Mobile Internet Solutions » HSPA

AT&T Wi-Fi usage skyrockets

lesliemanzara — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:54:01 +0000

Marguerite Reardon, CNETnews, 10/24/2011

AT&T is relying more and more on its Wi-Fi networks to help off-load data traffic, which should ultimately lead to better network performance for its wireless customers.

This week the carrier said it has seen Wi-Fi usage on these networks triple in the last year. In the third quarter, AT&T said its customers made 301.9 million AT&T Wi-Fi connections or about 37 connections every second. The company added that on average, its users make about 100 million connections to its Wi-Fi networks every month. In fact, Wi-Fi connections in a single month now exceed the total connections made in all of 2009 and are five times the total connections made in 2008. And AT&T has said that the data carried on its Wi-Fi networks has more than doubled versus the third-quarter of 2010.

AT&T offers free Wi-Fi connectivity to its smartphone and wireless broadband customers in more than 29,000 Wi-Fi hot spots throughout the country. These networks are in places like hotels and airports, as well as restaurants and coffee shops, like Starbucks. AT&T has also been deploying Wi-Fi in outside public areas in what it calls Wi-Fi ‘hot zones” in several cities, such as Palo Alto, Calif., San Francisco, New York, and Chicago.

The idea with the “hot zones” is to set up Wi-Fi networks in areas where there is a highly concentrated group of users. So in Chicago, there is a hot zone around Wrigley Field. In New York City, AT&T has made Wi-Fi available in several parks and it also offers a Wi-Fi hot zone in Times Square. And the carrier is also deploying hot zones in big sports stadiums, such as Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

AT&T is using these carrier-managed Wi-Fi networks as a way to off-load data traffic from its 3G wireless network. AT&T, more than any other wireless carrier in the U.S., has been struggling to keep with demand for data on its network. After the company introduced the Apple iPhone in 2007, it saw traffic on its network explode. While AT&T has been upgrading its 3G network to faster and more efficient technologies, like HSPA+ and 4G LTE, the company is looking at more ways to increase capacity and meet demand. In fact, it said that the main reason it wants to buy T-Mobile USA is to get more capacity and spectrum to deal with its network congestion.

While Wi-Fi is not the only solution to the problem, it is part of the solution. And it’s particularly useful in helping AT&T manage traffic better in densely populated areas, where it has a highly concentrated level of users.

There’s no question that Wi-Fi benefits AT&T, but it’s also good for consumers. And the reason is simple. Because subscribers are not charged for the use of the Wi-Fi network, the data usage is not counted against their monthly data limits. And now that AT&T has eliminated its unlimited data plan, subscribers can use Wi-Fi when it’s available to cut down on the amount of data they’re using as part of their plan.

Other wireless carriers have dabbled in Wi-Fi. T-Mobile has experimented with offers that allow people to switch between Wi-Fi and licensed spectrum networks in the same session. But AT&T seems to be the largest carrier that has been embracing the technology as an offload strategy. Neither Sprint Nextel or rival Verizon Wireless are incorporating Wi-Fi into their networks in quite the same way that AT&T has done it.

“Consumers and businesses understand the numerous benefits in using and offering Wi-Fi in more places,” Angie Wiskocil, senior vice president of AT&T Wi-Fi Services, said in a statement. “By investing in our network and expanding our Wi-Fi footprint, we will continue to be the leader in Wi-Fi services.”

AT&T touts WiFi usage: 25.4M connections in Q3 Sue Marek, FierceWireless, 10/23/2009 AT&T sees WiFi usage rapidly increasing...
AT&T’s Latest Hotspot Usage Statistics Glenn Fleishman, WiFi Net News, 10/23/2009 AT&T may be crying...
AT&T: Tighter control of cell data usage ahead Peter Svensson, MSNBC, 12/9/2009 Company: 3 percent of smartphone users...

AT&T to unveil first two 4G LTE products

lesliemanzara — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:01:29 +0000

Roger Cheng, CNET News, 7/12/2011

AT&T is jumping into the actual 4G game with its first two LTE products.

The Elevate 4G mobile hot-spot devices is one of the first products that will use AT&T’s upcoming 4G LTE network. (Credit: AT&T)

The telecommunications giant plans to show off a laptop card called the USBConnect Momentum 4G and a mobile hot-spot device called the Elevate 4G–the first two devices that are compatible with its upcoming next-generation wireless network. The two products will be on display at an annual company showcase later today.

The two devices shouldn’t be confused with AT&T phones and products that currently carry the 4G tag. The two new products will be compatible with a flavor of 4G called Long-Term Evolution, which also powers the network that Verizon Wireless has been tirelessly touting in recent months.

AT&T has previously said that LTE theoretically is more than three times faster than its current “4G network” and 10 times faster than 3G. The company hasn’t disclosed actual comparisons.

AT&T, which plans to launch its 4G LTE network this summer in five cities and in 15 cities by year’s end, is racing to catch up to Verizon and Sprint Nextel in the 4G game. In January, AT&T followed T-Mobile USA’s footsteps and rebranded an upgraded variant of its 3G network, called HSPA+, with the 4G title, allowing it to continue boasting of the country’s fastest nationwide network.

The USBConnect Momentum 4G, the first laptop card compatible with AT&T’s upcoming 4G LTE network. (Credit: AT&T)

But AT&T is far behind Verizon when it comes to the deployment of 4G LTE. Verizon’s LTE network is in 77 metropolitan areas now, with plans to cover 175 markets by the end of the year. Sprint, meanwhile, is in 71 markets with its WiMax variant of 4G, although its expansion has stalled because of financing problems with partner and network operator Clearwire.

AT&T argues that the HSPA+ variant of 4G, which is available in 80 percent of the country, allows for a more smooth transition when moving between networks.

“Our customers will have the benefit of access to both our LTE network and our HSPA+ network,” Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices for AT&T, said in an e-mail. “This will provide a much more compelling and consistent speed experience as customers travel across our network.”

The company also argues that in some cases, its version of 4G is just as fast as Sprint’s WiMax. However, AT&T has moved up the timetable for its 4G LTE deployment, underscoring the importance of keeping pace with the competition. When launching a new network, laptop cards are typically the first product out of the gate. More recently, mobile hot-spot devices, which use the cellular network to generate a small but portable Wi-Fi hot spot for other devices, have become an increasingly popular way to introduce a new network.

For AT&T, the Momentum and Elevate are a good start. The Momentum laptop card will sell for $49.99 with a two-year contract. The device has a slot for a MicroSD card that can hold up to 32GB of data. It weighs 1.06 ounces.

The Elevate hot-spot device will cost $69.99 with a two-year contract. It has a color 1.77-inch LCD display that shows the Wi-Fi network name and security key. It weighs 3.6 ounces and can be used for up to five hours and connect up to five devices. Like the Momentum, it has a slot to allow for a 32GB memory card.

Dallas-based AT&T declined to comment on when the products will be available, adding only that they will sell with the launch of the 4G LTE network, which hasn’t been specified yet. The company is also still working on the data plan prices for the devices.

WiMAX vs. HSPA+: The Hands-On Test Sascha Segan, PC Magazine, 2/16/2010 Which is faster: the Intel-backed...
Wireless Carriers Muddy Waters with ’4G’ Marketing Wailin Wong, Mobile Tech Today, 12/2/2010 Are phone carriers getting...
3G wireless still holds promise Marguerite Reardon, CNET News, 11/25/2009 There’s been a lot of...

T-Mobile offering 4G Mobile Hotspot for mobile connectivity

lesliemanzara — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:43:31 +0000

Dan Seifert, MobileBurn 4/12/2011

T-Mobile has officially taken the wraps off of its 4G Mobile Hotspot that was originally announced at CTIA 2011 earlier this year. The 4G Mobile Hotspot is HSPA+ enabled and capable of achieving 21Mbps download speeds. Up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices can be connected at one time.

Manufactured by ZTE, the 4G Mobile Hotspot is similar in appearance to a clamshell phone and weighs 2.64oz (74.8g). It is equipped with an OLED display that can show the number of connected users, battery life, signal strength, and network connection type. There is also an SD card slot that supports up to 32 GB SD cards that can be accessed by connected devices.

The 4G Mobile Hotspot will be available starting on April 13. It will cost $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year agreement. Customers can opt for a 10GB data plan with no overages for $84.99 a month, or choose one of T-Mobile’s other data plan options.

Verizon introsMiFi 4510L 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Dan Seifert, MobileBurn, 4/18/2011 Verizon Wireless has announced the availability...
Sprint to get 4G Mobile Hotspot from Sierra Wireless soon Marc Flores, BGR, 12/31/2009 We get the feeling that early 2010...
Sprint adds 3G/4G MiFi mobile hotspot to its lineup Sal Cangeloso, Geek.com, 1/4/2011 Sprint just announced a brand new...

