Highlights from the Mobile World Congress - Mobile Networks
Posted by Mark Newman
February 20th, 2008
While much of the talk in the corridors and along the aisles in the exhibition halls at Mobile World Congress was about the perilous state of the mobile network infrastructure sector, the focus of the vendors themselves was HSPA+ and 3G LTE.
Operators are intent on squeezing everything they can from HSPA and Australia’s Telstra, a mobile broadband pioneer, said it would open a 21mbps HSPA+ service in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Migration from HSPA+ to LTE was a major issue for operators and infrastructure vendors played down any lingering expectations that LTE could have as big an impact on operator capex as, for example, WCDMA. Migration to LTE will be a slow evolution over the period 2010 to 2015 and beyond. Early pilots of LTE will be towards the end of 2010.
A number of operators lent their support to LTE in Barcelona including Vodafone, China Mobile and AT&T. There was a general feeling that with operators turning up the pressure to deliver LTE in 2010 or 2011, the window of opportunity for mobile WIMAX to steal a time-to-market advantage may be closing. Many CDMA2000 operators are also now turning their attention to LTE because of the demise of UMB as an alternative 3.9G technology. These operators are increasingly driving the timetable for LTE because, unlike WCDMA operators, they do not have an evolution path to HSPA+ which can provide significant enhancements before the new radio network technology is commercially available.
There was some uncertainty about the scale of investment and network upgrade that might be needed to upgrade to LTE. It is a completely new radio technology and interface but infrastructure vendors are tending to downplay the extent to which it requires the building of a totally new network. In a briefing with analysts France Telecom said it expected LTE to require little more than ‘swapping out cards’ from base stations rather than the rolling out of a new network.
Despite the vendor enthusiasm for next generation networks, there is an acceptance that operators will not roll out LTE nationwide. Ericsson, for example, promoted enhanced EDGE which will support speeds of up to 1mbps.
Backhaul and femtocells were the other key network topics in Barcelona. Many operators are already having to invest in backhaul because of the massive surge in traffic levels off the back of mobile broadband connections. Operators are looking for cost-effective backhaul solutions but some of the mobile broadband pioneers – including Singapore’s M1 and Telstra – are starting to lay down fibre rather than investing in interim solutions. There is a general trend among operators to replace leased lines with DSL/Ethernet connections for mobile backhaul.
While 2007 was the year that the femtocell concept seeped into the consciousness of the mobile industry, 2008 will see the first operator trials. A number of operators have expressed interest in femtocells including Vodafone and Telefonica/O2 but there remains huge uncertainty about price and performance levels. France Telecom said retail prices would need to be below Euro100 for femtocells to be viable but some operators were being quoted wholesale prices of up to Euro300 in Barcelona. In terms of timing, operators expect that it could take 6-12 months to refine the software in femtocells and to address issues relating to interference.
A number of vendors lent their backing at the MWV to the concept of ubiquitous networks and multi-protocol, multi-band infrastructures. Infrastructure manufacturers including NSN, Huawei and Ericsson all expressed an interest in creating integrated mobile towers that will enable access to different cellular technologies. Chipset manufacturers such as TI, Qualcomm and NXP have also demonstrated multimode and multiprotocol chipsets using software-defined radio (SDR).
The overall health of the mobile infrastructure sector was a big talking point at the Mobile World Congress. Speculation about the potential merger of Motorola’s and Nortel’s infrastructure businesses coincided with the show while a JV between Alcatel Lucent and NEC in developing LTE solutions was announced in Barcelona.
