Author: Martin

France is one of the countries in Europe where the 900 MHz band has been opened up for technologies other than GSM and where a 3G network operator has started deploying UMTS 900. Some UMTS 900 / 2100 MHz USB sticks have been available for a while and especially Nokia puts UMTS 900 MHz into a number of its higher end devices in addition to the standard 2100 MHz band support. Here's a link to the coverage map of Orange France that shows which areas are covered with the standard 2100 MHz UMTS band and which are covered with UMTS 900.

It's interesting to compare those maps with satellite maps to see what kind of areas are covered with UMTS 900. It's very rural areas indeed so it looks like Orange sees a business case for covering such sparsely populated areas with a frequency band on which the signal can travel much farther than on 2.1 GHz. Also, it proves my assumption that especially in rural areas, there is enough bandwidth available to run both GSM and UMTS alongside each other, have enough bandwidth for GSM voice and data and still enough space between the technologies to keep the interference between the technologies on the air interface in check.

Following up from an earlier post on multitasking I thought about how a perfect phone for me would look like. Admitting that I am difficult to please and that there is no single best phone for everyone, here's what I need in my next phone:

Taking the Nokia N95 as a baseline it has many of the things I need:

• A multitasking operating system so the device can really be 'the world in my hand' as Nokia once said.
• A good camera
• Lots of memory for programs to execute
• Lots of flash memory
• A big but not too big screen, it must fit in the pocket
• Wi-Fi
• A VoIP client
• GPS & a good navigation software I can also use offline because I travel a lot and data roaming costs are sometimes prohibitive
• A reliable alarm clock
• An e-mail client with partial e-mail  download
• There must be an Opera Mini version for my future device. Absolutely essential!
• SMS and video calling should be perfectly polished and implemented
• Robustness: It should survive falling to the floor every now and then

O.k. that's what I already have, let's see what I'd like to have in addition:

An easy to use App Store, one who's whole mission is to aggregate the most popular applications at a central place and that gives gives developers a chance to make money. What I don't want is an App Store who is designed to lock me into the preferences of a single company that decides for me which applications I am allowed to use and which not.

When I buy a device, it's mine and I want to do with it what I want without anyone telling me otherwise. In practice that means that I can download applications also from other web sites, receive them via e-mail or side-load them via a memory card. That's how I do it on my PC and I see no reason why it should be different on my mobile device.

Ah yes, I want a memory card so I can load stuff onto my device the way I want. In no way do I want to be limited to a single PC program to exchange content with my device. After all, it's my device and I want to load anything onto it I want.

Privacy is very important to me so I want a device that is designed to give me as much privacy as possible. Some hints: Anonymous interaction with the application store to download applications that are free. A way to buy applications from the app store anonymously. Synchronization of my calendar and address book but not on a single server on the net controlled by a big company but at home so I am in control and nobody by accident or design can reign over my data.

I want a nice graphical user interface and I want a touchscreen, and one that works. You know, a touch screen your fingers glide over nicely, without too much resistance and applications that understand two finger input to zoom in, zoom out, rotate, etc. I am still sort of keen on a physical keyboard but o.k. that's negotiable.

And finally, the device should be slim and lightweight.

A real challenge I admit and no device on the market currently fulfills all points. But as I said I am hard to please and a device which misses even only a single one raises serious doubts in me if it is the next device for me. How long will I have to wait before something shows up that is a worthy successor to the N95?

Last evening, when traveling home by train, I downloaded a 6 MB PDF specification document over HSPA and was actually surprised it took longer than just a couple of seconds. The download speed was roughly about 2 MBit/s. Strange I wondered, why is the network so "slow" tonight? Turns out it wasn't the HSPA network that was "slow", it was the server on the other end that couldn't deliver the document faster. Even over my 25 MBit/s VDSL line at home, the document wouldn't load faster. So I wondered, since when do I percieve a download rate of 2 MBit/s as slow? And secondly, it seems this was the first time I consciously realized that a server on the network could not fill up the bandwidth available I had on the wireless network.

Here's an interesting number from Telecom Austria's annual report (page here, pdf here) on page 53: Total mobile communications revenue was 3.2 billion Euros for 2009. Out of that, 136.5 million Euros came from roaming charges.

via heise.de

Once upon a time, when business people traveled abroad, they were probably highly lucrative for mobile network operators because they were less afraid to use their mobile phone abroad for making phone calls back to their home country compared to ordinary users who would get a regular invoice every month to pay on their own.

These days, most business travelers carry a Blackberry or similar device to receive their e-mail while on the move. I guess that few of them disable the feature while abroad and just use the device just for making voice calls.

