One of the things currently hotly debated in the industry is how to fix a current shortcoming of 3G UMTS networks, switches between different mobile device activity states on the air interface. The topic has many facets but it's possible to put the pieces together because 3GPP is pretty open about the standardization process as … Continue reading UMTS State Switching and Fast Dormancy Evolution
3G femtocells are an interesting topic but I haven't had much time yet to take a look at the details of how mobility management works in practice. There's lots of activity in 3GPP to standardize mobility management around femtocells (or Home NodeBs how they are called there) in Release 8 and beyond. However, there are … Continue reading Femto Search and Rejects
Here's a little comparison of how UMTS and LTE deal with limited uplink power of mobile devices which I think it is quite interesting: When uplink power for a UMTS E-DCH (HSUPA) transmission reaches a maximum, the number of simultaneously used codes can be reduced, a more conservative coding can be employed for additional redundancy … Continue reading Dealing With Limited Uplink Power
There are two main advantages mobile network operators have when it comes to offering voice calls over LTE (and HSPA) compared to Internet based companies: Handover of an ongoing call to a 3G or 2G network, which I think is their biggest voice asset, and being able to ensure quality of service, in other words, … Continue reading LTE Bearer Configuration for Voice
Sometimes you have to look at the good sides of things going wrong. Every now and then, I use Vodafone's Websession offer in Germany as it is a convenient way to go online occasionally. If it works… Over the summer, unfortunately, I have observed continuous glitches. Everyone has glitches now and then and I wouldn't … Continue reading Vodafone Websessions Keep Timing-Out
I've used Nokia Maps in the past a lot for car navigation with my N95 so obviously it is a must work application on the N97 as well. So when I recently drove from southern Germany to Vienna I used the N97 to guide me. While a beta of Nokia maps 3 is already available … Continue reading Nokia N97 Review Part 5: Nokia Maps and the FM Transmitter
Part one of my N97 review series focused on the touch based web browsing experience with Opera Mini. Today, I'll take a look at the Voice over IP, presence and instant messaging experience on the N97. Unfortunately, there is not much to focus on at the moment. What I very much like on my (current) … Continue reading Nokia N97 Review Part 2 – No SIP – No Skype
I've recently been shown an interesting comparison that seems to suggest that wireless is really loosing out because despite wireless speeds rising, fixed line speeds keep rising much quicker. An interesting twist of numbers to get to a single message but in practice, things are a bit more difficult and the conclusion to which that … Continue reading Is the Speed Gap between Fixed an Wireless Widening?
Looks like 3GPP members are thinking about extending IMS Centralized Services with a new feature, Inter-Device Transfers. Nomor's September 2008 3GPP news made me aware of SP-080507 which contains the work item description for gathering requirements for this feature to allow an ongoing media session to be moved from one device to another. An interesting … Continue reading IMS Centralized Services – Inter-Device Transfer
The post on Femtospots a couple of days ago had some good feedback and one reader pointed me to TS 22.220 where 3GPP currently lays the ground for an end-to-end femtocell architecture, or Home NodeB architecture in 3GPP talk. Thanks for that, quite an insightful document! Here's a link to the document after the latest … Continue reading 3GPP Femto Specifications