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Lots of things happened in 2008. I usually have the impression that the industry is moving too slowly for me. However, as the following overview shows, this impression is not really accurate, one just forgets all the things that happened over the year too quickly.

January

Intel has decided to make a comeback to mobile computing and has started a fight with its new Atom platform against ARM, who's processors drive the majority of medium- and high end mobile devices today. Not much has been heard or seen from them since then, except for a few bulky prototypes and some eeePCs driven by first versions of this chipset. However, I expect more to come in 2009. In January I also mused on the fact that LTE and SAE have no built in voice capabilities and that finding a solution that works will be on of the main factors deciding over how long it will take for LTE to become a success and 2G and 3G becoming a thing of the past. I've picked up the topic several times since then as at least 4 solutions have been proposed since then, all with their pros and cons. Unfortunately, that is 3 too many.

February

The 3GSM / MobileWorldCongress usually dominates this month, and it was the same again this year. Here, I saw the first LTE mobile from LG and got a great WiMAX demo thanks to Intel and Motorola. In the time up to the MWC, I also discovered the advantages of OperaMini and I have become a real fan since then. Again, I did lots of live blogging from the MWC and my equipment this year was an N93 for taking pictures and writing short blog posts and Jaiku messages, and a Nokia N800 tablet for longer posts that including pictures. 

March

In March, I finally succumbed to the callings of the Nokia N95 8GB. With its much increased RAM over the N93, I could finally have more than just one or two applications open at the same time, something that became more and more difficult with the N93 as programs got bigger. There's lots to say about the N95 and in addition to the built in A-GPS and Nokia Maps, the native VoIP over Wifi and 3G client has had my attention more than just once. Further, I noticed that the packet call finally becomes history with LTE and that the 10 year cycle in wireless completes once more with LTE. Also in March, T-Mobile Germany announced as one of the first operators that they will use VDSL and their fiber network for 3.5G base station backhaul. Opera Mini statistics saying 100.000 copies are downloaded a day should also not be forgotten. And finally for March, I bought an eeePC and it has been a great help since then for lots of things, including Wi-Fi sniffing.

April

LTE is not yet deployed and yet, 3GPP had to push forward to meet likely IMT-Advanced criteria for 4G systems and has announced that work has begun on LTE Advanced. In Oxford, in the meantime, I attended the Oxford University Future Technology Conference for the first time, something I hope to repeat in 2009. On the way there, I picked up a prepaid SIM card from 3UK for mobile Internet access and it has worked great during this trip. Unfortunately, their network performance has become very bad lately. Fortunately, on the other hand, this is no industry trend and better performing prepaid offers have become available lately. In another post in April, I noticed that in terms of network features of mobile devices are getting far ahead of the networks. A lot of things standardized in 3GPP make it into mobile devices but are actually never used. Also in April, I got a German fixed line telephone number in my flat in Paris, thanks to SIP and VoIP. Despite LTE, HSPA is still evolving as well, and this post contains some pointers to papers explaining the main features of HSPA+.

May

This month, I met with some people from Dragonwave, a Canadian company specializing in Ethernet microwave backhaul for wireless networks. Speeds up to 1.6 GBit/s sound like a dream compared to current TDM microwave backhaul speeds and will come in very handy to transport the rising Internet traffic of wireless networks. Did your phone ever ring before/during a concert? Well, surely not 🙂 Here's a good response from musicians. Also this month, AT&T started to offer Internet access on their prepaid SIMs, an offer that came in quite handy just a couple of weeks later when I visited the US and was able to escape crippling slow hotel Wi-Fi. A realization that struck me in May was that with SIP on mobile devices for voice telephony, radio silence while not in a conversation is a thing of the past.

June

In June, Symbian has decided to make a radical break from its traditional ways and go open source. In the US for a conference, the AT&T SIM card was a great help to staying connected and not having to search for Wi-Fi hotspots as in the year before. Also, this year the US left some Blackberry impressions on me. This nation has gone Blackberry 🙂 Antennas are becoming more and more important and a sales engineer of Kathrein explained the tricks how to get that extra dB or MBit/s out of the radio path.

Lots and lots of new things in 2008, definitely not slow moving and we are only in June. I'll stop at this point and put the rest of the year in a follow up post.

