Mobile Innovation

WorldMax has launched Europe's first mobile WiMax deployment, covering the centre of Amsterdam so that coffee-shop dwellers can surf the web without puzzling over plugs and wires, once they've got their PC-card connected.

The deployment, which is being run by Alcatel-Lucent and part-financed by Intel, is operating in 80MHz of spectrum provided by Enertel, at around 3.5GHz. Apparently it offers speeds "comparable to broadband" for €20 a month. The network conforms to the 802.11e standard for mobile WiMax, so should be useable from a car, or a bicycle.

Right now the coverage is limited to within the Amsterdam ring road, but Chief Executive Jeanine van der Vlist is promising a country-wide network of 3000 base stations, and apparently has the money to make that happen.

3000 base stations might seem like a lot, especially in such a small country lacking in the kind of signal-blocking terrain that causes problems elsewhere. But KPN, the mobile operator, has almost 4000* base stations for their 2G GSM network in the country, and is operating at 900 and 1800MHz.

Logic would dictate that the much-higher frequency WorldMax is going to need a lot more than 3000 base stations if they're going to provide any kind of ubiquity of coverage - which will be necessary if they really want to compete with the mobile networks.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at 12:11 PM | Permalink

Reading this article made me think of the business model for AM/FM radio and TV before cable. All you needed was an antennae and you could watch or listen to your shows. We all got used to listening or watching those commercials and learned they were part of why you did not pay for the programs. If you wanted to pay for entertainment, then you went to a movie.

This all changed when cable TV was introduced. People got used to paying for TV service and now we even have paid radio.

So, will Google return us to free services (or at least subsidized) for our cell phone and will consumers be willing to have commercials as part of their cell phone. Imagine having to listen to a commercial before your call is made? Will we as consumers dial the phone and ignore the commercial like we do with most TV advertising?

In many ways this makes sense. The usage and capabilities of Cell phones continues to grow dramatically and it would only make sense for offerings like Google's to expand the market. I do, however, see this as more of a consumer option. I can not see companies opting for their employees to have to watch an ad before they could read their email on their PDA's or allowing google to search your mail to give you targeted ads.

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Nokia's partnership with Vodafone, Apple's partnership with AT&T, O2, and others, and Google's partnership with T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel, LG, HTC, and others indeed signals a shift in mobile. There are players with software and user interface expertise delivering the true mobile Internet to customers; and the hardware manufacturer or carriers can not bypass that trend.

Nokia’s deal with Vodafone is definitely one model for carriers, should the Ovi platform succeed, especially in the face of challenges from Apple’s Safari interface, the new Google OS, and even Microsoft CE.

Let's see what the other handset manufacturers focus on:

First of all we have Motorola. Motorola’s hardware dominance eroded after iteration after iteration of RAZR clones that they released, along with their failure to concentrate on software - the new level of dominance.

Besides Motorola there are Sony Ericcson and Samsung, true hardware players, with better opportunities in Asia, as their gaming or feature-laden phones continue to have success. However, they too are not software experts and should struggle as the software giants make their play.

LG and HTC, on the other hand, are aligning with carriers, collaborating on phone production to meet their needs, and the new software players. Both are smartly onboard with Google’s partnership, though it is far too early to determine what will become of Google’s efforts.

Nokia is my favorite for the most adaptable handset manufacturer. In addition to their Symbian OS and Ovi mobile application layer, they purchased Navteq, entering the GPS market in a force. Nokia’s play may not pay huge dividends for the short-term, but I believe it positions them well for the future.

So, Is the Vodafone – Nokia partnership intelligent for the new mobile era, one in which data margins, if not revenue, will trump voice revenue? In my opinion Vodafone is making the right steps toward realizing and executing against the future mobile model, even if the partnership does not succeed.

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The Telecom Industry has been waiting to see what Google is going to do with it rumored phone system. This actually is very good news for the everyone except maybe Apple. The fear had been they would develop their own phone and take away more market share just as Apple has.

If the rumors are true the Google phone will not be a phone but a platform within phones made by others and open to all. So the question becomes who will use it and why is Google going for an open platform. It makes sense for Google, they are not in the hardware business but in the advertising business, the more people who see their searches and pages of information the more they can make from this service. So the smart thing to do is get the technology into as many phones as possible. By providing an open system they are moving in that direction. I see a lot of the handset makers jumping onto this bandwagon, it provides something new and different, something everyone but Apple needs right now, it could also help spur sales of new phones equipped with this technology. The same goes for the services providers, not only a new feature but also more data downloading time on the network. So overall a big plus for them. Now the question remains what about Apple? If this new system from Google requires a hardware change then they will have problems that everyone else will love. People will not be willing to spend to upgrade the new iPhone. Maybe this is what the industry has been hoping for.

