4 ||| 1556-6072/09/$25.00©2009IEEE IEEE VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE | JUNE 2009

MOBILE RADIO

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MVT.2009.932545

Javier GozalvezSenior Editor

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted

a second report and order that establishes rules to allow new, sophisticated wireless devices to operate in broadcast television (TV) spectrum on a secondary basis at locations where that spectrum is open. This unused TV spectrum is now commonly referred to as TV white spaces. The rules adopted will allow for the use of these new and innovative types of unlicensed devices in the unused spectrum to provide broadband data and other services for consumers and busi-nesses. The rules represent a care-ful first step to permit the operation of unlicensed devices in the TV white spaces and include numerous safeguards to protect incumbent services against harmful interfer-ence. The rules will allow for both fixed and personal or portable unli-censed devices. Such devices must include a geolocation capability and provisions to access over the Inter-net a database of the incumbent services, such as full-power and low-power TV stations and cable system headends, in addition to spectrum-sensing technology. The database will tell the white-space device what spectrum may be used at that location. Wireless micro-phones will be protected in a vari-ety of ways. The locations where wireless microphones are used,

such as sporting venues and event and production facilities, can be reg-istered in the database and will be protected in the same way as other services. The commission also has required that devices include the ability to listen to the airwaves to sense wireless microphones as an additional measure of protection for these devices. All white-space devic-es are subject to equipment certifi-cation by the FCC laboratory. This laboratory will request samples of the devices for testing to ensure that they meet all the pertinent requirements. The commission will also permit certification of devices that do not include the geolocation and database access capabilities, and instead rely solely on spectrum sensing to avoid causing harmful interference, subject to a much more rigorous approval process.

The FCC’s office of engineering and technology (OET) released a report titled “Evaluation of the Performance of Prototype TV-Band White Space Devices.” This report includes detailed results of labora-tory and field interference tests of several prototype TV band white-space devices. The commission con-ducted laboratory and field tests of prototype white-space devices as part of the aforementioned rule making to consider authorizing the operation of new low-power devices in the TV broadcast spec-trum at locations where individual channels or frequencies are not

being used for authorized services (TV white spaces) (ET docket nos. 04-186 and 02-380). The testing was open to the public. The test plan was initially released on January 2008 (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-118A1.doc). The report is available from www.fcc.gov.

The FCC’s OET has released a report titled “Advanced Wireless Service Interference Tests Results and Analysis.” The commission initiated the aforementioned pro-ceedings to consider new rules provisions for advanced wireless services (AWS). One of the princi-pal issues in these proceedings has been the potential for harmful inter-ference from AWS-3 operations in the 2,155–2,180 MHz band to AWS-1 operations in the band 2,110–2,155 MHz, particularly the potential for interference between mobile devices. The report discusses the test results of the laboratory bench tests that characterize the ability of mobile receivers to reject interfer-ence under various technical condi-tions. The report also analyzes the laboratory bench tests to assess the potential for harmful interference between mobile devices under typi-cal operating conditions and recom-mends standards to minimize this interference potential. The report tentatively concludes that for the static case that is examined AWS-3 devices could operate at a power level of up to 23 dBm/MHz equivalent

White Spaces

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isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and with out-of-band emissions (OOBE) attenuated by 60 1 10 3 log(P) dB without a significant risk of harmful interference. However, this report also notes that the commission has in the past adopted less stringent OOBE standards under flexible ser-vice rules whereby the licensees and industry work together coop-eratively to manage potential inter-ference. The report can be obtained from www.fcc.gov.

The Public Safety and Home-land Security Bureau (PSHSB) and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) have established a new 800-MHz vacated channel search engine that will enable pub-lic safety and critical infrastructure industry (CII) entities, frequency coor-dinators, and the public to identify 800 MHz channels in the interleaved band (809–815/854–860 MHz) that have been relinquished by Sprint Nextel Corporation (Sprint) as part of rebanding. The vacated spectrum will be made available for licens-ing to public safety and CII eligible entities. In the public notice, they announced only the availability of the search engine, which does not authorize the filing of applications for vacated channels. The application procedures will be announced with further public notices, which will identify the channels by region and frequency range and will set forth relevant application windows, filing procedures, and frequency coordina-tion requirements.

Long-Term Evolution

Verizon has detailed plans to build America’s first next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) network during the Mobile World Congress in Barce-lona, Spain. Verizon Wireless announced that it has selected Eric-sson and Alcatel-Lucent as the pri-mary network vendors for its initial LTE network deployments in the United States. These two vendors are expected to build the underlying infrastructure that will enable

Verizon Wireless to become the first wireless company to offer commer-cial LTE-based service in the United States, starting in 2010.

KDDI, Japan’s second largest cel-lular operator, has announced it will deploy a next-generation LTE wire-less network using a core networking solution from Hitachi collaborating with Nortel. The tender award of KDDI’s LTE core network includes the deployment of a new evolved packet core (EPC) from Hitachi, featuring Nortel’s new ATCA-based access gateway as a mobility man-agement entity (MME) and an evo-lution to KDDI’s existing operation, management, and provisioning sys-tem to ensure a seamless upgrade path to the new network.

Huawei Technologies announced that it has been chosen by Telia-Sonera, the largest telecoms opera-tor in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, to supply what they claim will be the world’s first commercial fourth-generation (4G)/LTE network, Oslo, Norway. Under the agreement, Huawei provides an environmentally friendly end-to-end LTE solution including LTE base stations, core network, and operating support sys-tem (OSS) covering Oslo.

Motorola announced it has com-pleted what it claims is the indus-try’s first over-the-air LTE data sessions in the 700-MHz spectrum using its LTE radio access test net-work and LTE eNode-B platform with a prototype LTE device. This testing milestone was achieved in Motorola labs and at an outdoor location in central Illinois. The ses-sions included mobile video stream-ing and various high-data-rate applications. The demonstrations also included execution of appli-cations priority that guarantees throughput using quality-of-service (QoS) aspects of the LTE standards. The lower-frequency bands provide better coverage and in-building penetration, which is a requirement for many mobile operators. In North America, the 700-MHz spectrum

auctioned earlier this year is part of the worldwide digital dividend, spectrum in the 470–862 MHz bands that has been freed by the switch from analog-to-digital TV.

China Mobile, Verizon Wire-less, and Vodafone have conducted joint laboratory trials of the time division duplex (TDD) version of LTE (TD-LTE), showing that the technology is capable of operating effectively in unpaired as well as paired spectrum. The LTE testing alliance, which has also conducted field tests of LTE frequency division duplex (LTE FDD), aims to develop a converged LTE FDD and TD-LTE system to enable an effective solu-tion for both FDD (paired) and TDD (unpaired) spectrum. As part of their ongoing three-way trials, the operators have successfully dem-onstrated in laboratory conditions the TD-LTE showing that the tech-nology is capable of operating effec-tively in both unpaired and paired spectrum. In addition to these initial results, a range of chipset suppli-ers including ST-Ericsson and Qual-comm are developing equipment capable of supporting both FDD and TDD flavors of the LTE technology in a single device. The trials are a step toward the goal of developing a single device capable of operating on TD-LTE technology in the case of unpaired spectrum or LTE FDD technology in the case of paired spectrum. The TD-LTE portion of the trial, which involves seven ven-dors, will progress to full-field trials in the second half of 2009. The loca-tions for these field trials have been agreed in China, Europe, and India.

Nortel has successfully com-pleted what it claims is the first end-to-end video streaming session using a TDD-based LTE network, working with commercial grade LTE base station and device prototypes in China. Engineers in Nortel’s China R&D Center of Excellence completed the streaming video session using Nortel’s LTE eNodeB (base sta-tion) with a prototype device for

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LTE TDD. China’s Government con-firmed earlier this year the award of third-generation (3G) licenses to the three major telecom operators in the country. China Mobile will operate a network based on the TD-SCDMA standard, China Telecom will operate a CDMA 2000-based net-work, and China Unicom will oper-ate the country’s W-CDMA network. LTE TDD is a standard that will be used to evolve China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network.

Huawei Technologies demon-strated what it claims is the world’s first unified FDD and TDD LTE solu-tion at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The new unified FDD and TDD LTE solution enables more efficient utilization of spec-trum resources and helps operators deliver the highest-quality mobile broadband networks at a signifi-cantly reduced cost.

LG Electronics announced that it has independently developed what it claims is the first handset modem chip based on 3G Partner-ship Project (3GPP) LTE standards. The modem chip can theoretically support wireless download speeds of 100 Mb/s and upload speeds of 50 Mb/s. LG demonstrated the chip at its Mobile Communication Tech-nology Research Lab in Anyang, Korea, achieving wireless down-load speeds of 60 Mb/s and upload speeds of 20 Mb/s. The fastest phones currently on the market use high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) technology and download at a maximum speed of 7.6 Mb/s. For its demonstration, LG used a test terminal running windows mobile to play back high-quality, on-demand video. In addition to this handset modem, LG is also developing the first preliminary LTE-based data card, which can replace the wireless cards currently used in computers.

The company picoChip has dis-closed details of what it claims is the industry’s first complete LTE base station reference designs. The PC8618 picocell and PC8608

femtocell platforms have been designed in conjunction with pico-Chip’s development and research partners, mimoOn and ASTRI. The two designs will support both FDD and TDD modes within LTE. It has recently announced a number of sniffer or radio environment scanner (RES) reference designs that pro-vide the fundamental measurement and reporting information needed for base stations to implement self-organizing network principles.

ICT and the Environment

Mobilkom Austria has launched what they claim is the first wind tur-bine-powered mobile base station. Energy efficiency and sustainability form the basis of this technical inno-vation from Mobilkom Austria, which draws the majority of its required power from wind. The ideal location for this project was discov-ered in Lower Austria. In addition to the Lower Austrians’ receptiveness to new technologies, the wind situa-tion in particular argued in favor of Eibesthal. The wind turbine with vertical axes can be used anywhere where there is sufficient wind. Thanks to its compact design, it is suitable for mounting on antenna masts as well as on building roofs. With successful live operation, the

company is aiming for a long-term upgrading of 7–10% of all base sta-tions in Austria to energy-efficient wind power.

Ericsson unveiled its latest energy-optimized radio base station site concept, a research project for a pioneering wind-powered tower tube. Working with vertical wind AB and Uppsala University in Sweden, Ericsson is developing the concept as part of its commitment to sus-tainable and cost-efficient solutions that help bring communications to all. The wind-powered tower tube takes the energy-lean design of Eric-sson’s original tower tube one step further by employing renewable energy. It harnesses wind power via a four-blade turbine with 5-m blades vertically attached to the tower. The vertical rotor blades work silently and minimize the load on the tower during operation. Trials will be con-ducted to determine if the design of the energy-efficient Ericsson tower tube and the vertical wind rotor blades work together to enable low-cost mobile communication, with reduced impacts on both the local and global environment. The Erics-son tower tube construction houses base stations and antennas, fully enclosing them in an aesthetically pleasing concrete tower. It has a smaller footprint and lower environ-mental impact than traditional steel towers with CO2 emissions related to materials, such as production and transportation, which are at least 30% lower. Furthermore, the Ericsson tower tube has no need for feeders and cooling systems. With up to 40% lower power consumption than traditional base station sites, it helps operators reduce their operat-ing costs significantly.

Motorola announced the world’s first mobile phone made using plas-tics composed of recycled water bottles, the MOTO W233 Renew. Not only is the plastic housing of Renew made from plastics composed of recycled water bottles and 100% recyclable, but it is also the world’s

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first carbon neutral phone. Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon diox-ide required to manufacture, dis-tribute, and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree Product Certifica-tion after an extensive product life-cycle assessment.

Alcatel-Lucent announced a sig-nificant enhancement to its global system for mobile communications (GSM)/EDGE mobile networking portfolio that can reduce power con-sumption by up to 27%. The power reductions were demonstrated dur-ing January field trial this year with China Mobile in the country’s Jiangsu province. On average, a 24% power saving has been achieved. This new feature, called dynamic power save (DPS), is for Alcatel-Lucent’s GSM/EDGE base stations. It does not impact the QoS provided to subscrib-ers, not just at night, but also during high-traffic periods. Because this is a software upgrade, this enhance-ment can be installed on all Alcatel-Lucent multistandard base stations deployed since 1999, some 500,000 stations. Alcatel-Lucent’s DPS capa-bility involves switching off the power amplifier in GSM transceivers. It enables the base station to moni-tor traffic activity on the network and when there is no information to transmit, even for very short periods of time, the amplifier is switched off. This process offers substantial cost savings at night when calling vol-umes are naturally lower, but also, because of the sensitivity of the monitoring techniques, considerable power savings are available during busy times as well. These saving are obtained without any increases in call blocking or reductions in packet data throughput, and so the service quality remains high.