I've been in France over the past couple of weeks and during that time I've noticed that Opera Mini on my Nokia N95 behaves very slowly in Orange's 2G and 3G network. Over Wi-Fi at home everything was as snappy as ever. I changed between HTTP and Socket connection in the OperaMini settings but it didn't help much. At times, it took more than 10 seconds before the request for a new page was even processed. Web browsing on the PC on the other hand with a full web browser was fast as ever over their 3G network. So maybe it was just my imagination? No, it was not, I just returned to Germany and Opera Mini now reacts as fast as ever in T-Mobile's network. So what is going on, I am really puzzled!? I can't imagine Orange would specifically throttle OperaMini, as it's exactly the kind of program they should like for mobile web surfing, as it compresses the pages before downloading. A real mystery to me. Oh how I would like to connect a network analyzer to Orange's network to figure out where the packets get stuck. So hello, anyone from Orange, there's something wrong, please have a look, especially in the metro!

This is post two on my reflections on what happened in 2008 and looks at the mobile devices I bought/used this year that made a difference:

3G USB Dongles

Many people rightly say that 2008 was the year of HSPA with cheap 3G USB dongles appearing on the market and, depending on the country, people have started using them extensively during meetings, at home, at the airport and at Starbucks 🙂

My HSPA history dates back to March 2007, when I first used a Sierra Wireless PCMCIA 1.8 MBit/s category 12 HSPA card. One and a half years ago I wrote that the 500 MB offer TIM had at this time was sufficient for me. Well, one and a half years later my expectations have changed. With prepaid offers for several GB for a couple of Euros, I use about 200 MB a day now when traveling abroad for up- and downloading large files and Voice over IP. So the 500 MB would be gone in 2 or 3 days now. I've also upgraded my hardware and instead of the 1.8 MBit card, I now use a 3.6/7.2 MBit/s Huawei E220 USB dongle which has proven to be rock solid in all of the networks I have used this year. There are newer and smaller models on the market but I made some bad performance experiences with one in networks other than for the one it was originally sold and had to return it to the shop.

Dongle Docks

In the previous post I've noted that a lot of people are looking for information on how they can share their 3G connection with other people. It's possible to do that with Windows XP and other OS'es but it's a bit of a hassle to set it up. So I am quite happy that in some countries, one can now buy 3G to Wifi bridges such as the Huawei D100 for a reasonable price. Makes 3G network sharing with other people of your family or during meetings child's play.

The Nokia N95

Having been quite happy with my N93 I waited for quite a long time before I upgraded to the N95 earlier this year. But at some point the memory limitations of the N93 were just not bearable any longer. I didn't look back for a minute since then with the N95 being vastly superior to previous models. I use the built in SIP VoIP client every day over Wi-Fi and the improvement over previous (non Nokia) models is stunning. Nokia has 'forgotten' to include the SIP clients in some Nseries models this year but I remain hopeful that the N97 will have it again.

Prepaid SIM cards

The best mobile devices are not a lot of use without a network subscription. So I am quite happy that this year, the number countries in which operators have decided to offer mobile Internet access via prepaid SIM cards has markedly improved. The Prepaid Wireless Internet Wiki has grown to an impressive size in 2008.

So, those are the devices that made a big difference for me this year. If you like, leave a comment which devices made the difference for you in 2008.

Another year comes to its end and like many others I feel the need to reflect a bit of what happened during this year in my personal world of wireless. I've decided to look at it from a couple of different angles and put each in a separate post.

One of the things that keep amazing me is the top 5 most read blog entries. For some of them I would have never thought they would make it to the list, but people out there in the Internet seem to think different:

• Number 5: My how-to on Wifi Network Tracing using Wireshark and a Linksys WRT54 wireless router, written back in January 2007

• Number 4: An introduction to SC-FDMA, the modulation and coding scheme for the LTE uplink

• Number 3: My 4G Technology Overview

• Number 2: Nokia Smart Maps review. When I look at the Google searches that lead to this topic I often find the word "crack" and "license key". Hm, not quite what this post was about…

and

• Number 1: A practical guide to sharing a 3G connection with others

The list is quite interesting from several points of view:

• None of these posts is from 2008.

• The first post from 2008 has landed in 8th place and was on voice services over LTE.

• The topics are very diverse. So despite this blog being a niche blog, it seems to serve quite a number of different niches.

• I've written follow up posts in 2008 on most topics on the top 5 lists. For Wifi network tracing, I've written a post describing how to use an eeePC for the purpose, I've written extensively about 4G topics, air interface technologies, etc. but still, these older posts got more hits than those. I wonder if the Google search algorithm has something to do with it.

