Author: Martin

HSUPA Deployment Status

In the past couple of months I’ve seen in the news that some mobile operators have started to deploy HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), the uplink brother of HSDPA in their networks in selected areas. Today, T-Mobile announced that their nationwide HSUPA network roll-out is finished. And nationwide roll-out doesn’t mean just a couple of base stations, it means several thousands.

I guess it wasn’t too difficult to do since HSUPA is mainly a software update. Also, base station backhaul capacity has already been increased for HSDPA. The uplink part, which is usually increased as well in symmetric links such as E-1’s can now be put into good use.

This time, networks are a bit ahead of the mobiles. Except for data cards, I haven’t seen a lot of HSUPA mobiles yet. All right, Nokia and co. it’s about time now and I can’t wait to transfer my videos to YouTube right from the mobile:-)

Canada’s AWS Spectrum Auction – Will It Encourage Competition?

I recently became aware of the current spectrum auctions in Canada to bring another wireless operator into the domain for what is hoped to create additional competition. I did some quick background research on the auction below there is one important piece of information missing in the article: Which frequency blocks are auctioned and which technology will be used? Looks like the bands auctioned are similar to those of the U.S. AWS auction, i.e. paired spectrum 1700 MHz / 2100 MHz.

O.k., so no WiMAX here since I don’t think there is a profile for such a paring yet. I guess the likeliest technology to use in this band is UMTS and LTE. This band is standardized as band IV in 3GPP. In my opinion it’s going to be difficult to create a lot of competition for incumbent operators with this frequency band mainly because there only seem to be two more operators using this band globally:

•    T-Mobile U.S. for their 3G network
•    A carrier in Japan

Compare that to the hundreds of UMTS networks globally using 2100 MHz band I. I am a bit afraid there won’t be a lot of devices supporting this band, as the market for mobile device vendors such as Nokia is very small.

After many years, Nokia is finally releasing 3G Nseries and Eseries phones for band II and V (AT&T in the U.S., Telus in Canada and Telstra in Australia). I wonder what the chances are that they produce a third version for the AWS band IV of future phones!? Or, what would even better, devices that support all these bands!? Well, at least carriers don’t have to lock devices since they can only be used in their network anyway…

A controversial topic. What do you think?

Out Of Time, Out Of Place, And Out of Cables

An eMail arriving two minutes before midnight on a Saturday evening on my mobile phone as a response to a request I had sent a couple of hours earlier made me think of what has become of time, place and cables in communication.

Well, they are all gone. In the old days, not so long ago, a fax was the fastest way one could transmit someone a document. But a fax machine was only observed at business hours, one had to be at a certain place and it was attached to that place by a cable. If the person was not next to the fax machine, chances were good an answer took at least a day or two or even longer, especially when sent at an odd time (such as a Saturday afternoon). Fast forward to today, and communication is no longer limited by time, place or cables. Messages are sent via email from anywhere to anywhere on the planet within seconds, independent from time and also from place.

When I received that email close to midnight, I first thought a mobile email device played a role in the fast response (think Blackberry, Nokia N- and Eseries, etc.) . The header of the email, however, revealed that it was sent from a PC. But not from Northern Europe, as I assumed at first, but from a location in the United States. Another important lesson here: A message is no longer sent to a device sitting at a certain place but to a person and that person can get his/her messages no matter of his/her current location. As long as there is connectivity, that message finds its way.

We have absorbed this new way of communicating pretty quickly it almost seems silly to talk about it since it has become so normal. But once every now and then I stumble upon a company that still wants to do business “the old way”. Pretty difficult in my case, since I don’t carry a fax machine around…

IPhone 3G Sparks Wireless Data Price Debate In Canada

Many people say many things about what the iPhone changes in the wireless world. But this one I haven’t heard about before: Looks like the introduction of the iPhone in Canada has made Canadians becoming aware of the high prices they have to pay for mobile Internet access compared to in other countries. When I checked a year ago, I had difficulties to even find a data plan on Roger’s web page. Looks like things have changed at least a bit since then, they are now offering packages from a couple of hundred megabytes to a couple of gigabytes, but still at rates several times higher than what you have to pay for the same package in Europe. Interesting links on the topic here, here and here. And for Roger’s price plans take a look here. What I don’t see at all yet are promotions for Internet access via 3G/USB sticks for notebooks which has become very popular in many European countries lately. One step at a time I guess…

No More Reboots In the Metro

In the past I have reported that my Nokia N95 had the nasty habbit of rebooting spontaneously while using OperaMini and moving from cell to cell e.g. while traveling on the train and in the metro. How often the mobile rebooted semt to depend on the country, i.e. which mobile network I used, i.e. which network vendor supplied the infrastructure. This week I noticed that my N95 no longer reboots in the metro. That is interesting, since I haven’t made a software update and the Opera Mini version is still the same. So it seems like the network operator, Orange France in this case, must have made a software upgrade in the network or has changed some parameters. In any case, mobile Internet use has become much more practical again for me in France. Thanks to whoever fixed it.

