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Data on 3G- An Introduction to the Third GenerationBy Mobile Lifestreams, Issue Date: 1st February 2000 1. Introduction The telecommunications world is changing as the trends of media convergence, industry consolidation, Internet and Internet Protocol (IP) technologies and mobile communications collide into one. Significant change will be bought about by this rapid evolution in technology, with Third Generation mobile Internet technology a radical departure from that that came before in the first and even the second generations of mobile technology. Some of the changes include:
As with all new technology standards, there is uncertainty and the fear of displacement. Third Generation (3G) mobile is topical and contentious for several reasons:
2. Summary of Mobile Lifestreams' View on 3G As detailed in its full "Data on 3G" report, Mobile Lifestreams believes relating to 3G:
Third Generation (3G) is the mobile phone system that will be begin to be available commercially in the year 2001/2. The idea behind 3G is to unify the disparate standards that today's second generation wireless networks use. Instead of different network types being adopted in The Americas, Europe and Japan, the plan is for a single network standard to be agreed and implemented. 3G STANDARDIZATION PROCESS In 1998, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) (see www.itu.int) called for Radio Transmission Technology (RTT) proposals for IMT-2000 (originally called Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunications Systems (FPLMTS)), the formal name for the Third Generation standard. Many different proposals were submitted: the DECT and TDMA/ Universal Wireless Communications organizations submitted plans for the RTT to be TDMA-based, whilst all other proposals for non-satellite based solutions were based on wideband CDMA- the main submissions were called Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) and cdma2000. The ETSI/ GSM players including infrastructure vendors such as Nokia and Ericsson backed WCDMA. The North American CDMA community, led by the CDMA Development Group (CDG) including infrastructure vendors such as Qualcomm and Lucent Technologies, backed cdma2000. 3GPP In December 1998, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) was created following an agreement between six standards setting bodies around the world including ETSI, ARIB and TIC of Japan, ANSI of the USA and the TTA of Korea. This unprecedented cooperation into standards setting made 3GPP responsible for preparing, approving and maintaining the Technical Specifications and Reports for a Third Generation mobile system based on evolved GSM core networks and the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) radio access technology. For example, ETSI SMG2 activities on UMTS have been fully transferred to 3GPP. The Chinese and the CDMA Development Group were unfortunately not original members of the 3GPP. In the first half of 1999, much progress was made in agreeing a global IMT-2000 standard that met the political and commercial requirements of the various technology protagonists- GSM, CDMA and TDMA. In late March 1999, Ericsson purchased Qualcomm's CDMA infrastructure division and Ericsson and Qualcomm licensed each other's key Intellectual Property Rights and agreed to the ITU's "family of networks" compromise to the various standards proposals. 3 AIR INTERFACE MODES The proposed IMT-2000 standard for Third Generation mobile networks globally is a CDMA-based standard that encompasses THREE OPTIONAL modes of operation, each of which should be able to work over both GSM MAP and IS-41 network architectures. The three modes are:
TABLE 2: SOURCE MOBILE LIFESTREAMS Having three different modes, one for Europe and Asia, one for Japan and one for the US is not all that different from the existing 2G situation. The main change is that Japan has joined the European GSM community and based WCDMA. As can be seen from the table above, there are several different names for each of the air interface modes, and furthermore, new names are regularly introduced! For the sake of this book, we refer to WCDMA, cdma2000 and FDD wherever possible, and refer to UWC 136 and UMTS separately. In fact, strictly speaking, the final ITU recommendations for IMT-2000 stipulated five terrestrial radio interface standards when DECT (IMT FT) and EDGE (IMT SC or IWC 136) are included. EDGE and DECT will NOT be the topic of this introduction to 3G. There are three radio interface modes with two (existing) major core network standards- GSM MAP and TIA IS-41 (from Telecommunications Industry Association, a US standards setting body). The core network is the physical network infrastructure to which the radio access network is connected in a mobile network. A radio access network is the portion of a mobile network that handles subscriber access, including radio base stations and other nodes. 3G DATA RATES The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has laid down some indicative minimum requirements for the data speeds that the IMT-2000 standards must support. These requirements are defined according to the degree of mobility involved when the 3G call is being made. As such, the data rate that will available over 3G will depend upon the environment the call is being made in: High Mobility 144 kbps for rural outdoor mobile use. This data rate is available for environments in which the 3G user is traveling more than 120 kilometers per hour in outdoor environments. Let us hope that the 3G user is in a train and not driving along and trying to use their 3G terminal at such speeds. Full Mobility 384 kbps for pedestrian users traveling less than 120 kilometers per hour in urban outdoor environments. Limited Mobility At least 2 Mbps with low mobility (less than 10 kilometers per hour) in stationary indoor and short range outdoor environments These kinds of maximum data rates that are often talked about when illustrating the potential for 3G technology will only therefore be available in stationary indoor environments. 3G networks will require new radio and core network elements: RADIO NETWORK A new air interface is needed for 3G. This will require new Base Station Systems (BSSs). Specifically, the BSS changes needed are: The 3G radio access network will comprise a RNC (Radio Network Controller) and Node B. RADIO NETWORK CONTROLLER A Radio Network Controller (RNC) will replace the Base Station Controller. The RNC will include support for connection to legacy systems and provide efficient packet connection with the core network packet devices (SSGN or equivalent). The RNC performs radio network control functions that include call establishment and release, handover, radio resource management, power control, diversity combining and soft handover. NODE B A Node B is equivalent to a Base Station in the 2G network but also incorporates support for the 3G air interfaces. CELL PLANNING New cell planning methods will be needed to support the new frequency allocations for 3G and the radio interface changes- more 3G base stations will be needed compared to the comparable 2G coverage area. This gives an advantage to GSM 1800 and 1900 network operators whose cells already cover a smaller coverage area than those for GSM 900 networks. GSM 900 network operators will need to "fill in" coverage in between existing cell sites. CORE NETWORK The 3G core network will be an evolution from GPRS or equivalent 2.5G core network systems. GPRS nodes such as the Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) are described in detail in "Data on GPRS" from Mobile Lifestreams. Upgrades to the mobile and transit switching systems to deliver packets will also be needed. A new piece of network infrastructure for 3G is Media Gateways (MGW) that resides at the boundary between different networks to process end user data such as voice coding and decoding, convert protocols and map quality of service. The connectivity layer also provides access to backbone switches and non-mobile networks such as Cable Television. In some vendor solutions, MGWs are controlled remotely by the Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) and GSN servers by means of the Gateway Control Protocol. The ITU Study Group 16 and the IETF Megaco H.248 are working to ensure the GCP is an open standard protocol. Existing network operators can then upgrade their Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) and GSNs to implement 3G OR ALTERNATIVELY to implement a new standalone MGW that is controlled from the server part of an upgraded 2G node. BACKBONE NETWORK The radio network will be connected to the core network by a backbone network allowing wideband access and interconnection of subscribers. The 3G backbone network can use any transport technology but is certain to be based on packet technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Internet Protocol (IP). The backbone network is built as a mesh of IP routing or ATM switching nodes interconnected by point to point links. Technologies such as IP over ATM may be used that uses ATM switching to multiplex IP traffic. This IP over ATM architecture supports voice traffic alongside IP. Many vendors prefer a "pure" end to end IP approach whereas others (such as Fujitsu profiled below) prefer an ATM/ IP hybrid to guarantee quality of service. Alternatively, IP over SONET/ SDH is a different backbone network solution that eliminates the ATM layer by establishing point to point links between IP routers directly over SONET/ SDH rings which run over a Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) layer that enables Terabits per second (Tbits/s) of aggregate network bandwidth. SUPPORT SYSTEM CHANGES Of course, platforms and systems such as the value added service centers, gateways, billing systems, customer service elements, Intelligent Network systems and the like will also need to be upgraded. Once again, this is likely to be an evolution from 2.5G data centric services such as GPRS where packet charging elements and so on where introduced. There may also need to be a change in personnel as more applications specialists, alliance managers, Internet sector managers and the like are hired to develop content and applications over 3G networks. When a new service is introduced, there are a number of stages before it becomes established. 3G service developments will include standardization, infrastructure development, network trials, contracts placed, network roll out, availability of terminals, application development, and so on. These stages for 3G are shown in Table 4 below:
TABLE 4- SOURCE MOBILE LIFESTREAMS There are several applications that will be enabled by the broadband bandwidth that will come with 3G. These applications inclue: AUDIO Audio or video over the Internet is downloaded (transferred, stored and played) or streamed (played as it is being sent but not stored). The later tends to be of lower quality than the former. Content is transferred using various different compression algorithms such as those from Microsoft or Real Networks or the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (better known as MP3) protocol. In fact, MP3 is a codec- a compression/ decompression algorithm. MP3 was invented in 1987 in Germany and approved by the Moving Pictures Experts Group, a part of the International Organization for Standardization, in 1992. With 3G, MP3 files will be downloadable over the air directly to your phone via a dedicated server. There are numerous business models to allow both the network providers as well as the copyright owners of the MP3 material to benefit financially. Mobile Lifestreams expects that the integration of mobile telephony with everyday consumer products will emerge within the next four years to the extent that we will be able to retrieve data - be it voice, Internet or Music - anytime, anyplace through the next generation of mobile devices. Mobile phones with MP3 built-in from Samsung and with add on MP3 modules from Ericsson have already been demonstrated in late 1999 and are expected to be commercially available during the year 2000. These devices are shown in the next section below. The era of downloading multimedia content from the Internet over fixed telecommunications and cable links to PCs is only just beginning and is dependent upon bandwidth to a large degree- with quality of image and availability of service inversely proportionate to the amount of available bandwidth. Due to bandwidth constraints, currently, users go online and downloaded files to their portable device over the fixed network which are then watched and listened to a later date- there is no real time audio and video streaming over mobile networks. Since even short voice clips occupy large file sizes, high speed mobile data services are needed to enable mobile audio applications. The higher the bandwidth, the better- hence the attractiveness of 3G for mobile multimedia applications such as mobile audio and video. VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL Another audio application for 3G is Voice over IP (VoIP)- the ability to route telephone calls over the Internet to provide voice telephony service at local call rates to anywhere in the world. With 3G and higher rate 2.5G technologies such as EDGE, VoIP will be available for the first time on mobile phones. To make a voice call, Voice Over IP can be used as an alternative to regular service. The irony here being is that voice has now become an application- and a very popular one- in its own right! VoIP is not however a replacement for standard voice services since VoIP services are bandwidth demanding- there needs to be a high switching rate on the IP backbone to minimize the very high likelihood of delayed and lost packets. STILL IMAGES Still images such as photographs, pictures, letters, postcards, greeting cards, presentations and static web pages can be sent and received over mobile networks just as they are across fixed telephone networks. Two variables affect the usability of such applications- bandwidth and time- and they are inversely related. The faster the bandwidth, the less time is needed to transmit images, and vice versa. This is the reason why transmission of image based rather than textual information has not been a popular nonvoice mobile application until now- it takes too long given the slow data transmission speeds that were available prior to the introduction of mobile packet data. Once captured, images can then be sent directly to Internet sites, allowing near real-time desktop publishing. The size of the file for a picture depends on the resolution and type of compression. Typically each picture is between 50K and 100K in the JPEG format. This can be transmitted quickly using mobile packet data. Still image transmission is a much touted application for lower packet data services such as GPRS and beyond. Many people see still images as a killer compelling applications for GPRS. Whilst a picture paints a thousand words, and this amount of text