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Garmin’s Tele Atlas bid following Nokia’s Navteq offer has implications for IP mapping in these emerging mobile applications: 1)Personalization and customization, 2)Social networking, 3)Interactive sharing.

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Apple provides a Apple iPhone guide tour on the website to show the features of the new device.
Worth to see!

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Cellphone-hack surveillance techniques, long the preserve of government operatives, may have gone mainstream as a family in the western USA reports unusually competent cellphone stalking.
The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington, carried reports last week of a harassment campaign bearing all the hallmarks of being orchestrated by frustrated teenage boys - except that it was technically sophisticated. An attractive 16-year-old girl and her family and friends have experienced eavesdropping via their mobile phones even when turned off, calls billed from their phones even when turned off, contact data lifted from phones remotely, ringtones replaced with threatening recordings, and so on.

This sort of thing is extremely unusual in normal life, and the News Tribune reports that local plods and cell-company reps have struggled to believe the beleaguered Kuykendall family and their fellow victims.

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Continue reading "Cell hack geek stalks pretty blonde shocker" »

Posted by Mobile Innovation at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Qualcomm has spent well in excess of $40m readying itself for a world beyond CDMA.

The purchase of RF Micro Devices and Airgo Networks Inc gives Qualcomm experience and technology in cutting-edge Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communications, enabling it to compete in a world where phone handsets support a variety of radio technologies.

Qualcomm is paying $39m for the Bluetooth assets of RF Micro Devices, which is conveniently located in San Diego (the home of Qualcomm itself), giving it rapid access to EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) implementations and the latest Bluetooth profiles.

The cost of Airgo Networks isn't being revealed, but with its experience in 802.11n and MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out) it is unlikely to have been cheap.

Phone handsets from Nokia now sport seven different radios, so there is an imperative for Qualcomm to be able to offer the most important of those in a single package to manufacturers, and these purchases will give them the ability to do just that relatively quickly.

While the ownership of key CDMA technologies has served Qualcomm well in the past, as GSM continues to dominate and applications become more network-agnostic they will need to innovate more aggressively if they are to maintain their position, and acquiring such cutting-edge technologies will work well in that regard.

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DVB-H stands for Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld. DVB-H is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to handheld receivers and was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification (EN 302 304) can be downloaded from the DVB-H Online website. The major competitor of this technology is DMB.

Technical Explanation

DVB-H Frame structureDVB-H is the latest development within the set of DVB transmission standards. DVB-H technology adapts the successful DVB-T system for digital terrestrial television to the specific requirements of handheld, battery-powered receivers. DVB-H can offer a downstream channel at high data rates which can be used standalone or as an enhancement of mobile telecoms networks which many typical handheld terminals are able to access anyway. Time slicing technology is employed to reduce power consumption for small handheld terminals. IP datagrams are transmitted as data bursts in small time slots. Each burst may contain up to 2 Mbits of data (including parity bits). There are 64 parity bits for each 191 data bits, protected by Reed-Solomon codes. The front end of the receiver switches on only for the time interval when the data burst of a selected service is on air. Within this short period of time a high data rate is received which can be stored in a buffer.

DVB-H Service Launches

In France, nationwide service launch is planned in 2007.

In Finland, the license to operate a DVB-H network was awarded to Digita in March 2006. In May 2006 they announced that they had signed a contract with Nokia to use its DVB-H platform for the service. The network will cover almost 30% of the country by the end of 2006, with the service launching in most of the major markets.

In Italy, 3 Italia launched nationwide services in May 2006, both TIM and Mediaset in June 2006, Vodafone is expected in September or October.

In Germany, nationwide service launch is planned in 2007.

In Spain, nationwide service launch is planned in 2007.

In the USA, a nationwide service will be rolled out by Modeo a company owned by Crown Castle Mobile Media. The service will begin in 2006 in New York City and will roll out to the top thirty markets in the USA during 2007. Modeo owns 5MHz of spectrum nationwide at 1600MHz. At the NAB trade show in April 2006, a second service launch was announced by SES Americom and Aloha Partners. Titled Hiwire Mobile Television, the service is set to begin trials in Las Vegas in Q4 2006. Hiwire owns two 6 MHz channels of spectrum at 700MHz covering most of the country.

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GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is a step between GSM and 3G cellular networks. GPRS offers faster data transmission via a GSM network within a range 9.6Kbits to 115Kbits. This new technology makes it possible for users to make telephone calls and transmit data at the same time. (For example, if you have a mobile phone using GPRS, you will be able to simultaneously make calls and receive e-mail massages.) The main benefits of GPRS are that it reserves radio resources only when there is data to send and it reduces reliance on traditional circuit-switched network elements.

With GPRS, an IP data transmission protocol, which is characteristic of computer networks, is being introduced to GSM. IP is a data transmission protocol which is used in Internet, the largest computer network in the world today.