The FCC Struggles to Meet Smartphone Wireless Spectrum Needs

lesliemanzara — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:47:29 +0000

Jason Mick, Daily Tech, 1/13/2011

Spectrum demands are rapidly rising, but its as hard as ever to find free spectrum

While it’s easy to put the blame regarding slower than expected progress in the realm of wireless communications on the telecoms, they aren’t the only problem. Next generation 4G networks are incredibly spectrum hungry, and even the biggest players like Verizon and AT&T are racing to find spectrum.

As a result, their 4G efforts (LTE, WiMAX) are falling far short of promised speeds — or worse yet, some are giving up and billing even slower HSPA+ networks as “4G” (testing has shown HSPA+ to be nearly twice as slow as current LTE, despite T-Mobile’s claims and “demos”).

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, the organization tasked with regulating our nation’s communications under the federal Communications Act of 1934 (amended by Telecom Act of 1996), is struggling to dig up spectrum to sell to the big carriers — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile — in order to allow them to better deliver on the their smartphone data speed promises.

AT&T Inc Chief Executive Randall Stephenson in a Reuters report says that is vitally needed as where 10 MHz of spectrum would have lasted four to five years in the old days, “Today, we’ll burn through that in about 10 months.”

The great hope for grabbing more spectrum is to repurpose a couple hundred MHz of unused spectrum and gain another 120 MHz of spectrum by approach television providers like ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox and offering to auction their unused spectrum.

Under the scheme, the networks would pocket part of the proceeds and the government would keep a chunk too. And the telecoms would be the biggest winners, as they could finally give customers faster 3G and 4G data speeds.

However, the proposal for these “voluntary incentive auctions” must navigate its way through a partisan Congress, which is divided with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a Democratic-controlled Senate. Still, there is hope that both sides of the political spectrum will see the value of this proposal. States FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, an appointee of U.S. President Barack Obama, “Every month that goes by without tackling this is a month that hurts us from a global competitiveness perspective.”

Despite initial hesitance, the National Association of Broadcasters has endorsed the idea, assuming the auction is “truly voluntary”.

Even if the auction succeeds, it does not solve the underlying fact that we are running out of usable spectrum. That means that dreams of wirelessly connected vehicles, appliances, and more may see slower adoption. It also prohibitively raises the barrier to entry into the U.S. telecommunications market, virtually guaranteeing it to be an oligarchy composed of the big four — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile (ranked from first to fourth, respectively, in number of subscribers). The only solutions here will be to find new ways to use spectrum more efficiently and perhaps find ways to make the use of previously “junk” spectrum financially and technically feasible.

CTIA To FCC: Without More Wireless Spectrum, ‘Demand May Outpace Supply’ Tricia Duryee, MocoNews, 9/29/2009 With the FCC cracking down on...
FCC chief lauds wireless companies, to focus on spectrum Gina Keating, Yahoo Tech, 10/7/2009 The top U.S. communications regulator...
4G Wireless Gets Serious With LTE Reinhardt Krause, Yahoo! News, 1/20/2010 Look for LTE, a leading-edge...

Wireless Carriers Muddy Waters with ’4G’ Marketing

lesliemanzara — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:52:04 +0000

Wailin Wong, Mobile Tech Today, 12/2/2010

Are phone carriers getting their 4G signals crossed? Wireless carriers are using 4G to describe a major leap in speed, capacity and power over other networks. But operators don’t agree on what constitutes that technological milestone. As a result, 4G has become a marketing term almost unrelated to its technical, industry-standards definition.

The marketing world is full of vague adjectives like “new,” “better” or “healthy” that don’t necessarily mean much.

The wireless industry has its own buzzword: 4G. Carriers have taken the technical-sounding term for fourth generation and turned it into a vehicle for competing advertising claims that could confuse consumers.

Starting with Clearwire Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp., wireless carriers have used 4G to describe a major leap in speed, capacity and power over other networks. But operators don’t agree on what constitutes that technological milestone. As a result, 4G has become a marketing term almost unrelated to its technical definition, which is determined by industry standards bodies.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile USA Inc. said it had expanded its 4G service to six markets, adding them to a roster of “America’s largest 4G network .” The carrier’s announcement prompted grumbling from some of its competitors, which said T-Mobile was trying to pass off an improved 3G network as a new 4G network. Critics noted that the carrier itself had refrained from using “4G” to describe its technology , called HSPA+, when it was introduced.