can easily be handled by GPRS, we expect the single image to be used instead! MOVING IMAGES Sending moving images in a mobile environment has several vertical market applications including (monitor sensor triggered) monitoring parking lots or building sites for intruders or thieves, and sending images of patients from an ambulance to a hospital. Videoconferencing applications, in which teams of distributed sales people can have a regular sales meeting without having to go to a particular physical location, is another application for moving images that is similar to the document sharing/ collaborative working applications reviewed below. Skeptics argue that vertical markets don't need video and consumer s don't want it. However, with the Internet becoming a more multimedia environment, 3G will be able displaying those images and accessing web services. The transmission of moving images is one of the applications that GPRS and 3G terminal and infrastructure vendors routinely and repeatedly tout as a compelling application area that will be enabled by greater data rates. And they are not incorrect to do so. However, it must be noted that even demonstrations of one megabyte of data over the air using Microsoft NetMeeting to perform a video conference facility do not deliver smooth broadcast quality video images. However, improving compression techniques should allow acceptable quality video images to be transmitted using 64 kbps of bandwidth. Whilst videophones have failed to alight the public's imagination on fixed networks, this could be a function of the fact that a videophone is only as good as the number of other people who have one too. Corporations with several people with video capable mobile phones could easily hold virtual remote sales meetings between all their regional sales representatives. As such, whilst we are confident that still images such as pictures and postcards will be a significant application for GPRS, moving images may not be of high enough quality initially to elevate the communication above the medium. Users could spend all their time adjusting the size of the image on their screen and trying to work out what they are seeing. This is where 3G comes in- once again, the bandwidth uplift it enables allows for high quality image transmission over the mobile network. As such, we see all moving video and image transmission application migrating to the 3G bearer as soon as it becomes available. By the time 3G is here, full length moves could be downloadable from Internet sites. VIRTUAL HOME ENVIRONMENT A Universal Mobile Telephone Service (UMTS) service that is often mentioned in the vendor's brochures is so called Virtual Home Environment (VHE), a service that simply lets customers have seamless access with a common look and feel to their services from home, office or on the move and in any city as if they were at home. VHE is therefore aimed at roamers (a small subset of total mobile phone users). VHE could also allow some other more useful services by placing their Universal Identity Module (UIM) into ANY terminal- and those terminals could be something other than mobile devices if smart cards are more widely supported than they are today. Virtual Home Environment could hardly be described as a killer application though, especially since email and other services are increasingly available worldwide as the Internet becomes more widespread and services migrate to the Internet and can therefore be accessed from any Internet browser- with or without a smart card! In general, smart cards are hyped beyond their usefulness. They have very limited storage capability (64 K counts for being the state of the art!!!!!!!!!!!) but are useful in switching devices (users are likely to have multiple devices in different form factors in the 3G world) and for non-mobile applications such as identification and security for mobile banking and the like. ELECTRONIC AGENTS Electronic agents are a technology that Mobile Lifestreams' believes will pay an important role for mobile working in the future- as agents are dispatched to carry out searches and tasks on the Internet and report back to their owners. This is an efficient way to get things done on the move. Electronic agents are defined as "mobile programs that go to places in the network to carry out their owners' instructions. They can be thought of as extensions of the people who dispatch them." Agents are "self-contained programs that roam communications networks delivering and receiving messages or looking for information or services." Certainly, 3G terminals will give their owners much more control over their lives than today's mobile phones. They will be eAssistants, eSecretaries, eAdvisors and eAdministrators. This kind of control is what Home Automation applications anticipate. Indeed Orange in the UK has a vision expects that within ten years, our mobiles will be waking us up, reading out our emails, ordering our groceries, telling us the best route to work, reminding us and translating our conference calls. The key question is the extent to which these processes are human initiated or computer generated and controlled and the extent to which devices can "learn" individual preferences and act accordingly. DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE In the twenty-first century, software will increasingly be downloaded electronically from the Internet rather than purchased as boxed product in stores. This is a like file transfer applications that involve downloading the software itself. You might for example need WinZip or Abode Acrobat to read a file- and can download that over the 3G network to your 3G terminal. Downloading software has several advantages because it is:
Download Times Download times vary depending on the speed of your modem and the size of the application. Typical download times vary from 10 minutes to two hours. Here are download times for a 5 Megabyte (MB) application:
Sites such as beyond.com and Mobiledatashop.com from Mobile Lifestreams offers many software products for immediate electronic download. Additionally, the Application Service Provision (ASP) market in which software platforms and server software is being hosted by third parties and accessed by client software mimics this "thin client" world in which the bandwidth is high enough for applications and files to be retrieved from the Internet on the fly whenever they are needed. Since it relies on the bandwidth that 3G provides, 3G is likely to be the key bearer for downloading software. 7. Optimal Bearer by Applications By designing applications to minimize the effects of the limitations of existing mobile services- such as the length of a short message or the speed of a Circuit Switched Data call- existing nonvoice mobile services can often be successfully used for mobile working. However, many nonvoice applications are graphics intensive and the new faster data services such as 3G will allow BETTER VERSIONS of today's existing nonvoice applications. It is often assumed that early adopters will be corporate customers for 3G, but Mobile Lifestreams expects that since consumer electronics devices as their name suggests appeal to consumer markets and will have 3G built in. Mobile multimedia- games, entertainment and the like are much more consumer oriented that the buttoned down sober suited business people. Mobile Lifestreams expects 3G to be a consumer revolution and not a corporate one. The most ideal bearer for each application- 3G, GPRS or the Short Message Service (SMS).- is an important question we will consider next. The optimal bearer for each type of application will be:
SOURCE: MOBILE LIFESTREAMS Of course, stating optimal and primary bearers does not mean that handset vendors, network operators, application developers and customers will not develop all kinds of applications using all kinds of bearers. However, these bearers are considered to be the optimal means to deliver the customer's requirements in the most efficient and convenient way. 8. Initial 3G Traffic Generators With any new service, it is an important part of the business case to estimate what the applications for that technology will be. We believe that the business case for any network operator for Third Generation (3G) is compelling. The more popular nonvoice applications using Third Generation (3G) are expected to be:
SOURCE: MOBILE LIFESTREAMS The first of the applications listed will be popular partly because they are widespread over fixed telephone networks but have previously not been readily or fully available over mobile networks. The Internet and email are already in place today- Third Generation (3G) will allow them to be made fully wirefree and available everywhere. The applications ranked further down the list lack current popularity in the fixed communications world and lack widespread availability of specific software solutions. Whilst these applications are technically feasible or high speed mobile data services such as Third Generation (3G), the volume of usage is dependent upon commercial factors such as pricing. It is expected that Third Generation (3G) will incorporate volume-based charging such that only the data sent will be charged for, paving the way for widespread usage amongst customers with Third Generation (3G) capable devices. 3G Mobile Terminals As shown and described in detail in Mobile Lifestreams "3G Terminals" report, there are common trends in 3G terminals:
The broadband bandwidth on 3G networks enables mobile multimedia as will the devices. When the networks and the devices are in harmony and the customer is king, the Three Dimensions of the Third Generation will enough a level of applications and services never before possible on mobile networks. Shown below are a couple of the 3G Concept devices from NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile network operator. On the left is a video phone built into a walking stick and on the right is a Visor Phone that you wear like glasses and watch like television!
Welcome to the FutureFoneZone!