Main features of GPRS

Before introduction of GPRS, the radio capacity was used for calls and data transmission within the GSM network in a rather inefficient way. For data transmission the entire channel was occupied and was thus insufficiently used. With the GPRS technology, the channel is used more efficiently owing to the possibility of more than one user sharing the same channel. GPRS telephones user several channels for data transfer thus facilitating greater transfer speeds.

The GPRS infrastructure and mobile phones support a data transmission speed of up to 13.4Kbits per channel.

GPRS signaling and data traffic do not travel through the GSM network. The GSM network is only used for table look up, in the Location Register (HLR and VLR) data bases, to obtain GPRS user profile data.

GPRS Telephones

Owing to the fact that more than one channel is used for downlink, the GPRS mobile phones make possible greater data transmission speeds. There are several types of phones with regard to the number of channels they use for data transmission...

Type 2+1 ? two downlink channels and one uplink data transmission channel

Type 3+1 ? three downlink channels and one uplink data transmission channel

Type 4+1 ? four downlink channels and one uplink data transmission channel

The GPRS mobile phones can be classified into the following three classes in terms of the possibility of simultaneous calls (via GSM) and data transmission (via GPRS)...

Class A ? Simultaneous calls (via GSM) and data transmission (via GPRS)

Class B ? Automatic switching between the GSM and the GPRS mode is possible according to telephone settings.

Class C ? Hand operated switching between the GSM and the GPRS mode

Data Transmission Speeds

The supported data transmission speed per channel is 13.4Kbits. Depending on the type of phone, the following data transmission speeds are theoretically possible...

Type 2+1: Receive 26.8Kbits and send 13.4Kbits.

Type 3+1: Receive 40.2Kbits and send 13.4Kbits.

Type 4+1: Receive 53.6Kbits and send 13.4Kbits.

The Network

In the core network, the existing MSCs are based upon circuit-switched technology, and they cannot handle the GPRS style packet traffic. Thus two new components, called GPRS Support Nodes, are added:

Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN)

Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN)

The SGSN can be viewed as a "packet-switched MSC;" it delivers packets to mobile stations (MSs) within its service area. SGSNs send queries to home location registers (HLRs) to obtain profile data of GPRS subscribers. SGSNs detect new GPRS MSs in a given service area, process registration of new mobile subscribers, and keep a record of their location inside a given area. Therefore, the SGSN performs mobility management functions such as mobile subscriber attach/detach and location management. The SGSN is connected to the base-station subsystem via a Frame Relay connection to the PCU in the BSC.

GGSNs are used as interfaces to external IP networks such as the public Internet, other mobile service providers' GPRS services, or enterprise intranets. GGSNs maintain routing information that is necessary to tunnel the protocol data units (PDUs) to the SGSNs that service particular MSs. Other functions include network and subscriber screening and address mapping. One (or more) GGSNs may be provided to support multiple SGSNs. More detailed technical descriptions of the SGSN and GGSN are provided in a later section.

Security

GPRS security functionality is equivalent to the existing GSM security. The SGSN performs authentication and cipher setting procedures based on the same algorithms, keys, and criteria as in existing GSM. GPRS uses a ciphering algorithm optimised for packet data transmission.

Network Protocols Used

There are several protocols used in the network equipment. These protocols operate in both the data and signalling planes. The following is a brief description of each protocol layer:

Sub-Network Dependent Convergence Protocol (SNDCP): the protocol that maps a network-level protocol, such as IP or X.25, to the underlying logical link control. SNDCP also provides other functions such as compression, segmentation and multiplexing of network-layer messages to a single virtual connection.

Logical Link Control (LLC): a data link layer protocol for GPRS which functions similar to Link Access Protocol - D (LAPD). This layer assures the reliable transfer of user data across a wireless network.

Base Station System GPRS Protocol (BSSGP): BSSGP processes routing and quality of service (QoS) information for the BSS. BSSGP uses the Frame Relay Q.922 core protocol as its transport mechanism.

GPRS Tunnel Protocol (GTP): protocol that tunnels the protocol data units through the IP backbone by adding routing information. GTP operates on top of TCP/UDP over IP.

GPRS Mobility Management (GMM): protocol that operates in the signalling plane of GPRS and handles mobility issues such as roaming, authentication, and selection of encryption algorithms.

Network Service: protocol that manages the convergence sub-layer that operates between BSSGP and the Frame Relay Q.922 Core by mapping BSSGP's service requests to the appropriate Frame Relay services.

BSSAP+: protocol that manages paging for voice and data connections and optimizes paging for mobile subscribers. BSSAP+ is also responsible for location and routing updates as well as mobile station alerting.

Posted by Mobile Innovation at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)