invest in network upgrades. Again this is the argument being put forward by Verizon, if it is not able to make a return on the huge investment being made in it LTE network, then it seriously impacts on future investments and the future quality of service that operators can provide.

TeliaSonera Offers a Single-Mode Modem Only for Its LTE Launch

TeliaSonera has signed a deal for LTE modems from Samsung for its launch in Sweden and Norway in the first half of 2010. The reason behind this single mode LTE only modem is simply because that's what's currently available.

Because the Samsung modem is LTE-only, TeliaSonera customers will need to use a second modem, either built into the computer or a separate USB dongle to access the Internet when they are not in an area covered by LTE, which at first will be limited to major cities. It's too early to say how the hand-off between the two modems will work, according to TeliaSonera. However, the operator expects that users in the inner-city parts of Stockholm and Oslo will be able to move around and surf using just the LTE modem.

TeliaSonera will have enough modems for a commercial launch, but isn't willing to provide exact quantities. It is hoped that the use of an LTE-only modem is a temporary measure. Samsung is working on a modem that will come out next year and support a multitude of mobile broadband technologies. Obtaining a supply of next-generation modems and phones continues to be the biggest challenge when it comes to rolling out new mobile technologies and is the main reason that operator are cautious of deploying LTE early. AT&T, NTT Docomo and Telefónica are just a few operators to have voiced concerns about vendors' ability to have modems ready by the end of next year.

TeliaSonera said its LTE launch will happen during first half of 2010, but wouldn't provide a more exact timeframe.