T-Mobile is unapologetic.

“For customers, it’s setting an expectation of a significant change in their experience,” said Bentley Alexander, T-Mobile’s regional vice president of engineering and operations. “It’s a step above and beyond the experience folks are having today. … It’s appropriate to call it a 4G network, and we’re proud to call it that.”

The raised eyebrows over T-Mobile’s 4G announcement underscore the ultracompetitive nature of the wireless industry, which is hungry for revenue from mobile data services — Web surfing, video streaming and photo sharing — that will be further enabled by the newest network technology. Every carrier wants to show it has the best pipelines for that data, and 4G is elegant marketing shorthand.

“To us, what it means is it’s the next generation of technology,” said Mike Sievert, Clearwire’s chief commercial officer. “It has to be more than just faster. … It also has to have higher capacity, the tons of megabytes of data that we know people want. And, finally, there has to be a breakthrough in the cost of the technology.”

Verizon Wireless plans to launch its 4G network in Chicago and 37 other markets by year-end, while AT&T Inc. says it will make its 4G debut in 2011. Both carriers use a technology called Long Term Evolution, or LTE. Clearwire and Sprint’s network technology, also used by Comcast Corp., is known as WiMax.

If a carrier is pitching “4G-like speeds, or ‘Yesterday I had a 3G network; today I’m going to brand it as a 4G network,’ you’ve got to look under the hood a little bit and do a true comparison,” said T.J. Fox, president of the Illinois and Wisconsin region at Verizon Wireless.

In the wireless industry, various agencies coordinate how the radio spectrum is used globally and set technology standards, which are important for interoperability between communications systems. In October, the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, announced its designations for “true 4G technologies.” All of the U.S. networks touted as 4G fall short of ITU criteria.

“None of the networks today meet the ITU’s specifications for 4G,” said Chris Nicoll, a distinguished research fellow at the Yankee Group. “It’s like saying, “My bicycle is a car because it has wheels and has the same (technology) roadmap to get to the automobile.’”

Still, with so much momentum behind making 4G a household name, the carriers aren’t giving up the term. And because there is no agency with legal authority over how 4G should be used in advertising, carriers are free to describe their technology however they please. This dynamic mirrors how “all natural,” for example, has become a ubiquitous yet hazily defined term.

“It was clear this was a brand-new network. It had never been built before, and it was clearly an advanced network,” said Todd Rowley, vice president of 4G at Sprint. “Because a group of very smart people that are recognized said, ‘Hey, this is the bar,’ does that mean it’s the bar? I say no.”

According to Yankee Group, the message is not reaching consumers. A survey conducted this year showed 66 percent of participants were unfamiliar with the term 4G. Even 3G was confusing.

“Our research shows that it made no sense to label the technology 4G,” Nicoll said. “Over half of the consumers we surveyed either had never heard of 3G or didn’t know what 3G was. So if they don’t know what the baseline was, going to the next G doesn’t give you a moving point. They could have called it anything, and the consumer would have been just as confused.”

AT&T is moving its marketing focus away from using 4G, said Dave Fine, the carrier’s vice president and general manager in Illinois. He said that while “the number is getting across, the message might be lost in the number” because of competing claims over whether a network is 3G or 4G.

“We’ve changed our message in our advertising and out in public because it’s about the fastest mobile broadband,” Fine said. “Do you want the fastest mobile broadband network or do you want G’s? We want to simplify the message to the consumer.”

COMPARING 4G CARRIERS:

_Coverage: Early adopters may find they have just one or two operators with 4G service in their city, and it will be several years before all the operators have nationwide coverage.

_Speed: Speeds will vary by location and other factors, but 4G speeds are supposed to be at least three times faster than 3G. Operators say the difference should feel like moving from dial-up to a broadband Internet connection.

_Latency: A 4G data connection should feel significantly more real-time. This means audio and video should be synced while streaming a TV show or holding a live videoconference. Latency is important for online game players.

_Devices: Sprint offers two 4G smart phones. T-Mobile sells 4G-ready devices optimized for the upgraded network, but many of its 3G phones are also compatible with its 4G technology. A greater variety of phones, as well as netbooks and tablet computers, is expected to hit the market as operators roll out their networks.

