RIVAL cellular network operators are beginning to co-operate to avoid wasting a fortune on competing technologies that are destined to grow obsolete.

Tentative steps to agree, up front, on which technologies to support promise to ensure that customers can roam on any network without interconnection problems, and that all handsets will work on every network.

A united front would not eliminate innovation, but would ensure that all innovations were channelled in the right direction, says Joachim Horn, the chief technology officer of German telecoms operator T-Mobile.

T-Mobile is a founding member of the Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN) initiative, along with Vodafone, which owns 50% of SA’s Vodacom. Others include Japanese giant DoCoMo, China Mobile Communications and Sprint.

The initiative was designed to focus on standardisation to ensure the cellphone industry stayed healthy, Horn says.

He outlined plans at a briefing by Siemens Communications, an equipment manufacturer that will provide technologies to meet the organisation’s requirements.

“The intention is to channel innovation into a common purpose rather than use innovation as an excuse for diversity,” says Siemens Communications vice- president Klaus-Dieter Kohrt.

A plethora of technologies underpin today’s networks, some complementary, some clashing, and they do not always head in the same direction. The industry is battling over which competing system promises the best way forward. Through this initiative operators are attempting to slow down and become more certain about the commercial viability of new technologies to end the constant, costly race to be first.

Handset manufacturers now try to cram several systems into each phone so they can be used on incompatible networks, which increases production costs and retail price. Network suppliers also have to cater for competing technologies, making the production complex and expensive.

“We want to make decisions early to let vendors provide cost- effective solutions,” says Horn. “I don’t know of any key vendor who hasn’t shown interest.”

The idea was firmed into action this month with the creation of NGMN Ltd as a nonprofit organisation open to all.

Operators do not want to throw away what they have invested in, says Horn, but their systems will need upgrading in the coming months to provide high-speed multimedia services for mobile users. That will include mobile television and internet data downloads at 100MB a second — 10 times faster than today’s networks.

Rather than launch immature systems now, it would be better to wait until they can introduce high-quality services that conform to agreed standards and which offer a more satisfying customer experience, Horn says.

“The key challenge is that this requires spectrum efficiency that is very close to the physical limits of what is possible, or in two or three years’ time there will be new technologies that move closer. We don’t want partial upgrades now so that every two years we have to reinvest in new equipment,” he says.

For mobile broadband to be ready by 2010 — when SA will host the Soccer World Cup and users around the globe will expect to watch the matches on their cellphones — agreed standards must be ready by 2008 and network testing must begin in 2009.

The utopia of a single technology able to provide all the services that rival networks must offer to differentiate themselves may never be achieved. “Having one technology around the world is too much of a vision. But if we can absorb some of the layers and wipe them out, it would help keep the costs down,” Horn says.

Source- http://allafrica.com