The Symbian Foundation: Will It Make A Difference For Developers?

A lot has been written lately about Nokia buying the Symbian shares of Sony-Ericsson and others and creating the Symbian Foundation to release the OS as open source in the future. A lot of people become ecstatic when they hear  ‘Open Source’ as it seems to be a synonym for success and the only way to go. However, there are different kinds of open source approaches and usage licenses so it is worth to consider what developers will be able to do with Open Symbian that they can’t do today.

I think the big difference to Linux, which is also open source and has attracted many individuals and companies to start their own distribution, is that I think it is unlikely the same will happen with Open Symbian in the mobile space. In the PC world, the hardware is well standardized so people can easily modify the kernel and compile and run it on their machine. In the mobile world however, hardware is very proprietary so I think it is unlikely that the same will happen here, no matter how open the Symbian OS becomes. Therefore, an open Symbian is mainly interesting for hardware manufacturers as they will have easier access to the OS and can customize it more easily to their hardware. That’s a long way from ‘I don’t like the current OS distribution on my mobile so I download a different one from the Internet and install it on my phone’. But maybe we are lucky and open sourcing the OS will allow application programmers to use the OS more effectively and extend it in ways not possbile today due to the lack of transparency.

For more thoughts on what the Symbian Foundation might or might not change in practice, head over to Michael Mace and AllAboutSymbian, they’ve got a great insights on their blogs from a lot of different angles.

The Ultimate Test: The N82 in the Hands of a Normob

A while ago I started the ultimate usability test by pre-configuring a Nokia N82 for mobile Internet access, as notebook modem, for mobile eMail and for picture uploads to Flickr to see how this would work out in practice with a normob (normal mobile user). While the project is still ongoing, the results so far are mixed 🙂

  • Notebook Access: The N82 as a notebook modem has become fully accepted, as it enables use of  the Internet as before.
  • Mobile eMail: While for me this is great, the test person’s eMail usage is a bit different. She gets lots of eMails with attachments that can’t really be viewed very well on a small screen. So as a consequence she prefers not to look at eMails at her mobile at all. Not a winner here…
  • OperaMini: Used from time to time, but sometimes it takes a bit of encouragement.
  • Picture Upload to Flickr: Still not really used. I am still trying to figure out why because to me the upload process looks really simple. Maybe not to a normob, not sure…
  • 3G Video Calls: Believe it or not but they are a sure winner to put the location into visual context accross the continent every now and again.

To be continued.

Chanalyzer 3.1 Beta for WiSpy with Cool New Features

Channalyzer3.1beta
About half a year ago, I first reported on Wi-Spy by Metageek, a Layer 1 Wifi / Bluetooth tracing tool. Last week, Metageek reported that they have started trialling their 3.1 beta version of the Chanalyzer with a number of cool new features. The most useful one for me is that the software is now also able to query the Wifi card of my notebook for the network names, channels and signal strengths. This information can then be used to overlay the data reported by Wi-Spy. In the past I always did this with a separate program which was always a bit awkward. The picture on the left shows how this overlay looks like in practice at my place. My network  is on Channel 11, surrounded by numerous others. Not a pretty radio environment, maybe I should move to channel 1. Thanks Metageek, that's a great addition! For more details, have a look here.

Connectivity With Reliability and Peace of Mind

24062008683-smallLocation: London. I am on my way to the Eurostar Terminal on my way to Paris when I noticed two ads in a newspaper.

The first one addresses reliability: Obviously I am not the only one who thinks reliability and high availability are as important as a fair price. BT thinks so, too and tries to attract customers with 99.99% availability for a business DSL line. Not quite the five 9's carrier grade reliability but still far away from 2.5 day nationwide outages of others…

24062008684-sm
The second ad addresses the fear of massive bills because of data usage with no or a wrong data plan. T-Mobile UK offers an all you can eat 3G Internet access with the promise that it will never charge more than 15 pounds a month. I wonder if that promisse holds when using the offer abroad… As always, read the fine print. The ad also mentions that the offer includes free use of T-Mobile's installed Wifi hotspots. A good way for T-Mobile to offload traffic from their cellular network in hotspots such as airports and hotels. A humble but good beginning of fixed/mobile convergence.