_Price: Carriers may experiment with different plans, with some offering unlimited packages while others introduce tiered pricing. Users of Sprint’s 4G smart phones pay a $10 monthly premium. T-Mobile does not charge extra for 4G. Verizon and AT&T have not announced their pricing plans.

3G wireless still holds promise Marguerite Reardon, CNET News, 11/25/2009 There’s been a lot of...
Wireless service costs too much, and all but the carriers agree Matt Hamblen, Computerworld, 8/20/2009 Sharp criticism of wireless industry mounts...
Smart wireless networks to the rescue Marguerite Reardon, CNET News, 10/19/2010 Wireless operators are adding more...

LTE to soar but HSPA still rules mobile broadband

lesliemanzara — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:18:13 +0000

Stan Beer, iTWire, 12/1/2010

The new super fast mobile broadband technology LTE (long term evolution) is tipped to take-off worldwide in 2012 but the existing 3G standard HSPA will continue to dominate for many years to come, according to new research.

Often incorrectly referred to as 4G, the LTE standard specifies downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbps and peak download rates of more than 300 Mbps. Its successor LTE Advanced will meet the 4G specification of peak downlink speeds of up to 1 Gbps.

According to the report titled “Despite LTE, HSPA+ keeps evolving”, by Ovum principle analyst Julian Grivolas, enhanced HSPA standards such as HSPA+, which currently delivers 42 Mbps in Australia, will ensure HSPA retains its dominance for at least the next five years.

Forecasts from Ovum show that HSPA connections will hit 1.87 billion by 2015 and grow at a compound annual growth rate of 46%. The technology’s share of high-speed connections will increase from 31% in 2009 to 59% in 2015, and as a proportion of total global connections it will grow from 4% in 2009 to 25% in 2015.

In Asia-Pacific, HSPA connections will reach over 829 million while LTE will only hit over 121 million. Most of the Asian LTE connections will be located in developed markets such as Japan and Korea and in Chinese main urban areas. However, in the region, HSPA/HSPA+ will remain the most used Mobile Internet access technology, in particular in developing economies thanks to the economies of scale of the more mature technology.

Julien Grivolas said: “With LTE grabbing so much attention it is easy to ignore the fact that HSPA is a firmly established technology with a mature infrastructure and device ecosystem. Its other advantage is that is has a natural upgrade path in the form of the enhanced HSPA+, which is being deployed in ever-greater volumes in 2010 and will keep getting better and better. Indeed, HSPA+ and its future enhancements could be sufficient for many operators’ needs for the next five years.

“There is a huge amount of hype surrounding LTE and we expect it to really take off in 2012. However, HSPA will not go out of fashion and mobile operators are not about to turn their backs on it any time soon. The technology is continuing to evolve and operators will keep enhancing their networks for as long as it makes good economic sense.”

According to the report, LTE will become the dominant technology in the future, but HSPA will not disappear and many operators are in no rush to migrate. Grivolas said: “HSPA+ and its enhanced evolutions should not be viewed as competitors to LTE, but rather as complementary technologies. For example, in Australia, Telstra, who already launched HSPA+ services at 42Mbps, sees lots of opportunities in keeping enhancing the performances of its HSPA NextG network while introducing LTE as a complementary hot spot solution when spectrum will be made available.

“Ultimately, the availability of spectrum is certainly an issue that will have a strong bearing on the commercial success of LTE, as its availability is fundamental to service launches. With that in mind, it may pay for operators to hang back and let others invest in the development of the ecosystem and make mistakes first.”

T-Mobile Upgrades to HSPA 7.2Mbps, First to Deploy HSPA+ Eric M. Zeman, Phone Scoop, 1/5/2010 Today T-Mobile announced that...
T-Mobile Moves Aggressively into HSPA and HSPA+ Glenn Fleishman, WiFi Net, 11/11/2009 From a carrier with no...
T-mobile HSPA+ network rolling out across the US, branded as 4G Simon Chester, Mobile Crunch, 10/31/2010 Despite the technical arguments that...

T-Mobile rolls out new tiered data pricing, offers tethering

lesliemanzara — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:03:01 +0000

Phil Goldstein, FierceWireless, 11/1/2010

Putting the rumors to rest, T-Mobile USA will offer a tiered data pricing structure this holiday season as well as a tethering option for smartphone customers.

