With the ink not yet dry on the contracts to build next generation networks, companies are now turning their attention to the world that will follow 3G, or more precisely the technology that will be used therein.
Given the fact that technologies such as OFDM, WiMAX and MIMO all have powerful backers within the industry, the wait for any sort of winner to emerge could be a long one.
But at least one company has nailed its colours to the mast. Nextel, the operator with the world’s highest ARPU figures, has now come out and publicly dismissed WiMAX (and eliminated the possibility of using it for high-speed mobile data services).
Flash-OFDM and cdma2000 EV-DO are the way its sees things going, and has already committed millions of US dollars in the process.
This flies in the face of a report from TelecomView, which states that WiMAX and other emerging high-speed wireless technologies will capture more than 40% of the wireless broadband business over the next few years. "Our forecasts show that WiMAX will be the clear winner amongst the new high-speed wireless technologies," said Ian Cox, principal analyst, TelecomView.
The reports argues that WiMAX will pick up 70% of this new market segment by 2009 due to its higher performance and flexibility when compared to the alternatives.
Third generation will be important for its mobility, but WiMAX will directly compete with DSL. Nextel remains unconvinced.
So despite the fact that Nextel could still use WiMAX for back haul from cell sites or fixed wireless services, the US giant will not wait for the mobile version of WiMAX (802.16e). The company has already deployed Flarion's OFDM (with a downlink of possibly 1 Mbps) technology in North Carolina, with a wider launch expected in 2006.
But nothing standstill for long in the wireless industry, and Siemens has already taken the next step, or so it claims. According to reports, the company is claiming a world wireless speed record with a 1Gbps data transfer.
At the Siemens Communications Group research laboratory (in what were reported to be “real-world conditions, in real-time”) scientists used mobile handsets to transfer data at a speed of a Gigabyte a second over the air, an extraordinary speed for a handheld device and many times faster than anything that’s gone before.
“Future mobile communications systems will have to utilise the available frequency band as efficiently as possible, with the lowest possible transmit power,” said Christoph Caselitz, president, Mobile Networks Division, Siemen Communications. “Our experimental system shows how powerful intelligent antennas can be in combination with OFDM. We have created a major module for future mobile comms systems.”
This new system, which if things work out must be regarded as true 4G, uses a “intelligent” antennas systems with multiple aerials, incorporating OFDM. Siemens isn’t quite as optimistic about the rollout of 4G as DoCoMo (the Japanese giant claiming the technology will be viable within 5 years), and claims that 4G will be a reality no earlier than 2015.
That may seem distant, but the German company is trying to establish a technology base and following now, not only in OFDM, but also via its work with Datang and TD-SCDMA. The Chinese developments remain the focus of Siemens’s attention for the moment, and things are really moving on that front - Datang Mobile has demonstrated the first TD-SCDMA video phone in Beijing.
However, what a second string Siemens has developed in Germany. The secret seems to be in the antennas are their MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) technology, and the simultaneous transmission of different flows of data along the same radio channel and frequency level.
However, it’s thought that the system cannot be deployed commercially, as it would require massive memory systems to keep track of all the data. That doesn’t seem to have stopped NTT using it however.
The Japanese company has developed a wireless transmission system with the data rate of 108Mbps based on MIMO, the technology that could still become the core technology for the WLAN standard, IEEE802.11n.
Meanwhile, a major European operator is taking a different path. mmO2, and Lucent Technologies, have announced plans to deploy a converged fixed-mobile network for mmO2's subsidiary, Manx Telecom, on the Isle of Man.
The 3G network, which will incorporate HSDPA technology as well as Lucent's IMS solution, will enable Manx Telecom to provide both wireless and wireline customers with "blended" mobile high-speed data, multimedia, and VoIP services, the companies said.
This article first appeared in Wireless Web News
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