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DoCoMo may launch ‘Super 3G’ by 2009 (Japan)

  • July 25th, 2008
  • 2:46 pm

NTT DoCoMo, Japan, could launch a ‘Super 3G’ mobile service by 2009, delevering download speeds of up to 250Mbps and uploads of 50Mbps, reports TechRadar following a public demonstration of the technology in Tokyo this week. The improved data transmission rates were achieved using 4×4 multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) technology on an LTE (long-term evolution) network. NTT DoCoMo, which inaugurated the world’s first 3G network FOMA in October 2001, says only a software upgrade, and not a hardware based change, will be needed to roll out its ultra-high speed service.

   

Nokia and Qualcomm: say “no” to disputes (World)

  • July 24th, 2008
  • 11:02 am

Nokia and Qualcomm after a long-running dispute over patent has finally reached a settlement where Nokia has been granted a 15-year license to various Qualcomm mobile technology for use in it’s handsets. The agreement includes standards like GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMAX, LTE and others.

As a partr of the deal, both parties will have to withdraw all litigations and Nokia has to withdraw its complaints to the European Commission over Qualcomm. Nokia agrees not to useany patents against Qualcomm which in turn will enable Qualcomm to integrate Nokia’s technology into Qualcomm’s chipsets.

The financial structure of the settlement includes an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Qualcomm. Nokia has also agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA. The specific terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Nokia said the “positive financial impact” was within its previous expectations and it expects the deal will be positive for the entire industry.

   

Sprint withdraws from NGMN Alliance (Asia)

  • July 23rd, 2008
  • 8:02 am

Sprint has withdrawn from the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance after the group expressed its support for LTE (Long Term Evolution) for 4G.

The NGMN is a group of global mobile operators that banded together last year to push for a common vision for networks and technologies beyond 3G and was supposed to endorse the co-existence of various technologies without favoring one over another.

Founding members of the NGMN Alliance include China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Orange, KPN and T-Mobile, all of whom back LTE. Majority of the 18 operator members come from the WCDMA community, whose 4G path is LTE.

   

NTT DoCoMo begins Long Term Evolution testing (Japan)

  • July 13th, 2007
  • 11:09 am

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has begun testing its ‘Super 3G’ system this month. The company is seeking to achieve a downlink transmission rate of 300 Mbps using Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. DoCoMo will begin with an indoor experiment to test transmission speed using one transmitting and one receiving antenna. The company will then expand the experiment to examine downlink transmission by employing up to four MIMO antennas for both the base station (transmission side) and mobile station (receiving side). The goal is to achieve a downlink transmission speed of 300 Mbps.

   

Agilent Technologies Announces Extended Simulation Coverage, UL Receiver Capability for Its 3GPP LTE Wireless Library

  • July 10th, 2007
  • 12:50 pm

Agilent Technologies Inc. has announced a major update to the Agilent 3GPP LTE Wireless Library for use with the company’s Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software. New uplink receiver models and improved uplink/downlink source models help wireless-systems designers and verification engineers speed development of the evolving 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) designs for next-generation mobile communications products.

Agilent’s 3GPP LTE Wireless Library is based on Release 8 of the 3GPP standard for the next generation of mobile communication products. It works within the ADS environment using the Agilent Ptolemy simulator to streamline the design and verification process. The library provides preconfigured simulation setups with signal sources for downlink and uplink, along with transmitter analyses such as spectrum, complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) and waveform measurements.

The new uplink receiver models facilitate error vector magnitude (EVM) and bit error rate (BER) measurements for UL simulations. Additionally, the library’s uplink and downlink source models have been improved to conform to TS36.211 v1.1.1 (2007-05) of the 3GPP standard.