ABI Research expects that the market for autonomous solar powered cell sites will grow to more than 40,000 renewable energy sites

by the end of 2013. The firm also expects that a further 295,000 base stations with supplement on-grid power usage with solar.

Research and Technology

NTT DOCOMO announced that it has successfully developed a trial large-scale-integration (LSI) chip that consumes less than 0.04 W of power yet supports multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal detection and decoding for down-link transmissions at 100 Mb/s, the speed required for the forth-coming mobile system known as super 3G, or LTE, approved by the 3GPP. Compared with chips cur-rently used in handsets compati-b l e w i t h D O C O M O ’s H S D PA service, which have a maximum downlink rate of 7.2 Mb/s, the new chip will enable downlinks that are more than ten times as fast. In September 2007, DOCOMO devel-oped a trial LSI chip that demodu-l a t e s o r t h o g o n a l f re q u e n c y division multiplexing (OFDM) sig-nals and detects MIMO signals transmitted from four antennas at a rate of 200 Mb/s, and also con-sumes no more than 0.1 W of power. The chip being announced this time demodulates OFDM sig-nals transmitted in the 20 MHz bandwidth from two antennas and detects MIMO signals based on maximum likelihood detection (MLD) technology, which ensures relatively high-quality communica-tion even in bad environments for signal reception. The chip also includes error correction decod-ing, which requires almost the same level of complexity as MIMO signal detection. In the new chip, which is made with 65-nm process-ing, the circuits have been further optimized, particularly by elimi-nating redundant circuits for com-putationally complex processes such as MIMO- signal detection and error-correction decoding. DOCOMO will incorporate its new LSI chip technology in ongoing research

and development of LTE and inter-national mobile telecommunica-tions-advanced (IMT-Advanced) systems, as well as in its active support of the establishment of related international standards.

ZTE and Hong Kong’s mobile operator CSL new world mobility (CSLNWM) announced that they would work together to build in Hong-Kong what they claim is the world’s first software defined radio (SDR) based high-speed packet access (HSPA1) network making it the first large-scale all-IP network with such technology. ZTE will upgrade CSLNWM’s existing infrastructure with a fully integrated second gen-eration (2G) and 3G all-IP SDR-based network. Furthermore, ZTE and CSLNWM have successfully com-pleted testing of the HSPA+ network capability in Hong Kong on 15 Febru-ary 2009, delivering HSPA+ (64QAM) services, which can provide up to 21 Mb/s download speed. The dual-mode 2G/3G SDR CSLNWM network will be the first large-scale all-IP net-work in the world, delivering supe-rior services and user experience, while providing a smooth transition from the existing network to HSPA1.

Nokia Siemens Networks has successfully demonstrated relay-ing technology proposed for LTE-advanced, enabling an exceptional end-user experience delivered con-sistently across the network. Com-pleted in Nokia Siemens Networks research facilities in Germany, the demonstration illustrated how advances to relaying technology can further improve the quality and coverage consistency of a network at the cell edge, where users are furthest from the mobile broadband base station. Relaying technology, which can also be integrated in nor-mal base station platforms, is cost efficient and easy to deploy as it does not require additional backhaul. The demonstration of LTE-advanced means operators can plan their LTE network investments knowing that the already best-in-class LTE radio

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performance, including cell edge data rates, can be further improved and that the technological develop-ment path for the next stage of LTE is secure and future proof. These performance enhancements have been achieved by combining an LTE system supporting a 2 3 2 MIMO antenna system and a relay sta-tion. The relaying operates in-band, which means that the relay stations inserted in the network do not need an external data backhaul. They are connected to the nearest base sta-tions using radio resources within the operating frequency band of the base station itself. Toward the terminal they are base stations and offer the full functionality of LTE. LTE-advanced is currently being studied by 3GPP for Release 10 and will be submitted toward ITU-R as the 3GPP radio interface technology proposal. The improved cell cover-age and system fairness (meaning offering higher user data rates for and fair treatment of users distant from the base station) will allow operators to utilize existing LTE net-work infrastructure and still meet growing bandwidth demands. The demonstration has been realized using an intelligent demo relay node embedded in a test network forming a FDD in-band self-backhauling solu-tion for coverage enhancements. With this demonstration, the per-formance at the cell edge could be increased up to 50% of the peak throughput.

