The 8-10 Year Interval in Mobile Repeats with LTE

I just realized that new cellular network technologies seem to be launched every 8-10 years. Analog cellular networks such as the C-Netz started operation back in 1984, GSM went on air in 1992 and UMTS became operational in 2002. Now it’s 2008 and LTE and mobile WiMAX are at the doorstep. While WiMAX is a bit ahead and will be used by newcomers, most incumbent operators will probably opt for LTE which in my opinion won’t go live before 2010, i.e. 8 years after UMTS was generally available. And from there it will take another year or two before we see LTE devices beyond PC cards and a network coverage beyond a few major cities.

Mobile 2.0 Slidepack Update

I almost made it to the Plug.eu conference in Brussels last week but had to change my plans on short notice. Too bad, hopefully next year. One of the reasons I wanted to go was because Rudy de Waele of m-trends was talking about Mobile 2.0. He was already giving a similar presentation a couple of months ago at another conference and I found it very interesting and inspiring. Looks like he continued to keep his eyes and ears open in the meantime since his latest presentation contains a full update. Lots has happened in the past months! For all who are interested, here’s a link to the presentation. Don’t be afraid by the number of pages, it’s definitely worth the time!

The Packet Call Becomes History with LTE

This week I’ve been taking a closer look at how LTE networks will be used in practice. One of the big differences to current 3G and 3.5G networks is that LTE is fully based on IP, i.e. there is no longer a circuit switched core network for voice telephony. Today, it makes sense for 3G/3.5G devices to attach to the network without requesting an IP address since they are (still) mostly used for voice telephony. In LTE networks, however, a device without an IP address is completely useless. Hence, the LTE network attach procedure already includes the assignment of an IP address. Consequently, an LTE device will always have an IP address. For people coming from the LAN/WLAN world this is nothing new. For people in the cellular industry, however, this is revolutionary. The 3G/3.5G  procedure of ‘establishing a packet call’, a term coined with the old thinking of establishing a circuit switched connection for a voice call in mind, will thus become history with 4G. Many people in the industry will have to change their picture of the mobile world to accommodate for this.

Is Spell Checking Only A Nice To Have Feature On Mobiles?

Quite often I am using my N95 and a Bluetooth keyboard to respond to eMails and to write a blog entry such as this one. While it works quite well, I am really missing a good spell checking feature. I don’t think that’s to difficult since the dictionary for it is already in the phone for the T-9 functionality. Is this only a nice to have feature desired by few? What do you think?

Early Bearer Aware Applications

In the future, we might see cellular networks tightly integrated into an overall fixed/wireless network concept and it won’t matter anymore whether a device uses Wifi or cellular network access. But this is definitely not the case today so bearer awareness in applications is a concept that remains neccessary for the foreseeable future. While I have already speculated about this concept in the past it is good to see that it is becoming reality. Let’s take some very data hungry applications I usually only use via Wifi on my Nokia N95 as an example. When I come home the phone automatically detects that my Wifi network is available which triggers a number of applications to jump into action. The SIP VoIP client automatically connects to the Internet and my phone becomes a Wireless/Cordless phone. Shozu connects to the Internet to upload the pictures I have taken to Flickr. And the podcasting application also detects that contact to the network has been reestablished and automatically checks for new podcasts in my favourite streams and downloads them automatically so I can listen to them next time I am out and about. And it all happens automatically. Depending on the country where I am at a particular time, I allow some of these applications to use the cellular network as well. That really depends on how far mobile network operators allow prepaid users to venture out into the Internet, both in terms of price and access restrictions.

A TDD/FDD Question for LTE Radio Designers

Here’s a question for LTE Radio designers both on the network and the terminal side that I can’t find a good answer for in the documents I have read on LTE so far: In the 3GPP E-UTRAN standards documents, both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) is defined. It is often said that the implementation of the two different modes is very similar. Other sources point out that LTE will first be deployed in bands assigned for use with FDD. So I wonder if TDD will have a similar fate as UMTS TDD, which was specified, but never used on a large scale!? From my point of view, LTE TDD will only get a real chance if it is part of the first release of base stations and terminals. So here is my question: Does anyone know if TDD mode is part of mobile devices from day 1 and if so which market TDD mode addresses?

The SIM Card Gets A USB Interface

Recently I stumbled over this article on the web which says that SIM cards used in GSM and UMTS phones today might soon be extended with a USB interface. Two so far unused pins will be used for the purpose and make the enhancement fully backwards compatible.

A subsequent discussion with a SIM card expert revealed that the new USB 1.1 interface (up to 12 MBit/s transfer rate) can be used in three interface modes:

  • Mass Storage: Despite their size, SIM cards can include several megabytes and potentially even gigabytes of flash memory today. In this mode, the mobile device can access the flash memory just like an external memory card today.
  • Ethernet Emulation Mode (EEM): In this mode, the SIM card is accessed like a device on an Ethernet (i.e. via IP) and a web server could for example serve local content to the web browser running on the mobile device. Interesting for network operators to deploy SIM cards with content that can be accessed from the device with links to their offerings on the web.
  • ICCD: In this mode, all files which are required for GSM/UMTS/IMS/LTE operation can be accessed as over the legacy interface.

Opera Mini Defeats Operator Proxy Blocking Pages

Screenshot0001
For some strange reason, Orange France uses a transparent proxy server for mobile Internet access. Not sure what the proxy is good for but it has the nasty habit to block access to the mobile version of "Spiegel Online", a German news magazine. This is the only site that I access regularly that seems to be blocked and I am not sure why!? But now I’ve returned to France with Opera Mini and since it uses an encrypted socket connection, I can now read Spiegel online again. Thanks Opera!

The picture on the left shows that Opera Mini supports both socket connections and standard HTTP connections (probably for web only offers that block all other access). The socket interface is selected by default and apart from being encrypted and bypassing proxies, Opera says it is also faster than HTTP connections.

P.S.: You might have noted that this is the third post about Opera mini in a short time. The reason is simple: I am simply amazed by this program and it’s lightning speed and usability.

Nokia and Open Source

Stefan Constantinescu over at Intomobile made me aware of an interesting podcast with Ari Jaaksi he must have given recently at an open source developer conference (not sure which one).  In the podcast, Ari talks about Nokia’s involvement and interest in Open Source for their Internet tablet and for the open source based applications on their S60 platform (e.g. the Webkit browser).

It’s interesting to compare Nokia’s Open Source involvement with that of Google/Android: Nokia uses Open Source software to create their own (hardware) products. This is good for them because they can build products quicker, it’s good for the open source community as the contribute back to the community, and it’s good for application developers as they have a reasonably open platform for which they can develop their applications.

Google’s approach with Android, however, is quite different. Their interest is creating a platform for themselves and others so that hopefully many companies develop devices and software based on Android.

In the short term, Nokia’s concept works quite well as the Internet tablets they have built around their Maemo platform are great and there is not yet much competition. In the mid- and long term, however, I see their approach sidelined a bit once Linux in general and Google/Android in particular become more widespread in the mobile world. And Intel is pushing with their Mobile Internet Devices, too, likely to become a nice hardware platform in the future for new device manufacturers which then need to look for an open OS. Nokia’s Maemo is then just one of many Linux based partly/fully open operating system but limited to Nokia products while other Linux based OS’es will run on more devices.

What do you think, might there be a point when Nokia opens up Maemo for third party devices?

Resources: