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GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010
Our editor, Ian Poole, reports directly from Mobile World Congress in Fira de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
The GSMA Mobile World Congress is held every year, and for the past few it has been located in Barcelona, Spain. This city provides an excellent backdrop for the congress with its architecture, art and relaxed lifestyle.
However, more importantly for the cellular telecommunications industry it is the largest congress of the industry being the global showcase for cutting edge technology. With around 50 000 people attending and 1300 companies exhibiting it is the one “must be there” event for the year.
One of the big questions before the event was regarding the effect of the downturn on the industry. The answer seems to be that there have been some effects, but not nearly as much as some had feared. Although some felt that many companies were only sending the top executives to reduce costs, most of the vendors we spoke to said that business was good.
Mobile World Congress keynote addresses
This year there were keynote addresses provided by several leading industry figures: Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive of Vodafone, Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO Google, Tadashi Onodera, President and Chairman of KDDI, Guo Ping, CSO, Huawei and Chairman of Huawei Device and several others.
In his keynote at Mobile World Congress, Google CEO, Eric Schmidt put mobile at the centre of Google´s roadmap for the future. Unveiling Google´s thinking, Schmidt stated that as far as he is concerned, it is “Mobile First.”
Other CEOs, including those from Vodafone, RIM and Alcatel-Lucent gave upbeat keynotes, saying that the future is bright as we enter this new decade. Seeing the emergence from the recession, Vittorio Colao saw a new era for mobile.
Femtocells at Mobile World Congress
Femto cell technology is one of the major new developments that is seen as providing major benefits for both the user in terms of coverage at home or in the office where signal strengths are normally poor and for the network provider by extending the coverage at little cost. Using the user’s DSL or other high speed Internet link, this provides a low cost backhaul solution.
At MWC 2009, many companies were showing their new developments including some femtocells themselves. This year, many operators are rolling them out. As an example, within the UK, Vodafone, with their Suresignal are finding that demand has exceeded expectations. Also further announcements are expected from the FemtoForum on Tuesday morning regarding further developments.
However the developers are also seeing significant increases in activity. One of the major barriers that was seen was the $100 cost. Ubiquisys have been able to break this barrier with their G3MINI which not only supports the standard femto functions, but also incorporates its real time self organising capability that uses cognitive radio technology so it can operate anywhere at any time without causing interference.
However some have asked about the green situation of femto technology. With huge numbers of femtocells being deployed, will they actually increase the overall power consumption for a network, or will the figures be quietly missed out of the calculations?
3G LTE
3G LTE and the 4G final solution is another big area of interest. Already 3G networks have gone live, but how many handsets are available. With handsets being one of the big holding factors for the original 3G, will the industry fall into the same holes as before. With the standards for 3G LTE all but finalised, progress is on target for the full 4G standard as our discussions with ETSI revealed. Network rollout is also progressing as we mention below. With one already live in Stockholm - being extensively drive tested - development on handsets and dongles is apparently progressing well.
Furthermore developments in the voice capability for LTE have been seen. Originally LTE was seen as an all-packet system, but with many people wanting to see it incorporate a voice capability, the “One-Voice” sytem has been introduced. Called VoLTE (Voice over LTE), this IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) based system now has wide industry support and is being pushed by GSMA and supported by over 40 organisations across the cellualr industry. The VoLTE approach supports many features including call waitng, call hold, and call barring. Using IMS it also is able easily integrated into the overall IP environment of LTE and 4G and is able to support many featues, while also being able to fall back to the older 2G and 3G systems where necessary.
Also Verizon announced that they will be launching their commercial LTE networks in the USA later this year. They are already in advanced pre-launch testing, and see no problem with making their LTE commercial launch this year.
Network developments
One area that is increasingly attracting attention is that of network development. Here there are two main areas. One is the improved backhaul and general network performance required for HSPA+ and LTE. The other is the developments that will bring green improvements.