The carrier is offering, for a limited time, a 200 MB data plan in addition to its existing $30 plan for unlimited data. The 200 MB plan will cost $10 per month with a two-year contract or $15 per month without a contract. T-Mobile will keep its $30 plan for unlimited data. A T-Mobile spokeswoman said that the $10 plan is promotional and that the $15 plan will still be available once the $10 plan is no longer available. The $15 plan will be available for both contract and non-contract customers.

Verizon Wireless last week launched a promotional data plan offering 150 MB of data for $15 per month, in addition to its existing $30 per month for unlimited data offering.

Additionally, T-Mobile is launching a tethering option for smartphone customers. Customers must buy the $30 data plan and a $15 per month add-on to turn their smartphone into a wireless modem.

T-Mobile is also starting to market its growing HSPA+ network as the country’s “largest 4G network,” according to the blog TMoNews, a move that may draw the ire of competitors like Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility. A T-Mobile spokeswoman declined to comment on the reported marketing campaign.

The nation’s No. 4 operator, which badly lagged its larger competitors in initial 3G deployments, has been steadily adding HSPA+ markets this year. The company plans to cover 100 markets and 200 million POPs with HSPA+ by year-end.

AT&T Opts to Turn to Wi-Fi Rather Than Tiered Pricing to Save Its Data Network Jason Mick, Daily Tech, 12/23/2009 Company looks to new partnership,...
Verizon Wireless eyeing tiered data service Lance Whitney, CNET News, 6/18/2010 Verizon Wireless is toying with...
AT&T makes sweeping changes to data plans, iPhone tethering coming at OS 4 launch Chris Ziegler Engadget, 6/2/2010 You might think that AT&T would...

T-mobile HSPA+ network rolling out across the US, branded as 4G

lesliemanzara — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:59:10 +0000

Simon Chester, Mobile Crunch, 10/31/2010

Despite the technical arguments that T-mobile’s 4G-like HSPA+ network is technically 3G, T-mobile have decided to run with the 4G moniker, marketing it as “America’s Largest 4G Network” as they roll it out across many cities in the US.

To back up this news, T-Mo News have received a photo of pamphlet holder that shows off the new slogan (shown below).

Despite the technicalities, T-Mo’s HSPA+ network is still faster than Sprints competing 4G WiMAX network, with a promised max download rate of 21mbps, compared to WiMAX’s 10mbps.

The latest handsets to take advantage of their HSPA+ network are the The G2 and the myTouch 4G, both of which run Android 2.2.

If you’re keen to get on board with the high-speed network, you can check coverage here.

T-Mobile Announces G2, First HSPA+ Cell Phone in U.S. Sascha Segan, PCMag.com, 9/92010 T-Mobile officially announced its G2 smartphone...
T-Mobile Expands HSPA+ Coverage Areas With “4G Speeds” Kevin C. Tofel, GigaOM, 5/25/2010 T-Mobile today announced availability of...
T-Mobile Moves Aggressively into HSPA and HSPA+ Glenn Fleishman, WiFi Net, 11/11/2009 From a carrier with no...

Smart wireless networks to the rescue

lesliemanzara — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:08:37 +0000

Marguerite Reardon, CNET News, 10/19/2010

Wireless operators are adding more smarts to their networks to ensure the flood of new smartphones, tablets, and other wireless connected gadgets don’t overwhelm them.

Equipment suppliers gathering here this week at 4G World to discuss the next generation of wireless network infrastructure are working not only to help wireless operators add more capacity to their network, but they are also adding more intelligence into the network to make more efficient use of the resources.

Analysts predict that data traffic on the wireless network could increase 700 percent by 2015 as smartphones and other connected-devices access the Net wirelessly. Smartphones in general consume 50 times more bandwidth than traditional cell phones. And laptops consume 25 more data than smartphones. Tablets–an emerging category of product popularized by the Apple iPad–are somewhere in the middle.

In preparation to handle the onslaught of traffic, wireless operators have already begun upgrading their networks. They’ve been placing wireless bay stations closer together to increase capacity using smaller cell sites to handle more traffic. They’re starting to offload traffic to Wi-Fi and femto cells. They’ve added fiber to the backhaul portion of their networks to carry data from the cell towers to the core wired networks.

And they are also migrating to new network technologies. In the U.S, each of the four major wireless operators is upgrading its network technology to increase bandwidth and performance. Verizon Wireless is deploying a so-called 4G wireless technology, LTE or Long Term Evolution. Sprint Nextel, through its partnership with Clearwire, is deploying its next-generation network using a technology called WiMax. And AT&T and T-Mobile USA are using upgrades to existing HSPA infrastructure to increase bandwidth. AT&T and T-Mobile have each said they plan to eventually deploy LTE.