Updates to this information are posted regularly on www.mobile3G.com from Mobile Lifestreams. 10. Comparison of 3G Infrastructure Suppliers
SOURCE: MOBILE LIFESTREAMS Note: A rating of "High" denotes a better ranking than "MED" and so on. CUSTOMERS (CUST). Denotes the number of network operators that is working with the infrastructure supplier for 3G. Ericsson, Nortel and Lucent established early leads in announcing 3G network operator trials. Siemens and Alcatel have yet to make much mark in the terms of 3G trial contracts, and Nokia and Motorola are only working with a couple of network operators. It is interesting that Nortel and Lucent who have made large IP related acquisitions (Bay Networks and Ascend respectively) have done well with 3G whilst making little inroads into the GPRS market. DATA (DATA). Denotes the datacentricity of the vendor. Each of the vendors has pursued a different strategy relating to support of nonvoice mobile services such as the Short Message Service (SMS) and Circuit Switched Data in the past. Clearly, these partnerships and this is house knowledge will affect the vendor's willingness and ability to develop complete and compelling 3G applications. Only Nokia is rated highly in this category since it has pioneered the use of Circuit Switched Data and the Short Message Service much more proactively than any other vendor. It has lead the way in terms of man machine interface on its terminals, support in its terminals for nonvoice services such as confirmation of message delivery and picture messaging and Smart Messaging. Nortel Networks has not been very active in the nonvoice field in the past, other than through partnerships and reseller relations rather than in-house developments. Nortel is however highly committed to mobile IP networks with core networks based on IP and IP based services and applications. Motorola pioneered iDEN technology and paging technologies as well as dual slot mobile phones. Ericsson's approach to nonvoice has not been proactive- the terminals have had poor man machine interfaces and the platforms have either been weak or technology oriented- WebOnAir, wireless Jalda and other ecommerce technologies. Both Siemens and Alcatel have partnered with Phone.com for WAP services, but done little else in the nonvoice field. Lucent has developed a superb concept platform called the Wireless Data Server, as well as being active in the CDPD market. AIRLINKS (AIRLINKS). Denotes the extent to which the vendor supports multiple airlink standards. Alcatel, Nokia and Siemens are primarily GSM vendors. Motorola supports multiple airlinks such as GSM, TACS, AMPS, DAMPS, PHS, CDMA, but not TDMA. Ericsson, Lucent and Nortel are all worldwide vendors of all kinds of airlink systems. Ericsson has not traditionally delivered CDMA technology, but its recent acquisition of Qualcomm infrastructure division has changed this situation. All of the profiled manufacturers are committed to developing WCDMA systems. Lucent, Motorola and Nortel as supporting cdma2000 too with trial contracts already awarded. Ericsson and Nokia have publicly committed to supporting EDGE, whilst other vendors will probably wait for customer requests, as they have done with High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD). ACQUISTIONS (ACQ). All of the 3G vendors have been acquiring IP companies over the past couple of years and in particular during 1999 as they seek to position themselves for the converging Internet and wireless world. Alcatel acquired large players such as DSC Communications Corporation and Xylan Corporation, Lucent Technologies made by far the most expensive acquisition when it acquired Ascend and Nortel Networks purchased Bay Networks. Siemens, Ericsson and Nokia have all chosen to acquire several less expensive smaller companies rather than large vendors. Motorola has taken the partnership route with Cisco Systems rather than acquire companies in this field. PARTNERS For 3G, Alcatel has partnered with Motorola and Cisco Systems. Ericsson has not partnered with anyone to implement its IP plans. Neither has Lucent. Motorola partners with Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, Alcatel and Pioneer. Nokia partners with InterDigital. Nortel partners with Matsushita/ Panasonic and Samsung. Siemens is working with NEC and Casio. We can see that many of these partnerships are between Japanese and European companies. We expect to see more such partnerships such as between mobile phone manufacturers and consumer electronics manufacturers in the not too distant future. GPRS Ericsson established a leadership position in terms of GPRS contacts announced in 1999, with dozens of network operator trials announced or underway. After the traditional Finnish summer silence, Nokia announced a few more GPRS contracts with its existing GSM customers towards the end of 1999. Motorola picked up a lot of momentum in the second half of 1999 with first GPRS calls in several European countries being made and much progress at network operators such as BT Cellnet in the UK made. Motorola replaced Ericsson's core GPRS network at T-Mobil in Germany. Lucent, Nortel, Siemens and Alcatel only have a few GPRS contracts between them- Lucent are yet to announce their first customer for PacketGSM. Again we see varying levels of commitment to and success in GPRS and 3G, hence successful momentum in one area does not necessarily translate to a successful start in another. The Third Generation of mobile communications will bring with it mobile multimedia with high data bandwidths and sophisticated mobile terminals and new services and applications. This guide is a cut down version of a book called "Data on 3G" which is 300 pages long and contains very detailed information on all aspects of the Third Generation. To find out more about 3G and the book and to order your copy for just 250 US dollars, visit www.mobile3G.com or contact the author by any of the methods listed below: Simon Buckingham Internet site: http://www.mobile3G.com Email: simonB@mobilelifestreams.com Telephone: +44 7000 366366 Postal Address: 9 The Broadway |
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