“Agilent is firmly committed to evolving the 3GPP LTE Wireless Library to keep pace with the developing 3GPP LTE standard,” said Frank Ditore, system architecture product manager with Agilent’s EEsof EDA division. “This is demonstrated by our extending simulation coverage further into the physical layer chain and adding UL receiver capability. As a result, designers can now verify the algorithmic performance of their IP against known reference models and validate BER performance of early 3GPP LTE designs.”

Agilent has also recently updated the Mobile WiMAX Wireless Library. Updates include MIMO support and inclusion of Convolution Turbo Coding (CTC)/decoding and system measurements with the CTC codec. Agilent’s Mobile WiMAX Wireless Library conforms to the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard.

 

 

   
 

WiMax gathers steam

  • May 18th, 2007
  • 12:43 pm

Mobile operators have barely rolled out their new third-generation wireless networks, and they’re already talking about the fourth generation. As next-generation cellular technologies — including those of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) project, whose mission is to guide the evolution of GSM cellular networks — have trouble getting off the ground, the industry has been turning its attention toward the WiMax packet-based technology.

“If the 3GSM show is any indication, then I think we will be hearing a lot about WiMax at CTIA,” said Mohammad Shakouri, vice president of marketing for the WiMax Forum, referring to the 3GSM World Congress trade show held in February in Barcelona. “The technology is getting close to commercialisation, and there has been a lot of buzz the past several months.”

WiMax, which is similar to another packet-based wireless technology, Wi-Fi, already has the foundation for a strong ecosystem thanks to support from handset and infrastructure makers including Motorola, Samsung and Nokia, as well as from chipmaker Intel.

These companies are all expected to have WiMax products in the market sometime this year, and some will be shown off at CTIA. Samsung, for example, is expected to have on hand some of its already-announced WiMax-ready gear, including a handset, ultra-mobile PC and a new USB dongle that offers wireless broadband for laptops.

The WiMax Forum, the industry group that promotes the technology, has almost completed the necessary certification requirements for new products, another major step that could help push deployment. According to Shakouri, products using the 2.3GHz spectrum, which is used primarily in South Korea, will be certified by mid-year. Products using the 3.5GHz will be certified in the third quarter, and products using the 2.5GHz spectrum, which is used mostly in the US, will have certification available by the end of the year.

WiMax, whose transmission distances range from a few hundred feet in densely populated areas to more than a mile in suburban areas, can support peak data speeds of 20 megabits per second, although average-user data rates fall between 2Mbps and 8Mbps. Data rates for the next-stage 3G cellular service — sometimes called 3.5G — are about 3Mbps.

1.Asian markets lead the way
Momentum among carriers is already building. In Japan more WiMax-compatible spectrum will be allocated by the government later this year. Korea Telecom in South Korea is already committed to launching its WiMax service this year. There are also plans to launch WiMax services in India, Malaysia and Pakistan, as well as in parts of Eastern Europe, Shakouri said. And the government in Taiwan is spending $1bn (£510m) to encourage the manufacture and development of 2.5GHz WiMax products and applications.

In the US, Sprint, the number-three carrier, has already said it plans to spend $3bn in the next two years to build a WiMax network, which is expected to be able to provide service to 100 million people by the end of 2008. Sprint is using its existing 2.5GHz spectrum, half of which it acquired from its merger with Nextel, to deliver the new service.

On Monday, Sprint announced several new cities that will be part of the WiMax network, It also named which of its named infrastructure partners would be developing which markets. Motorola will be developing Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis, and Grand Rapids, Mich. Samsung will develop Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Providence, R.I. And Nokia will develop Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

Sprint had previously announced that Chicago and Baltimore/Washington DC would be the first two markets to get the service, by the end of 2007. And Nokia had also previously named it would develop four markets, in Texas, for deployment in early 2008: Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio. 

Currently, the only other operator in the US using WiMax is a start-up called Clearwire, which was founded by mobile-industry billionaire Craig McCaw. Today it delivers WiMax broadband services to fixed locations, but eventually the company will offer mobile service as well. Clearwire, which raised $900m in venture backing this summer, went public earlier this month.