BY AXXO

NAMASKAR FROM Pune dear readers. Cold but polluted place this is.

Last week we had stopped on the trials and status of 4G, and how the Indian government is duping us via many means, one being telecommunications, to be precise, BSNL.

Vendors and players. A market restructuring with aggressive joint ventures and new players in broadband wireless are the highlights of 4G development. The major 4G Key players are the current 3G players that invest on R&D and sources to the future of the mobile wireless. Recently, Alcatel-Lucent and Japan’s NEC Corp formed a joint venture around LTE trials. Similarly, China Mobile joined Verizon Wireless and Vodafone in LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution) standardisation trials.

China is a very interesting case, since they haven’t any 3G networks yet, although soon the government will issue three licenses for high-speed third-generation mobile phone services and called for a merger of China Unicom and Netcom, two of its four biggest telecoms providers.

CERTIFICATION

ONE of the WiMAX weaknesses was the lack of certification. The ITU recommendation adding WiMAX as an official 3G protocol is boosting the investment and the new spectrum auctions as in the US, for example, addressing the 700MHZ auctions. More than 100 WiMAX devices had been announced in 2008 and the fixed /portable wireless access equipment market had grown from $562 million to $1.2 billion in 2007. Additionally, Cisco is targeting WiMAX development at smart distributed wireless networking.

Drivers and scenarios. The rise of mobile subscribers by 2011 estimating over 4 billion in a combination with the converged systems and application are the main contributors of the 4G evolution.

The new mobile user’s lifestyle is increasing needs capacity, although the ‘walled garden’ might still be a limitation restricting the customer’s experience. The users changed from consumers to producers of content such as photos, videos etc. Several applications will drive the mobile broadband market globally, including:

• Web 2.0,
• Online blogs,
• Mobile music,
• Location Based Services (LBS),
• Multimedia messaging,
• Gambling, and
• Mobile TV.

For the next five years Verizon needs will evolve into 28Mbps download speed, raising a really early 4G LTE adoption compared to Vodafone. These scenarios could be summarised as following:
1. Independent 4G system with one standard, the 3GPP LTE,
2. Transition from 3G into 4G with existing (3GPP LTE) or new service providers WiMAX and WiBro,
3. Co-existence of different standards,
4. Spread of open transmission.

4G development depends on the initial conditions as shaped from 3G in most of the cases. Based on ‘increasing returns’ and ‘path dependency’, where alternatives are possible, and regarding the standards, "the one selected and heavily invested in is ‘good enough’ or even optimal and remains in use because it becomes established in use". This theory matches the scenario of different standards co-existence that will interact in the ecosystem and complement each other referring to an LTE+ and WiMAX that will be established and standardised as 802.16e that offers advanced mobility. This is what usually occurs in technological development scenarios.

4G E-Readiness Theory. The need for strategic planning and new services has led to new studies that could give us an idea of the current 4G status of countries and towards the future 4G deployment that is called E-readiness. "E-readiness is a measure of the quality of a country’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit. The measure of a country’s ability to leverage digital channels for communication, commerce and government in order to further economic and social development,"

Based on the above definition, the 4G readiness concept is developed. Consequently, 4G readiness is the "state of play" of a country’s mobile wireless 4G preparation status, and the ability of its potential and existing consumers, businesses and governments to use the mobile wireless to their benefit. Based on the 4G readiness criteria, countries are ranked and how soon they will close the gap to new 4G technological environment is estimated.

Other important non-market factors for 4G based on the framework development are: industry standards, cultural norms, state of technological development, government regulation and the country’s intellectual property infrastructure.

Non-market metrics and factors are applied because there are no structured or shaped markets yet and even current 3G markets provide very little knowledge to support the new landscape for ten years from today.

Countries in 4G Categories. The top 20 countries in the 4G list are USA, Hong Kong, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, UK, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, South Korea, New Zealand, Bermuda, Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, Norway, and Singapore.

Some other countries will be added, such as China due to the China Mobile 4G activity and trials as mentioned before. Other strategic countries should be added in the countries sample, like India, Russia ad Brazil because they:

• Represent almost half of the world’s population,
• Show records in wireless adoption the last few years.

If India is to make any real progress in the race for 4G domination, there need to be drastic improvements in technology.

Till then, lemme enjoy my puran pori, khichdi bhath, chicken angara kebab, et al.