So, in case you can remember, which was your favorite post on this blog this year?

The year draws to a close but before going on a holiday brake, the Carnival of the Mobilists makes one last appearance, this time over at C. Enrique Ortiz' blog 'About Mobility'. As usual, it features lots of interesting recent blog entries from the mobile blogosphere and is, as always, a great read. So, make the jump and enjoy!

It looks like the fire in French operators about mobile Internet access has pretty much vanished for the moment. Last year at this time, there were posters such as this one everywhere, advertising how one could use a mobile phone to access the Internet. Nothing of the sort can be seen in the streets of Paris this year.

Also, no 3G USB dongle advertisements, most likely due to the lack of interesting pricing compared to those in countries such as Austria, the U.K., Sweden, Italy, Germany, etc.  Also, no iPhone advertising, no eeePCs with 3G dongles, just an E71 mobile e-mail advertisement by Bouygues.

Together with Orange's recent announcement that they will hold out on LTE for the moment, quite a bleak picture. But with their current data pricing, it's unlikely they will get any kind of real load on their 3G networks anytime soon anyway. Looks like French operators have gone into some sort of combined hibernation once more while the rest of Europe is moving forward at a rapid pace.

Am I too pesimistic?

Each year, mobile Internet access from PCs and other non mobile phone devices gets better and better and as I write these lines, I am sitting in a railway station in Paris, connected to the Internet via a 3G USB dongle at multi-megabit speeds. I travel a lot and depending on the country I am seeing lots of people doing the same these days. While at the beginning of this trend, the distinctively red Vodafone PC card adapters were dominant, today it's mostly 3G USB dongles and I wonder how many people still bother looking for suitable Wi-Fi to connect.

It's definitely a trend and operators in many countries are experimenting with it. So how will this trend continue? Dean Bubley over at Disruptive Wireless has worked on a detailed report on this and has published it this week. Here are some of the findings which I think are right on the mark:

• 3G USB dongles will continue to be more successful for some time to come than built in 3G connectivity. From my experience in countries such as Germany and Austria, getting online is as simple as walking into the supermarket, picking up a 3G dongle and SIM card for a couple of euros. Unfortunately, it's not everywhere like this. In other European countries, like France for example, the situation is quite different, with operators still resisting the general trend. Built in 3G cards on the other hand are unlikely to get as cheap as Wi-Fi chips for quite some time to come so the PC/notebook industry is probably reluctant to add 3G capabilities to notebooks by default in the same way as Wi-Fi.

• 340 million devices non mobile phone devices connected via 3G by 2014. An interesting number considering about 4 billion devices online by that time and unequal distribution of such devices mainly in developed markets. But given the falling prices and prepaid billing models by day, week and month, buying an inexpensive dongle for occasional use will definitely drive the numbers.

• Dean estimates about 45 million WiMAX users by 2012. I think that's probably in the right ballpark as well. After lots of activity around alternative WiMAX operators in Europe 18 months ago, this has pretty much died down in the meantime and I think the window of opportunity has been pretty much lost. After all, 3.5G HSPA is now available in Austria, for example, for 9 euros a month with a traffic limit of 15 GB.

• Impact of the Credit Crunch and the Capacity Crunch. Indeed, having more users on the network will of course drive bandwidth requirements and operators will have to monitor their networks closely and invest in upgrading the backhaul capacity of existing base stations and add additional ones in high traffic locations. The extend of this, however, has yet to be seen. I've done my own calculations on when we might see a general capacity crunch and I think it is still some years off. In the meantime, technology is developing and backhaul is getting cheaper. So it remains to be seen if the demand curve going upwards and infrastructure and backhaul prices going downwards can be brought into a healthy balance for everyone.

Lot's more to be found in Dean's report and if you are lucky enough to work for a company that appreciates the value of such research I encourage you to give your business intelligence department a call and ask if they have this report available.

DVB-H seems to be a roller coaster technology, quite different adoption rates from country to country.

In Germany, DVB-H recently flopped as the business model of setting up a single DVB-H company that resells the services to mobile operators did not spark a lot of interest if not to say outright opposition from network operators and had to close down recently.

In Austria, DVB-H was introduced a year ago and according to this report (in German), A1 and 3-Austria have only been able to get a couple of thousand subscribers so far. DVB-H service costs 6 euros per month.

