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Aussie Telcos Consider 3G For Last Mile
Mattygfunk writes "Whirlpool reports Aussie telco R&D labs are scrambling to transform 3G mobile networks into last mile solutions rivaling the best wired broadband networks, as telcos come to grips with lack of consumer interest in 3G mobile services and a likelihood of no payback on their multi-billion dollar investments in the spectrum."
If you look at the GSM coverage map of China you will see that it has a large coverage for country so large. From what I undestand the reason for this, which is along the lines of the last mile, is that China did not have any cabled phone network covering that area to start with. Since it was going to cost them as much to wire such a large area and that mobile phones were growing in popularity they decided to go the wireless approach.
The reason I bring the story up, is because once you are in a rural area it becomes increasingly more expensive to connect to homes. The problem is that you get less inhabitants per length of telephone cable, thus making it extremely more expensive short and long term. The long term cost is the inspection of such a coverage of phone lines. The wireless approach allows a much larger area to be covered, and it ends up being cheaper as there is there are less inspection points. It also provides the advantage that the phone company also gets money from visitors to the area and not just the inhabitants. Additionaly, for a farmer, this is great as it allows him/her to phone home when they are somewhere in the middle of their land. This sort of solution could be easily applied to other countries with the last 100 miles problem, not just the last mile.
The only question I ask myself, is whether there are any solutions for solar powered transmission towers?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Anyway interesting concept.
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i need a ciggie bbl
The only 3G system I know about is the European UMTS system, whose air interface operates on WCDMA (the same technology as the American system, which I believe is imaginatively called WCDMA).
This system is particularly well known for being resistant to interference. The original CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access - the W stands for Wideband) system was originally developed by the American military to provide resistance to jamming.
The key characteristic of WCDMA is that each handset signal is spread across a wide chunk of the spectrum (around 1.9 GHz in UMTS), by applying a code which is chosen to render the signal orthogonal to those of the other handsets. Applying the code at the other end to retrieve the original narrow-band signal has the beneficial side-effect of spreading any narrow-band interference across the original broad area of the spectrum, thus reducing its intensity. To effectively jam the system would involve swamping the entire UMTS spectrum, which would take a massive amount of power.
As for red lights causing interference in the ~2GHz spectrum - well, that's just plain silly.
Amusing troll, though.
Since 3G seems to be offering higher speeds, will the telco(s) introduce the service at low prices, only to win customers, garner major share of the market, only to raise prices afterwards (price increase follows bandwidth increase; "gotta pay recoup the cost of 3G license")? How are they coping with potential interference issues? What *is* the range of 3G anyway?
Have EVDO, will travel.
Some clues that the parent message is crap:
- it talks about red lights causing interference, even though 3G is far from 'immediately below infrared'...
- (real clue) talks about ultrasonic devices causing interference with 3G phones. How one earth can *sound* interfere with *electromagnetic radiation*???
The journalist who wrote the article seems to be assuming there will be no payback at all from 3G, in its UMTS or CDMA2000 incarnations, to make a more exciting story. Some of the developments discussed aren't really competing in the same market as 3G in any case, e.g. the Arraycomm technology is mainly for fixed wireless last-mile access, and doesn't have much to do with 3G. The Flarion flash-OFDM approach is interesting, though.
While it may take a lot longer to get a payback than people planned, it's mainly a question of pricing and services. The real issue is delivering, at reasonable price points, services that are of interest, e.g. multimedia messaging (zap a photo to your friends/family), location-based services (where's the closest garage/ATM, and how do I get there?), multiplayer gaming (already happening with text messaging, one game lets you zap combatants who are in the same part of the physical world as you are), and much more. An open market for 3G services is critical, the idea being that anyone with a bright idea can put together their own service.
Of course, it doesn't make such a good story if telcos aren't 'scrambling' to fix 3G - in any case, these are all post-3G developments and will be competing with next-generation WiFi as well.
Someone tell me again. Why do I want a 3g enabled phone ?
http://nomoneydownnews.com/
I wish I'd kept my mod points from this morning to mod this troll down.
Given that I work on detectors for the THz band which sits between the far-IR (down to about 4 THz) and the mm band (up to about 300 GHz) I can say that the parent is complete, utter BS. The 3G band is not very far from the 802.11b band anyway, and below the 802.11a band (I think, I await corrections).
It's obvious that doing the last mile wireless is going to be cheaper than via copper. What baffles me though, is why making calls on my mobile is so much more expensive than a landline when the implementation/maintenance of wireless networks is so much cheaper than copper or fibre. It costs far less to stick a mast up than to start digging the road up.
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
I was at a conference with a guy from Qualcomm the other day, talking about their CDMA-450 technology, which is basically their CDMA-2000, only operating on the 450MHz band (or maybe 400). The NMT-450 operators in Russia are looking at this as a way of upgrading their networks.
I said that I thought this lacked the critical mass, and the momentum to really compete with GSM 2.5G as a mobile voice/data solution, particularly when you look at how ghastly the handsets are for CDMA450. He said that even so, there is a use for CDMA 450 as a fixed wireless technology.
This makes a lot of sense, because laying cable in urban Russia is a bureaucratic nightmare, not to mention the fact that your competitors may control the ducts that you want to use. Even when you can lay cable, it's much more fun building a wireless link in a climate like ours. Actually my last mile in my apartment at home is wireless (point to point microwave, rather than cellular) and I'm very happy with it. And there is a real shortage of fixed lines in Moscow - one of my colleagues had to wait two years for a line to be installed by the public operator. I was told four years when I asked.
The other thing that I heard at the same conference was that in those areas where the license payment was sensible, 3G would be used to build extra capacity in the wireless network, on the assumption that there are quadra-mode (?tetra-mode) handsets to work on all 3 GSM standards, and W-CDMA. I've seen mention of these handsets already, although given how long it's taken with 2.5G, I'm not holding my breath.