First responders could boost their radio communications quickly at a disaster site by setting out just four extra transmitters in a ran-dom arrangement to significantly increase the signal power at the receiver, according to theoretical analyses, simulations and proof-of-concept experiments performed at the National Institute of Stan-

dards and Technology (NIST). The NIST work may provide a practical solution to a common problem in emergency communications. The vast amount of metal- and steel-reinforced concrete in buildings and rubble often interferes with or blocks radio signals. Antenna arrays have been studied and used for years, but the latest NIST work provides sev-eral new twists. Unlike the typical case in which antenna arrays boost signals to or from a distant target, a first responder’s radio would be rel-atively close to the portable trans-mitters, ideally within the perimeter of the array. More importantly, since disaster sites rarely allow for niceties of design, NIST studied the benefits of a fast and imprecise technique, randomly placed antennas com-bined with coarse signal matching. The signals produced by the radio and portable transmitters need to operate at the same frequency and roughly in phase, such that the radio waves are fairly well synchronized and thus build on each other. Phase matching was performed manually in the experiments but might even-tually be possible remotely. The NIST experiments covered a range of communications scenarios, using up to eight transmitters at different locations as well as objects such as concrete blocks that scatter radio waves. Across all experimental scenarios, researchers observed at least a 7-dB median power gain, roughly a five-fold increase in the median received power, when split-ting the power among four in-phase transmitting antennas, compared to using just a single transmitter. More important, researchers observed a two and a half to four-fold increase in the median signal at the radio receiver when using four in-phase transmitters instead of four ran-domly phased transmitters. More

than four extra transmitters offered diminishing returns.

Sierra Wireless has introduced what it claims is the world’s smallest universal serial bus (USB) modems for global mobile broadband, the Compass 888 and the Compass 889. The difference between the two models is found in their network compatibility (the Compass 888 supports HSPA networks using the 850, 1,900, and 2,100 MHz frequency bands, whereas the Compass 889 supports 900, 1,900, and 2,100 MHz frequency bands). Networks in Europe are expected to begin using the 900-MHz frequency band within the next year. Sierra Wireless also introduced the Sierra Wireless USB 306 and the USB 307, the world’s first mobile broadband USB modems for HSPA1 networks. The new modems nearly triple the speed of other mobile broadband devices, with peak download speeds of 21 Mb/s, making them the fastest mobile broadband devices available. The Sierra Wireless USB 306 and USB 307 modems are expected to ship within the first half of this year. The USB 306 is designed for North American and Asia-Pacific regions, operating on the 850, 1,900, and 2,100 MHz bands, and the USB 307 is optimized for Europe, operating on the 900 and 2,100 MHz bands.

3.5G

Ericsson announced what it claims is the first-ever demonstration of the new HSPA multicarrier technology for peak downlink data rates of 42 Mb/s at the Mobile World Congress in Bar-celona. Multicarrier technology is the next step in the evolution of HSPA and enables consumers to receive data simultaneously on two-frequency channels. This doubles the user data rate in the coverage area of an HSPA network and on the cell edge, where consumers normally experience lower data rates. As a result, the peak down-link data rate increases from today’s fastest available 21–42 Mb/s. This sig-nificantly improves the consumer

NETWORKS IN EUROPE ARE EXPECTED TO BEGIN USING THE 900-MHZ FREQUENCY BAND WITHIN THE NEXT YEAR.

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experience for online services with high-quality content.

Ericsson and Telstra achieved the successful activation of HSPA Evolution functionality capable of peak network speeds up to 21 Mb/s into the Telstra Next genera-tion commercial network, and what they claim is the world’s first data call on the newly enabled network. For the first time, a commercial net-work makes use of the enhanced, standardized improvements called HSPA evolution.

