Intensive mobile online activities take a heavy tool on the battery of my N93. Blogging, checking things on the web, reading eMail, Jaikuing, taking pictures + uploading them to Flickr, navigating with Nokia Maps, using the mobile as a modem for my Nokia N800 Internet tablet and that battery is empty within half a day. Of course I have a spare battery to keep me going. However, I can only recharge one battery overnight… Well I guess for the second one the time between getting up and leaving the hotel must be enough. Let’s see maybe the S60 guys have a solution for me at the booth…
3GSM / MWC : Location Based Search Put Into Practice
So what do you do on a Sunday morning in Bercelona when you need to buy a couple of things you can’t buy on a Sunday around the next corner? Of course you could go out and look for a supermarket that is open on Sundays. That probbably won’t work because according to Murphy’s law, they will hide from you until you have at least found one. You could ask a local but that usually also doesn’t work as he or she is likely not to speak English… Typical search issues in a foreign town. So I tried a local search on my N93. With Opera mini, I querried the Yahoo search engine for ‘Barcelona Supermarket Sunday’. Instantly, I get search results that point me to supermarkets open on Sundays. The winner was a report from a tourist who’s had the same problem and was nice enough to link to the web page of a supermarket chain including location, phone number and everything. Excellent. A quick look on Nokia maps on the mobile reveals the exact location and metro station and I am on the way. Great, that’s how it should be.
3GSM / MWC: Pre-Congress Impressions
It`s Sunday and I am in Barcelona for some sightseeing before the Mobile World Congress starts tomorrow. I`ve already collected my badge yesterday to avoid queueing up tomorrow morning. Lines are going to be long. Afterwards I took a quick look at the exhibition ground. As you can see on the picture on the left, everything is pretty much still in flux. By Monday morning it will look a lot different.
It`s amazing how many people are working at the exibition to get everything set up and ready for tomorrow. From technicians, to plumbers to telecoms people who set up demo networks, the Fira hosts a crowd speaking in at least 5 languages simultaneously if you stop for a moment and focus some of the conversations around. Add to that some beautiful weather, 18 degrees celcius air temperature and a light wind and there is not much more to be desired, except perhaps if you are one of those who have to prepare the Fira.
You can find more pictures on my Flickr account, the link is on the right of the page. Starting tomorrow stay tuned for daily updates from the event. For quick thoughts I`ll use Jaiku. You can find my stream on the right of this page. Since the event is huge I expect that everyone has something different to say. The 3GSM side events wiki I have also linked to at the right of the page contains a list of others who have said they would also report live from the event.
3GSM / MWC: On the way
Like every February the wireless community is gathering at the 3GSMWorldCongress (3GSM), now renamed to Mobile World Congress (MWC), to meet, exchange ideas and to see new stuff. For the 7th time in a row I couldn’t resist the call and will join the frenzy.
The picture on the left shows my blogging equipment for this year. As in the past I will keep you up to date before, during and after the show on my blog, so make sure to check regularly. The Bluetooth keyboard works with both the Nokia N93 and the N800 and I will put both devices to good use. The N93 is ideal for real time blogging, for uploading pictures to Flickr and videos to YouTube. The N800 with the bigger screen is ideal to fine tune the blog entries and to make sure my videos posted to YouTube end up on the blog as well.
It’s not only the congress and exhibition itself but also the many things that are happening around it that make this week so unique. I’ll be at the Mobile Sunday on Sunday evening, at the Mobile Monday Global Peer Awards on Monday afternoon and the Mobile Jam session on Tuesday afternoon. All events are organized by Rudy de Waele and I wonder if the man will sleep in the next 10 days… You can find an overview of side events here.
Despite being organized by the GSM Association the congress has been officially opened this year to other (non 3GPP) wireless technologies, hence the somewhat awkward name change to Mobile World Congress. Last year some first WiMAX demos were seen here and there but nothing really impressive. This year I expect that things have changed and I am looking forward to a couple of WiMAX demos with real networks and real devices.
I am also looking forward to see the latest mobile device chipset hardware. Intel has decided it wants a place on mobile devices and it will be interesting to see if they have more to show than just a couple of nice whitepapers and prototypes. ARM, the incumbent processor design house for mobile devices has also not slept and I am looking forward to talk with them about their latest mobile device processor, the ARM Cortex.
One layer above there’s Symbian with Nokia’s S60 and Sony Ericsson’s UIQ on top of it, Windows mobile and a number of promising Linux initiatives such as Android and Maemo. Apple’s probably not there but they wouldn’t get the same applause at such a show compared to an Apple only event anyway. And while their OS is closed I don’t really mind, either.
While a couple of years ago the exhibition was mostly around network infrastructure and mobile phones, application developers have become much more important in recent years. I expect the trend to continue this year and can’t wait to discover cool new startups. In this respect the name change from 3GSM to MWC also makes sense because applications don’t really care about the network below.
Network wise I was pretty happy with the public 3G network performance on the exhibition ground in previous years. With 30.000+ people being at the exhibition simultaneously, most with the latest gear, I am looking forward to see if the infrastructure can cope. It is as always the ultimate capacity test despite the fact that most exhibitors have a fixed line Internet connection in addition.
Is CS over PS and exit strategy from IMS?
A couple of days ago, Dean Bubbley over at Disruptive Wireless ran an interesting article on an effort by some 3GPP members to specify a way to use the current wireless circuit switched voice telephony infrastructure and telephony protocol stack on handset over wireless packet switched networks. In essence their approach replaces the circuit switched bearer with a packet switched connection on lower layers while leaving the protocol stack for call establishment in place. A gateway in the network and some modifications in the lower protocol layers on the mobile phone and ready is a potential competitor for voice over IMS.