Companies such as Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens and many others are bringing improved networks, but other such as Actix and Celcite, etc are bringing network optimisation software. These offerings bring a number of elements of cell network management together.
Actix were showing how their SON system is able to provide complete network management and optimisation. This is able to operate on 3.9 / 4G networks to provide mnagement of interference, overload, network failures and also management/planning for new sites and networks. With complete integration into the network system, the Actix SON is now being adopted by many large suppliers - they announced a very large contract that has just been signed with NEC.
Celcite also have their COPS system deployed, although mainly in the USA. There are around 25k sites that it covers. In addition to this, they offer a CMOC (Centrallised Manintenance and Optimisation Centre) where they offer a fully managed capability to operators.
The green aspects of network management are also very important these days. Figures indicate that IT as a whole contributes to less than 2% of all CO2 emissions and of this less than 20% comes from telecommunications including cellular telecommunications. It is nevertheless still important to reduce the carbon footprint of cellular networks.
One of the benchmarks used is the level of energy used per subscriber per year. In 1995 the generally accepted figure was 60 - 80 kwhr/subscriber/year. This year, this figure has fallen to between 12 and 20 kwhr/subscriber per year, and with development trends remaining as they are figures of around 3 kwhr/subscriber/year are anticipated by around 2018.
Also there are many developments taking place looking at the opportunities for using alternative energies. Many companies including Ericsson and many others are looking at all the alternatives.
Cellular Test solutions
While testing may be thought of as a necessary evil, it is always required, especially during the development phases of any new technology where it is absolutely necessary. The equipment vendors have a difficult time, because their equipment must be capable of being ahead of the game, so that the new developments can be adequately tested as they are developed. With LTE being drive tested, and LTE advanced being formalised, equipment vendors have their work cut out in developing test equipment that will meet the needs of these new technologies.
Aeroflex demonstarted their end to end test capability for LTE, and announced their fading / AWGN generator capability that can be added as a software upgrade to their 7100 tester. The 7100 can be used development and test stages of UE chip sets and terminals and is updated to the new Rel-8 standards. Measurements are provided for characterising the performance of LTE mobile devices, both at the radio interface and the protocol stack - including the PCDP and IMS layers.The 7100 can also be used for end-to-end performance.
In addition to this, Aeroflex was also talking about their well established TM500 UE simulator. This is now a well established item of LTE test equipment that has been widely used in all forms of testing for the LTE infrastructure.
Other developments
There will be many other areas where developments are taking place - applications, network infrastructure, mobiles and smartphones, and much more are all be represented.
Powermat were showing their novel charging mechanism using an inductive system. Comprising an intelligent source in a special mat, along with a receiver, the system operates at frequencies of the order of a hundred kiloHertz or so. Although special backs may be required in some instances newer variants only require the use of a Powermat battery as a replacement for the original.
Antennas are also of great importance - ensuring that the transmitted power is directed in the right direction, but the picture becomes considerably more complicated when looking at solutions for use inside buildings where signal paths are very variable. Andrew Systems described their advanced antenna technology with TRDUs, (Transmitter Receiver Duplex Units) now having the ability to be installed at the antenna head. With increased reliability and more efficient power amplifiers this is now a reality.
Andrew also they outlined the challenges they see with operators requiring wider bandwidth antennas to cover the wider range of bands, and the greater functionality required with beamsteering now needed in many areas to give increased efficiency in terms of operation. Using their Smart Beam system they can tilt and pan the beam and also alter the beamwidth to minimise interference in neighbouring cells, and effect load sharing between cells.
There are also very small companies who are able to produce real advancements on a variety of platforms. Cinche, (cinche.co.uk) showed a phone with a really smooth GUI. Many small companies such as these are able to produce results comparable with man of the larger companies.
So with all the possibilities for a downturn at Barcelona, the overall feel is upbeat, with many technologies such as LTE and femtocells fast becoming realities and not just hype. The coming 12 months should see some exciting developments ….