ZTE Corporation announced it has achieved the world’s first EV-DO Revision B (Rev.B) VoIP Call on its CDMA 2000 system, marking the first time in the industry that a CDMA vendor achieves an impressive 9.3 Mb/s download rate and 5.4 Mb/s upload rate. EV-DO is a telecommu-nications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access. It was designed as an evolution of the CDMA 2000 (IS-2000) standard that would support high data rates and could be deployed alongside a wireless carrier’s voice services. It is standardized by 3GPP2 as part of the CDMA 2000 family of standards and has been adopted by many mobile phone ser v ice providers worldwide, particularly those previously employing CDMA networks. The company has com-pleted the first stage of achieving EV-DO Rev.B and adopted three-carrier bundling technology, with each carrier having a bandwidth of 1.25 MHz. Compared with mature commercial EV-DO Rev.A, what ZTE’s EV-DO Rev.B does is to only upgrade EV-DO Rev.A’s software, with no additional hardware equipment required. Both ZTE’s EV-DO Rev.A and Rev.B adopt identical baseband chipset. ZTE plans to commercial-ize its EV-DO Rev.B system in Q3 2009. In future, EV-DO Rev.B can bundle up to a maximum of 15 carri-ers, with a download (forward) rate of 73.5 Mb/s and an upload (reverse) rate of 27 Mb/s.

Qualcomm has introduced the industry’s first chipset solution for advanced Smartphones supporting CDMA 2000 13EV-DO Rev. B and Simultaneous Voice-Data Operation (SV-DO), as well as multicarrier HSPA1 and LTE. According to Qual-comm, the mobile station modem (MSM) MSM8960 chipset is the indus-try’s only complete integrated solu-tion that supports all of the world’s leading mobile broadband standards.

StarHub, a telecoms operator in Singapore, has deployed what it claims is the world’s first commercial 3G femtocell network. A 3G femtocell is a portable wireless access device that connects 3G mobile handsets directly to a standard broadband digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable service to provide mobile voice and data coverage in the home and office environment. Femtocells are particu-larly useful for areas where broad-band access would otherwise be limited or unavailable.

Nokia Siemens Networks has made what it claims is the world’s first Downlink Dual Carrier EDGE end-to-end call with mobile devices. Downlink Dual Carrier is a software-based solution that can double data speeds to 592 kb/s on existing EDGE-capable GSM networks. Nokia Sie-mens Networks’ Dual Carrier EDGE solution, which will be available as a software upgrade is the first step in evolving EDGE. Dual Carrier is based on the 3GPP release 7 standard.

Mobile broadband industry asso-ciation the universal mobile tele-communications system (UMTS) forum has confirmed that 3G sub-scriptions to UMTS networks based on wideband code division mul-tiple access (WCDMA) technology have exceeded 300 million. UMTS/WCDMA now represents almost a tenth of global GSM/UMTS family

(comprising GSM, EDGE, WCDMA, and HSPA) that now surpasses 3.3 billion connections. Of more than 300 million UMTS subscrib-ers worldwide, this total includes almost 60 million customers of HSPA networks.

Mobile TV

ICO Global Communications and Alcatel-Lucent have demonstrated what they claim is the world’s first fully integrated satellite-terrestrial network being used to deliver mobile video and interactive two-way com-munications services. Working with ICO, Alcatel-Lucent has developed mobile video technology using the worldwide digital video broadcast-satellite services to handheld (DVB-SH) standard. The mobile video demonstrations include eight chan-nels of national news, entertainment and children’s content delivered to 7–10 in video screens, highlighting the advantages of mobile video deliv-ered to larger screens with high-qual-ity picture resolution.

Qatar Telecom and Nokia Siemens Networks have signed what they claim is the world’s first commer-cial Mobile TV deployment contract based on DVB-H and OMA BCast Smart Card Profile technology. With OMA BCast SCP, mobile operators are able to integrate the manage-ment rights for mobile TV broadcast content, provided via DVB-H, into their existing infrastructure.

According to ABI Research, mobile TV services should attract more than 500 million viewers by 2013.

WiMAX

ZTE has officially launched what it claims is the industry’s smallest worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX). 16e remote radio unit (RRU) product,

MULTICARRIER TECHNOLOGY IS THE NEXT STEP IN THE EVOLUTION OF HSPA AND ENABLES CONSUMERS TO RECEIVE DATA SIMULTANEOUSLY ON TWO-FREQUENCY CHANNELS.

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the R9110 that helps reduce the number of base stations by 50%, hence enabling telecom operators to maximize their return on invest-ment (ROI). ZTE RRU R9110 is based on BF438 multiantenna technology, which effectively improves signal quality from a single base station, allowing extensive network cover-age and enhanced network perfor-mance. Compared with traditional devices using MIMO technology, RRU R9110 further minimizes the number of base stations to 35–50%, helping telecom operators reduce network construction and mainte-nance costs. In addition, the latest RRU device supports dual carrier discontinuous spectrum, enabling a maximum speed of 100 MHz expan-sion between uplink and downlink. By leveraging on this advantage, telecom carriers using traditional FDD spectrum can save cost and investment on RRU, antenna, and wireless tower required in network expansion by up to 50%.