I’ve had this work item under my nose for some time but was not sure if 3GPP members were really serious about it. It seems they are and it looks like the Technical Recommendation (TR 23.8799) seems to be pretty much complete although the conclusion is still missing. Also interesting to see that in the Work Item description (SP-070401) Ericsson is listed as a supporting company and that handset vendors are not part of the initiators.
When I look at the timelines for this work item I would say that a practical implementation in the field is at least 3 years away at best. Adoption and ratification of the Technical Report (note, it is NOT a technical standard document yet) is due in June 08. Afterwards they would have to crank out the details. If they are quick then that takes 12 to 15 months in 3PP Release 9 and at least the same amount of time for standards conform ant implementation and the testing afterwards. That would make it 2010 – 2011 for deployment.
To me this whole thing looks a little bit like an IMS exit strategy. If after 10 years of standardization, IMS hasn’t made it out of the lab and into the pockets of people and the CS over PS solution makes it into the field before then it could very well spell the death for IMS. Once this is in the field why would an operator seriously consider IMS afterwards? By 2012 even the most backwards oriented mobile operator will have understood that except for voice telephony they have no chance on the application layer against the global Internet competition in a converging beyond 3G and Wifi network environment.
It’s like opening an additional front on the IMS battleground and would remove it’s ultimate insurance policy, i.e. being the only technology for operators for voice technology in their B3G networks.
But competition is a good thing and it might speed things up one way or the other.
How Close Are We to Foldable Displays?
I am looking forward to meet with Polymer Vision Ltd. at 3GSM / Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company is a Philips spin-off working on foldable or rather rollable displays. Their approach is to apply organic particles on a thin plastic plastic foil which is then used as a display. A report (in German) on "Der Spiegel" says they will show first production models of a mobile phone and ebook reader hybrid during 3GSM. Here’s a video that shows their technology:
Your Nokia S60 phone as a WLAN Gateway to the Internet
Already back in 2006 I have speculated about Wifi/3G devices becoming gateways to the Internet for Wifi only devices (notebooks, etc.) by acting as Wifi access points. Looks like we are very close to such a solution now with JoikuSpot. JoikuSpot is a piece of software for Nokia S60 phones which is able to relay HTTP and HTTPS web page requests from notebooks and other Wifi devices to the Internet via a 3G connection.
According to the description, the software sets the phone’s Wifi interface into unencrypted ad-hoc mode (not in Access Point mode) which means that everybody in range can use the gateway. This is a bit of an issue from a security and usage control point of view. Another current downside is the limit to HTTP and HTTPS which limits the use of the gateway to web surfing. eMail and other Internet applications. An interesting step, let’s hope they continue to work on the feature set in the future.
Wireless Now Accounts For A Third Of Austria’s Broadband Connections
Bad news for all of those who keep telling people that wireless broadband can’t compete with DSL and cable because networks couldn’t cope with the traffic: You are wrong! Arthur D. Little consulting published a study last week that last year 57% of new broadband connections were wireless (3.5G + WiMAX a bit I guess) compared to 36% of new connections via DSL and 7% cable.
In total 46% of broadband connections are now via DSL, 26% via cable and 28% wireless. As I am in in Austria from time to time and have a local SIM card for mobile broadband I think the reasons for this outright success are the following:
- Very competitive pricing for wireless broadband
- Prepaid offers. I for example have a prepaid SIM for 3.5G with 3GB worth of data which I can consume over 12 months. 1GB afterwards can be had 20 euros with a validity period of another 12 months. The same 20 euros buy 2 GBs with a validity period of 1 month. Even cheaper offers are available via postpaid.
- So far pricing for DSL was very uncompetitive in Austria
- All four wireless operators are advertising their broadband solutions heavily
I think these number show quite impressively that well designed 3.5G networks can cope with the load of broadband Internet access from a significant percentage of the population. I can confirm this myself as my wireless HSPA connection has always worked nice so far whenever I was in Austria. Therefore fears by some mobile network operators that their networks might be overloaded are unfunded, unless of course they have an under dimensioned network.
Also thoughts can be put at rest that wireless broadband is not profitable. With wireless voice minute prices down to 5 euro cents a minute in Austria and mobile broadband used heavily I haven’t heard anybody complain about losses.
Jazelle: Executing Java ME Bytecode in Hardware
From time to time I have wondered before why current mobile phones are able to execute Java ME applications so well and with good performance. To me this was a bit surprising to me since Java ME programs are not compiled for a specific hardware platform but instead into a machine independent ‘byte code’. This enables Java applications to run on a wide variety of Java enabled handsets. To execute machine independent byte code a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is required. On the PC for example, JVM’s are implemented in software. On mobile devices, however, I found out today that ARM for example offers a CPU operating mode referred to as Jazelle which executes Java byte code in hardware. This way Java applications can be executed much faster as if a software JVM interprets the byte code. Pretty slick! For details see the Wikipedia entry on ARM processor and ARM’s description of Jazelle.
P.S.: A long time ago Sun, the inventor of Java, tried hard to push JAVA CPU’s for desktop machines but never really succeeded. Now, a decade later, there are indeed Java CPU’s, just for a slightly different purpose. Looks like there were a bit ahead of the time.
Verizon first to LTE to counter Sprint with WiMAX?
Just a wild speculation on my part but could the U.S. lead with next generation wireless network deployment after having been a bit slow to deply 3G in the past?
With Sprint launching their next generation WiMAX network in 2008 I wonder if this will push Verizon or AT&T to push LTE out the door as soon as possible? On the other hand the Austrians in the past have also been quite quick to introduce new wireless technologies and opening the network for customers. These days 20% of broadband customers in the country use one of the four HSDPA networks. If the trend continues the country could go very quickly to LTE as it would offer lots of additional capacity.
Comments, as always, are welcome!