In Italy on the other hand, the same report says that DVB-H has attracted one million subscribers to date, some of the channels are available for free, and on average, subscribers watch for one hour a day. To me, one hour a day seems to be quite a bit much. But I can confirm, every now and then I see someone in the streets of Rome watching a football game on his DVB-H mobile, quite easy to spot the antenna sticking out and to hear the typical sound of a football game.

For those interested in further background info on mobile TV, here's another blog entry on mobile TV I've written earlier this year on DVB-T on mobiles (the big twin brother of DVB-H) and 1seg in Japan.

Like in UMTS, China is determined to go its own ways with LTE as well. Instead of adopting FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) LTE like the rest of the world, China Mobile wants to deploy TDD (Time Division Duplex) LTE. One of the reasons stated for this is to have an upgrade path from TDD UMTS (which, to the best of my knowledge, is not yet deployed on a broad scale in China). I am sure Chinese companies and joint ventures have put a lot of work into TDD UMTS over many years and yet, it hasn't made it anywhere. So why should TDD LTE be different?

In fact, I see the same problems with TDD LTE:

• Economy of scale: China is a big country but in order for the technology to be a success, other countries have to adopt TDD LTE as well. As with TDD UMTS, I think that this is unlikely to happen, I don't see an incentive.

• Devices: Same issue as above. For a limited market, only few vendors will be tempted to develop mobile devices. One way out of the dilemma could be dual mode TDD/FDD devices. But what is the chance of this happening?

So without a real need for an upgrade path, why TDD-LTE? Unlike with UMTS, Chinese companies like Huawei do not have to catch up to the rest of the pack, this time they start at the same time and with an advantage.

The center gap, a glimmer of hope? In many countries the center gap between the uplink and downlink channel of UMTS and LTE is unused. Some operators in Europe for example have even bought TDD spectrum in the 2.1 GHz band during the UMTS auctions back in 2000. So maybe those bands might trigger some operator interest for TDD LTE!? 

As always, comments are welcome.

LTE is a great technology but it has one Achilles heel: No built in telephony solution that will work when network are first rolled out. I've blogged before about the different alternatives for voice over LTE before, such as IMS, Voice Call Continuity, CS Fallback and a Study Item how to connect a circuit switched MSC to the LTE radio access network. While the last one is only a study item and not standardized yet, the first three are standardized but either complicated or, in the case of CS fallback, not a long term solution.

Looks like some operators are not very happy with the state of affairs and have looked elsewhere for help. At the recent LTE World Summit in London, Motorola and China Mobile have both said that they are considering GAN over LTE as a further alternative. GAN is used today in some 2G/Wi-Fi phones for Voice over Wifi at home. What it basically does is it establishes an encrypted IP tunnel between the mobile and the GAN controller at the border of the operators core network, and then tunnels both signaling and speech data to the MSC. Furthermore, the mobile and GANC are able to perform handovers between the Wi-Fi connection and GSM for ongoing calls. In effect, GAN hides the access network (Wi-Fi in this case) from the operators circuit switched core network.

The solution proposed by Motorola at the conference, GAN would do the same for LTE. After all, an IP connection is an IP connection, the core functionality of the GANC does not care if the interface to the user is Wi-Fi or LTE.

On his blog, Zahid has a slide of the Motorola presentation that shows how the network setup could look like. The figure shows an interface between the Mobility Management Entitiy (MME) and the GANC which I think is probably for handover co-ordination. When the MME detects that a handover is necessary to UMTS or GSM, it informs the GANC which can then ensure that an ongoing voice call survives the handover.

The advantage of this approach over the evolved MSC approach, which only exists as a 3GPP study item so far, is that the current circuit switched network infrastructure does not have to be changed. Even though the changes required for the eMSC are minor in comparison to IMS and VCC, they still need to be standardized and implemented by the major infrastructure manufacturers. The GAN approach on the other hand requires some modifications in the mobile and the GANC only, which could well be made without waiting for 3GPP.

>From a design point of view I think the eMSC would be a much more elegant and native approach to the issue. But in practice, elegance does not always win if it is more complex, or as in this case, meets reluctance in the standards bodies.

So, let's see if this 'dear 3GPP, we either do it with you or without you' announcement will change the attitude of some players.

Thanks to Zahid Ghadialy for his coverage of the LTE World Summit