Samsung Electronics and ETRI announced the live demonstra-tion of mobile WiMAX evolution. Mobile WiMAX evolution system provides the enhanced data speed four times faster than the speed of current Mobile WiMAX technology while improving the efficiency of frequency allocation. It is compat-ible with currently available mobile WiMAX devices so that users of Mobile WiMAX evolution service can communicate without any hassle with legacy Mobile WiMAX devices. Mobile WiMAX evolution provides downlink peak rate of 149 Mb/s and uplink peak rate of 43 Mb/s. Mobile WiMAX evolution incorporates multiuser MIMO tech-nology, the next-generation MIMO technology to increase the effi-ciency of frequency usage.

Airspan Networks announced that it has successfully dem-onstrated a unique, seamless, uninterrupted handover from one frequency band on a mobile WiMAX network to another frequency band.

The demonstration network is using the Airspan HiperMAX base sta-tion in 3.6 GHz frequency band and the MacroMAXe base station in the 2.5 GHz band communicating with a MiMAX Q-Series quad-band USB device connected to a laptop roam-ing between the two base stations. Staged in the United Kingdom, this achievement was performed with the collaboration of long-term cus-tomer and partner FREEDOM4 and strategic partners Starent-Networks, using their access service network (ASN) gateway for connection man-agement, and bridgewater systems, using their subscriber management solution that delivers carrier-grade authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) services. Airspan Networks also announced the release of a new 700-MHz WiMAX product suite targeted at rural mar-kets in areas of the United States and around the world.

ZTE has also announced what it claims is the world’s first WiMAX mobile video surveillance terminal. Integrated with highly advanced WiMAX 16e chipset, the Mi100 smoothly enables automatic access and connection to WiMAX wireless network. It supports high-speed mobile remote surveillance of up to a maximum speed of 100 km/h. With a compact and portable size of only 115 3 62 3 50 mm3, the Mi100 terminal is easy to install and does not require additional modulated decoder compared with traditional mobile video surveil-lance terminals.

The WiMAX Forum announced the launch of its global roaming pro-gram that allows operators and ven-dors to easily obtain the information required to establish WiMAX roam-ing services. The program is now live and can be easily accessed directly at www.wimaxroaming.org. The WIMAX Forum global roaming pro-gram includes several documents for WiMAX Forum member compa-nies implementing roaming services, including technical specifications, a

test plan, a roaming contract tem-plate, and a guide to follow when implementing roaming. The WiMAX Forum also announced that WiMAX service providers now offer net-works covering 430 million people globally and are on a path to nearly double to 800 million people by end of 2010. In addition, global WiMAX network deployments are approach-ing 460 in more than 135 countries for fixed, portable, and mobile net-works.

Industry Forecasts

and Surveys

According to IDC, the global mobile phone industry will sell 2.2% fewer devices in 2009 after increasing sales by 7.3% in 2008 (1.2 billion units) but will rebound with 7.7% in 2010. However, strategy analytics announced that global mobile phone shipments fell 10% year over year, reaching 295 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008. Three of the big five cell phone vendors, Motoro-la, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia, record-ed negative annual growth rates in the fourth quarter. A similar trend has been observed by Gartner that claims that worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 314.7 mil-lion units in the fourth quarter of 2008, a 4.6% decline from the fourth quarter of 2007.

ABI Research has forecasted the worldwide radio-frequency identi-fication (RFID) market will exceed US$5.3 billion in 2008. Annual rev-enue growth will increase over the next five years. Excluding automo-bile immobilization, the market is expected to experience a 15% com-pound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2008 through 2013.

ABI Research has estimated that the machine-to-machine (M2M) market will ship 95 million cellular modules by 2013, with telemetry and telematics accounting for 73 million of those connections.

Portio Research estimates the whole mobile messaging industry worth US$130 billion in 2008 will be

JUNE 2009 | IEEE VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE ||| 11

worth US$224 billion by 2013, repre-senting 60% of nonvoice service rev-enues. In particular, the firm expects mobile instant messaging (MIM) to grow exponentially from a world-wide total of 111 million users in 2008 to 867 million users by the end of 2013.

