BY AXXO

EGUN ON dear readers (Basque, native name: Euskara. It is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque country, a region spanning an area in north-eastern Spain and south-western France).
Let’s carry on from last week on 4G.

Technological feasibility. There are several technologies suggested to deploy in the 4G and these may include:

Software Defined Radio (SDR): is a radio communication system where components that have typically been implemented in hardware (i.e. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors. etc.) are instead implemented using software on a personal computer or other embedded computing devices.

Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM): is a frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) scheme utilised as a digital multi-carrier modulation method. Multiple-input and multiple-output, (MIMO), is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance.

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), standardised by 3GPP Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access ( TD-SCDMA), is a 3G mobile telecommunications standard, being pursued in the People’s Republic of China by the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Technology.

All these technologies are typified by high rates of data transmission and packet-switched transmission protocols. 3G technologies, by contrast, are a mix of packet and circuit-switched networks.

WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) vs. LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution).

The LTE technology that Nokia and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) are pushing is an upgrade to existing GSM networks, a fact that makes even the CDMA operator Verizon Wireless join the 3GPP trials. It is also a strategic decision, in order to be compatible with its European GSM-based parent company, Vodafone. LTE looks like it can heal the GSM/CDMA rift that has divided the industry as no major carrier has yet signed on with obvious CDMA 4G upgrade technology, Ultramobile Broadband (UMB).

LTE will have the following advantages:
• Fast, with peak data rates of 100 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload.
• It makes CDMA and GSM debates moot.
• It offers both FDD and TDD duplexing, which means the upload and download speeds don’t have to be synchronous, so operators can better optimise their networks to use more upload channels.
• LTE will have lower latency, which makes real-time interaction on high band-width applications using mobiles possible. 3GPP LTE, one of the most advanced mobile communication technologies to date, is currently undergoing 4G technology standardisation by the 3GPP. This is the most likely technology to become the 4G standard, as many of the world’s major operators and telecommunications companies are members of LTE/SAE (Long Term Evolution/System Architecture Evolution) Trial Initiative (LSTI).

These companies include operators such as Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile and Telecom Italia and vendors, Ericsson, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens and LG Electronics. These are also the companies that will be considered to have the advantage in deploying first the 4G services.

WiMAX has certain advantages mainly over the Fibre to the home (FTTH) technology. When bundled with broadband internet access and IPTV, a WiMAX triple play becomes very attractive to residential subscribers. Given the QoS, security and reliability mechanisms built into WiMAX, the users will find WiMAX VoIP as good as or even better than voice services from the telephone company. It also offers a cost effective infrastructure with efficient use of spectrum. Currently, the average cost of WiMAX 802.16-2004 baseband has decreased from $35 to almost $20 today per subscriber.

4G proponents will serve as complements or upgrades to advance the 3G limitation to deliver video/TV and high speed Internet access. For WiMAX, there is a limitation of wireless bandwidth. For use in high density areas, it is possible that the bandwidth may not be sufficient to cater to the needs of a large clientele, driving potentially the costs high. But the main competitor for WiMAX today is the fibre and the wireline network that especially in the US is a real challenge for the residential users as the operators are deploying and growing really fast.

TRIALS AND STATUS

IN 2008, Nokia installed a prototype base station for ongoing LTE tests at the top of the Heinrich Hertz Institut building in the centre of Berlin, where interference typically degrades bandwidth. The first-of-its-kind test featured multiple users connected to the new base station, giving the 173Mbps throughput number some credibility as a real-world peak. Nokia also tested LTE throughput by putting terminals into cars and driving them up to 1km away from the base station. Verizon and AT&T are also testing it with Motorola equipment.

WiMAX, on the other hand, is ahead of LTE as a personal broadband option. CDMA-based operator Sprint-Nextel, for its part, is banking on WiMAX as a 4G solution. The Sprint-Nextel’s WiMAX-based Xohm service in Chicago indicate that the bandwidth and pings are excellent (roughly 3Mbps/1.5Mbps and 70ms, respectively), but the numbers are nowhere near the +100Mbps /50Mbps that LTE promises in both directions.

Truly, 3Mbps and 100Mbps cannot be compared. Even technological dinosaurs will understand the difference in these speeds if not the tech specs (technical specification).

Max speed on BSNL 3G is 378kbps for download and 250kbps for upload.

Max speed on BSNL 3.5G is 1102kbps for download and 510kbps for upload.

Understand the difference between kbps - kilo, in thousands, 1000 and Mbps- Mega, in lakhs, 1000000.
The best in India’s BSNL broadband connection is an 8Mbps business plan. Hyuk hyuk, what a joke.

The problem is that the Indian government has been cheating us, the aam aadmi for a number of years with regards to everything that also includes communication networks.

Data speeds in India can be improved but with the kind of people we have ruling us and in the opposition too, I don’t expect 4G or better broadband speeds either, not in the next five years at least. Correct me, it could be ten.

Enough for this week.

Till next week, Agur.