While 4G technologies will add more capacity to carrier networks, that is only part of the benefit of the upgrade. The upgrade to LTE and WiMax will make the networks more efficient because they are based on IP. And more efficient networks mean carriers don’t have to spend as much to offer customers services.

“The carrier that spends the least amount on delivering its services and is the most efficient will win,” said Phil Marshall, co founder and chief research officer for Tolaga Research.

But becoming a more efficient network also requires more intelligence in the network.

“Intelligence is needed to manage the network,” he said. “And we’re only at the beginning stages of deploying this technology.”

Indeed, the timing is right for intelligent network management of wireless networks. Marshall, who spoke yesterday on a panel sponsored by Qualcomm with other industry execs, said that six or seven years ago there were several companies developing wireless network optimization products, but many went out of business because there wasn’t enough data on the networks to manage.

That has all changed with the advent of the super smartphones, like the iPhone and Android devices. And it will continue to grow as other devices come on board, such as Windows Phone 7 devices and other devices like the tablet PCs.

Marshall said that when you talk about capacity on a wireless network, it’s helpful to think of it the same way you think of building new roads. You can add several more lanes to a highway, but you may also have to manage the traffic by coordinating traffic lights and adding HOV lanes during peak travel times. That’s also what is needed for wireless networks, he said.

Mike Wright, executive director for Telstra, the Australian broadband provider that was the first carrier to deploy next-generation HSPA+ network technology, was also on the panel. He agreed that even as bandwidth increases, carriers still have to manage their networks to ensure that they are keeping costs down and optimally serving customers.

“We’re already at a point where there is mass market adoption of these data services,” he said. “So we need to look at ways we can more intelligently manage the traffic on our network.”

As an example, he said he is looking at ways to time-shift traffic during the busiest parts of the day to flatten the cost.

“Your network is as expensive as it costs to carry your peak loads,” he said. “So flattening out that traffic with network quality of service techniques or time-shifting traffic, means we can get more out of our resources.”

Infrastructure companies are already working on solutions. Cisco Systems, which makes infrastructure equipment that fuels the Internet, has launched a special business unit to work with wireless operators. And tomorrow, the company is expected to announce a product that will help wireless operators better manage their data traffic once it comes off the radio network and is aggregated onto their wired IP-based infrastructure.

“Making the IP core network more efficient helps alleviate the need for more spectrum and more capacity throughout the network,” Andy Capener, the director of marketing for service provider mobility for Cisco, said in an interview last week. “We don’t actually supply the radios that transmit the data wireless, so it’s incumbent upon us to optimize the traffic beyond that point so that it consumes less wireless resources when it goes through the radio network.”

In other words, Cisco’s technology will help compress video and Web pages that consumers download and view to reduce overall usage on the network.

Ericsson, which makes radio gear in addition to IP core infrastructure, is also making equipment to help carriers use the network more efficiently. George Antoun, head IP and broadband products for Ericsson, said during the panel that ideally all players in the wireless ecosystem should be designing products for efficiency. He pointed out that Research In Motion has done a very good job with the BlackBerry designing the device and its core applications to use the network very efficiently.

By contrast, he explained that other devices, such as the iPhone, are not designed with network efficiency in mind. He said that Apple has designed the iPhone so that apps are updating constantly. This means that the device is always talking to the cell towers in the network and downloading data, which runs up data consumption unnecessarily.

“Even if the phone is in your pocket as you drive down the highway, it’s talking to every cell tower in every cell site you pass,” he said. “It’s transmitting data. It’s pushing data to you unless you turn it off.”

In addition, to consuming more data, this activity also drains power from the cell sites, possibly making them less effective. And it drains the device’s battery as well. The net result is a network that is not operating at full efficiency with hundreds or even thousands of these devices constantly moving between cell sites.

“It would be great if we could get application developers and device makers to design the products differently,” he said in an interview. “But who is going to tell Steve Jobs he has to change the iPhone? Instead, it’s up to the carriers to add more intelligence to de-prioritize apps and functions that are not being used.”

Antoun also pointed out that it’s the device makers and application developers that are driving innovation. New devices, such as the iPhone and the Android devices, are pushing wireless operators to upgrade their networks.

“The big change in the industry is that service providers used to wait for the business case to be fleshed out before they built out their networks,” he said. “But now they are building the networks and people are immediately filling them. Where ever they go, there is demand.”