F ro st & S u l l iv a n e s t i mate s that the mobile social and con-tent advertising market revenues should reach US$2.77 billion in 2012 in Europe. Mobile content advertis-ing, ad-based music, video, TV, and games will represent the major source of revenues.

Juniper Research expects that the number of mobile phone subscribers that use their phones for mobile banking transactions will exceed 150 million globally by 2011. These figures refer to additive banking, which is focused on developed mar-kets rather than transformational banking. The firm said that the mobile banking market is currently most advanced in the Far East, and it expects the developed nations of the Far East, North America, and Western Europe to account for more than 70% of the user base by 2011.

According to Analysys Mason, a tenfold increase in wireless net-work traffic in developed regions should be expected by 2015 as data traffic rapidly overtakes voice. The firm expects that while developed regions will account for just 25% of the cellular user population by 2015, they will generate 65% of total global wireless network traffic.

The Kelsey Group estimates that U.S. mobile advertising revenues (search and display) will grow to US$3.1 billion in 2013, from US$160 million in 2008, representing a CAGR of 81.2%. During the same period, the firm forecasts mobile local search advertising revenues will increase from US$20 million to US$1.3 billion, a CAGR of 130.5%. In a different report, GfK said that mobile advertising awareness grew 33% in nine months against a back-drop of 6% growth in cell phone

usage. The firm said that nearly four out of ten Americans with a cell phone recall seeing advertising on the device between July and Sep-tember 2008.

Other News

The Femto Forum has announced the results of its femtocell radio study. The study found that femto-cells have the potential to deliver an order of magnitude more capacity than the macro network alone when used in dense deployments, even when occupying the same radio channel as the macrocells. It also identified numerous technological solutions that mitigate potential interference with the macronetwork to remove barriers to wide-scale deployment and maximize the capac-ity benefits. The research assessed the impact of femtocells on a mobile network in a wide range of deploy-ment scenarios to explore coexis-tence issues including interference. The study looked at both femtocells using a separate carrier to the sur-rounding macronetwork and those using the same carrier, which pose the greatest interference challenge, but also the greatest opportunity for increased spectrum efficiency. Although femtocells using a sepa-rate carrier were demonstrated to provide a simple means to essential-ly eliminate interference, many 3G operators do not have enough spec-trum for this to be practical. The Femto Forum, therefore, identified technological solutions that mitigate the potential interference where femtocells share the same carrier as the macro network. These methods are already being developed for pre-standard femtocell solutions, and Femto Forum members are working to bring them within the standards framework. The key solutions are adaptive pilot power control, extended tests for dynamic range, uplink power capping, and dynamic receiver gain management.

The International Telecommuni-cation Union (ITU) announced in

New York that worldwide mobile cellular subscribers were likely to reach the 4 billion mark by the end of 2008. Since the turn of the century, the growth of mobile cel-lular subscribers has been impres-sive, with year-on-year growth averaging 24% between 2000 and 2008. While in 2000, mobile pen-etration stood at only 12%, and it surpassed the 50% mark by early 2008. It is estimated to reach about 61% by the end of 2008. While the data shows impressive growth, ITU stresses that the figures need to be carefully interpreted. In fact, the statistics reflect the number of subscriptions not persons. ITU further highlights that, despite high growth rates in the mobile sector, major differences in mobile penetration rates remain between regions and within countries. The impressive growth in the number of mobile cellular subscribers is mainly due to developments in some of the world’s largest mar-kets. The economies of Brazil, Rus-sia, India, and China (BRIC) are expected to have an increasingly important impact in terms of popu-lation, resources, and global gross domestic product (GDP) share. These economies alone were expected to account for more than 1.3 billion mobile subscribers by the end of 2008.

Motorola has demonstrated public safety wireless broadband applications over a live, 700-MHz wireless broadband system. The demonstration features a vehicle equipped with 700-MHz OFDM being driven in the City of San Diego transmitting video and dis-patch data back to the conven-tion center. This real time system demonstrates an effective priori-tization of public safety applica-tions over a congested network. The 700-MHz band is viewed as a valuable resource for public safety agencies seeking to introduce enhanced data services and rich multimedia applications.