Recently, Finland’s Elisa has started the operation of one of the first UMTS/HSPA networks in the 900 MHz frequency band. While I heard this news some time ago I never quite figured out which mobile devices they had for the product launch. Most mobile devices shipped in Europe only support UMTS/HSPA on the 2100 MHz … Continue reading Nokia ships first UTMS/HSPA 900 Phone
Despite its multimedia capabilities the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) hasn’t yet gotten a lot of opportunities to show its capabilities in wireless networks. One of the reasons for this is that current circuit switched mobile voice telephony works well and meets user expectations. Things, however, are improving for IMS. With the introduction of the iPhone, … Continue reading Will Fixed/Wireless Convergence Push IMS?
It looks like 3GPP member companies are moving quickly to standardize data rate enhancements for current 3.5G UMTS / HSPA networks as promised in diverse marketing slides floating around at conferences. The two main ideas to further increase transmission speeds are to use a higher modulation scheme (64QAM) and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) to … Continue reading First Signs of HSPA+ in the Standards
A number of different sources have brought some interesting details to the light of day for me concerning 802.11n products. In the recent edition of the German computer magazine C’t (23/2007) Dusan Zivadinovic published an interesting article on the performance of 802.11n access points. Here are some interesting thoughts: Some access points have a channel … Continue reading Some Practical 802.11n Thoughts
T-Mobile has announced a couple of months ago that it will upgrade most parts of its GSM/GPRS network in Germany to EDGE. Since then I’ve seen reports that EDGE has been activated here and there but not where I live. Today, I noticed that T-Mobile has also switched to EDGE in the South of Germany … Continue reading T-Mobile activates EDGE in Southern Germany
I’ve been in Rome recently and over the weekend attended one of the V-Day manifestations with a friend for more direct democracy in Italy initiated by Beppe Grillo. I mention this on my technical blog as I was very happy to see a couple of organizations reporting from the event which used a 3.5G network … Continue reading The Mobile Internet and Event Reporting in Italy
Both a long time and a short time, but 20 years ago on the 7th of September 1987 the GSM Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by 12 European nations on September the 7th. It took a bit after that but three and a half years later the first GSM network, today known as Elisa … Continue reading 20 Years Ago The GSM MoU Was Signed
I’ve been in Spain for a couple of days and I am glad that a number of people have told me about Yoigo, a new mobile operator in Spain, which offers Internet access via Prepaid SIMs. So here’s a report from my weekend with Yoigo and Madrid: How To Get The SIM Card Once in … Continue reading A Yoigo Weekend
Now that 3G systems such as UMTS are under full deployment, the industry is looking forward to what comes next. While some say that WiMAX is a 4G system, the IEEE and the WiMAX forum think that 802.16e is rather a 3G technology and have asked the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) to include this standard … Continue reading If WiMAX Becomes a 3G (IMT-2000) Standard, What’s Left for 4G?
I have to admit I had William Webb’s latest book „Wireless Communications – The Future“ at home for a couple of months before I finally came around to read it back to back. A mistake, as it turned out, to wait that long. As title suggests, the book deals with the future of wireless telecommunications, … Continue reading Review: Wireless Communications – The Future