Antoun also said that the solution is not simply a technical one in terms of adding capacity and intelligence for better traffic management. Consumers’ consumption habits must also be altered so that people pay for what they use.

“The industry is at an inflection point where we can change the way we charge for services,” he said. “There’s not only an opportunity to optimize the network, but to really put new business models out there. We have lost the war a little bit. And we can’t continue with flat service pricing.”

Intelligent management and network provisioning can help carriers develop these new business models, he suggested.

“The tech is there,” he said. “A lot has to be understood and applied. And then it’s a matter of who will make the first move.”

One thing that could derail the march toward intelligent network innovation is the fight in Washington, D.C. over Net neutrality. While in theory, Net neutrality rules, which are supposed to ensure that operators can’t give priority to traffic to harm competition or block consumers from accessing legal content, should not prevent wireless operators from managing their networks. But regulation, even with the best intentions, could still have unintended consequences, which hamper development.

“The problem is that the regulations tend to lag technology innovation,” Marshall said. “And right now, things are evolving so quickly.”

Wi-Fi rides to wireless networks’ rescue Marguerite Reardon, CNET news, 2/12/2010 Good old Wi-Fi could be...
Coping with the Wireless Data Deluge Olga Kharif, Mobile Tech Today, 12/29/2009 Software that helps carriers...
Cisco predicts wireless data explosion Marguerite Reardon, CNET News, 2/9/2010 If wireless operators thought they...

T-Mobile Announces G2, First HSPA+ Cell Phone in U.S.

lesliemanzara — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:06:02 +0000

Sascha Segan, PCMag.com, 9/92010

T-Mobile officially announced its G2 smartphone Thursday, the first phone designed for its high-speed HSPA+ network and possibly the Googliest phone ever.

Running the latest version of Google’s Android, 2.2 “Froyo,” the G2 is full of Google services, T-Mobile said. The sliding, QWERTY-keyboarded phone comes with Google Voice built-in, including the ability to transfer your current mobile number to the Google Voice system. Google’s new Voice Actions voice-command feature, Google Goggles, and apparently every other Google thing that Google could come up with are also pre-loaded.

From a hardware perspective, the G2 is a gray phone whose 3.7-inch, 800-by-480 touch screen slide-flips back on an unusual hinge to reveal a four-row QWERTY keyboard. The unusual keyboard lacks a dedicated number row, but has a large space bar and a dedicated “www/com” key for typing in Web addresses. The phone runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon MSM7230 processor, which seems to trade some speed for long battery life; it’s an 800-MHz processor rather than the 1-GHz we’ve seen in other Snapdragon devices.

Other specs include a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recording, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, 4 G-bytes of internal storage and a pre-installed 8GB memory card. There’s a 3.5-mm headset jack, Swype’s virtual keyboard, and support for Adobe Flash 10.1 in the Web browser.

As the first HSPA+ phone, the G2 can download at speeds of up to 14.4 megabits per sec on T-Mobile’s network. That’s double the speed of T-Mobile’s and AT&T’s fastest previous phones, which operated at 7.2 Mbps – but it still doesn’t reach the maximum speed of T-Mobile’s network, which runs at theoretical speeds of up to 21 Mbps.

In real-life circumstances, we’ve gotten speeds more like 5 Mbps with USB modems on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ system. That’s the fastest 3G system where it’s available, and it often matches Sprint’s 4G WiMAX on speed. T-Mobile says the new network reaches 100 million people in 55 cities, and it plans to cover 200 million people this year.

The G2 will be the most powerful QWERTY-keyboarded smartphone in T-Mobile’s lineup when it launches. In the carrier’s overall lineup, it will compete with the Samsung Vibrant, which only has HSPA 7.2 Internet speeds but runs a faster 1-GHz processor. We’re looking forward to comparing the two Android smartphones.

T-Mobile didn’t announce a price for the G2; it said it will be available “later this month,” with the first pre-orders going to g2.tmobile.com.

T-Mobile Moves Aggressively into HSPA and HSPA+ Glenn Fleishman, WiFi Net, 11/11/2009 From a carrier with no...
T-Mobile Announces HSPA+ USB Stick WiFi News Net, 2/16/2010 T-Mobile is trying to seize its...
T-mobile HSPA+ network rolling out across the US, branded as 4G Simon Chester, Mobile Crunch, 10/31/2010 Despite the technical arguments that...