On the one hand it seems like a good opportunity for mobile network operators for additional revenues as data roaming is still quite costly to say the least. So that's a good thing, no? On the other hand, however, I wonder how many voice calls abroad are replaced by the e-mail capability and if the extra data roaming revenue actually compensates for it!?

So you business travelers out there reading this blog, how many voice calls abroad are replaced by your Blackberrie's e-mail capabilities?

April 12, 2010 is a date to watch for one of the biggest spectrum auctions to start in terms of MHz and frequency bands Germany has ever had (source in German). There was lots of speculation on who will qualify to bid. It was feared that too much competition would drive prices once more beyond anything that could reasonably be earned later. In the meantime, the number of companies that are allowed to bid by the German regulator went down from six to the already existing four mobile network operators. Still, competition might be intense, especially in the 800 MHz digital dividend band where only 2 x 30 MHz are available (1x for uplink and 1x for downlink, 790 – 862 MHz). Not enough spectrum for 4 operators there, as 2 x 10 MHz is seen by many as the smallest bandwidth that makes sense from an economical and also from an end user speed point of view. In addition to the digital dividend band there's the spectrum in the following bands to be auctioned off (source in German):

• 2 x 15 MHz of bandwidth (1710-1725 and 1805-1820 MHz) to in the 1800 MHz band that is so far only used for GSM but open now also for other technologies.

• 2 x 20 MHz in the 2100 MHz band, which is used for UMTS today. The bandwidth was already auctioned off back in 2000 but the two companies that had the spectrum never launched a  network. Bidders in this domain will use the extra spectrum to either increase their HSPA throughput or put LTE in the additional spectrum. There's also 5 MHz of unpaired spectrum to be given away, let's see who's interested in that!?

• And then there is also the IMT-2000 extension band in the 2600 MHz range with 2 x 70 MHz of bandwidth, most likely to be used for LTE.

Lots of combinations so it will be interesting to see who wants what, who wins what and who will do what with their acquired spectrum.

If you are a frequent international traveler you probably know the following scenario: Plane lands or you cross a border, you switch on the mobile or loose the home network coverage and it takes ages before the mobile decides which network to use. And then, as you roam through the country, you'd loose network coverage of one network, the mobile goes to the next and another "welcome" message interrupts the peace.

You can of course set the network search to manual but again, it takes ages before the mobile comes up with a list of networks to choose from. So here's what I'd like: I'd like my "own" auto mode which I can tell which network I would like to use in which country. Then, when the plane lands and I switch on my mobile, it will select only the network I have previously selected and only this one. Quick and no manual interaction required.

Macro network offload has been one of the hot topics at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. 3G and LTE femtocells are one interesting way to move voice and data traffic from cellular macro networks to fixed line connectivity in homes and offices. Another equally interesting possibility is Wi-Fi and it has some advantages as well.

Wi-Fi is the air interface of choice today for office- and home networking and is widely supported on smartphones as well. However, it still misses some features for the purpose:

First, what's still missing are intelligent clients on mobile devices that automatically switch over to Wi-Fi whenever available. In an ideal case the IP address and all open TCP and UDP connections would be kept when switching between the 3G / LTE macro network and Wi-Fi. For seamless switching, an IP sec tunnel or similar would be required on the Wi-Fi side. It would also be a good remedy for the inherent security issues of non-encrypted hotspots. Not impossible but also not straight forward to implement either.

Another thing that is missing is voice capabilities over Wi-Fi. One the one hand this would help to offload further traffic from the macro network. On the other hand, Wi-Fi networks could be used as an extension in areas where the macro network can't reach.

And finally, what comes to my mind is that Wi-Fi networking is very diverse. While the phone could be pre-configured for a network operator's Wi-Fi and the private Wi-Fi at home, using a wireless network at a friends house or at another office requires some user interaction. Not the best thing to make this work.

While built in intelligent “switching applications” are likely to be only a matter of time before they appear, the other two things are a bit more tricky to pull off. On the voice front, VoLGA and its brother technology GAN (Generic Access Network) might hold an interesting answer. Kineto demonstrated their Voice over LTE via Generic Access solution over a real LTE network in Barcelona and since it's based on GAN, it can easily be adapted for Wi-Fi as well. VOLGA for voice calls while the mobile device has LTE coverage, GAN while the Wi-Fi network is near and standard circuit switched voice calls while under 2G or 3G coverage, all seamlessly integrated into the device without too much effort. From application layer down to the protocols, all is the same, independently from the access technology. Only the lowest layers require adaptation. A straight forward solution.

And for using Wi-Fi at a friends house seamlessly, Bzeek might hold the answer. The software from an Israeli start-up company transforms your PC at home into an access point to share your Wi-Fi network with friends.

Interesting possibilities, but agreed, it's still early days when it comes to intelligent off-load.