Twin Tracks To Broadband Nirvana !

[Honest 836]

Twin tracks to broadband nirvana

Business Line

With the upcoming auction of spectrum in 3G and WiMAX Indian telecom is at historic cross roads. Anand Parthasarathy suggests why these technologies need to complement, not compete..

TV on mobile: Visitors at the BSNL stand of the Indian Telecom show experience TV on mobile phone and laptop, harnessing 3G networks.

Remember the nursery rhyme about a child offered a choice between pudding and pie:

“Which would you rather?/Asked her father/‘Both’ said Jane/Quite bold and plain.”

Children don’t like making a choice between goodies that they love. And so it is for nations, which are pushed by vested interests, industry lobbies and a breathless media into choosing between competing technologies that promise a broadband telecom nirvana. Headlines that shout ‘WiMAX 3G’ or ‘The Big Fight’ or ‘Cyber shakeout’ seriously distort the issue, suggesting that there is some sort of ‘dharma sankat’ in deciding India’s future communication roadmap.

WiMAX Tablet: Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet lets you switch from WiFi to WiMAX at will.

But why compete when cooperation is indicated? That ugly word ‘coopetition,’ in fact, puts it succinctly: The twin technologies, both with spectrum up for grabs through an auctioner’s gavel, are not, as they are often made out to be, exclusive. And sane planning will ensure that India benefits from the lessons learnt by faster, early movers, profit from the growing maturity of both technologies, and chart a course that will make the mathematically impossible happen: parallel tracks meeting to achieve national goals.

What, then, are the options?

3G is the third generation of telecommunication standards for mobile networking based on specifications created by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) under the family ‘ITU 2000.’ Using High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), 3G gives mobile telephony operators the ability to offer a combination of voice, video and broadband data services at rates up to 14.4 megabits for a second one way (down link) and 5.8 MBPS, the other direction (uplink).

It is important to understand that unlike WiFi, which is a short range, wireless data system, 3G is a wide area technology that rides the cellular phone networks and extends high-speed Internet access and television to the mobile phone. 3G became a reality in 2001, when NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese operator, first offered it to its subscribers, using a technology (FOMA) that has today evolved into what is known as W-CDMA or Wideband CDMA. This is the path that all cellular operators working in the GSM or Global System for Mobile communication need to follow to go 3G. The other cell-phone technology, CDMA or Code Division Multiple Access, has its own upgrade path to 3G and it is called CDMA2000.

WiMAX or Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access is a wireless telecommunications technology based on the IEEE 802.16 standard with a theoretical top speed of 70-75 MBPS and unlike WiFI (802.11), its range is not measured in dozens of metres but extends up to 50 km. However, you can’t have your cake and eat it too: you can have 50 km of range at reduced data speeds or top speeds at much shorter distances, not both at the same time. WiMAX has been successfully used in conjunction with 2G or even 3G cellular technologies to provide the ‘back haul’, carrying the signal over dozens of km to a point from where it can drive a cellular mobile network. In that sense, WiMAX was a wireless but stationary technology…. till 2005, when a new WiMAX standard, 802.16e, came into being, defining the use of WIMAX on mobile platforms, such as phones. It is this last development that led to the rash of WiMAX v 3G headlines: now both have the ability to fuel similar data speeds on mobile platforms.

While mobile WiMAX is an attractive proposition in itself, the world’s cellular phone industry clearly has a vested interest in going 3G along its own technology path rather than switching to WiMAX. But the ‘unconnected’ of the world still exceed the connected — so WiMAX evangelists see a clear and present opportunity.

Official India has tended to see WiMAX as the broadband technology for proliferating into the rural hinterland, a sort of aam janatha thing. 3G, on the other hand, is being projected as something that is for the premier customer of mobile phones. (See ‘Roll out obligations: WiMAX players seek level playing field’ in Business Line, December 23) Need this be so? No, says Kanwalinder Singh, Senior Vice-President of Qualcomm, US, and President of its India operation, a company that has moved beyond being a supplier of intellectual property that drives the CDMA business to a broad role in digital wireless communications.

PC alternative

3G on PC: Qualcomm India President, Kanwalinder Singh, with the Kayak Alternative PC.

At the India Telecom show in Delhi earlier this month, he showed this correspondent a PC-like machine with an extremely small footprint, hardly bigger than a DVD player. Attached to a standard PC monitor, it becomes what Qualcomm calls a ‘PC Alternative’ or Kayak PC: a full featured Internet access device supporting standard keyboard and mouse, running a Linux operating system and an Opera browser, doubling as 3-D games machine and music player.

What’s special about the Kayak is that it is one of the first PCs to come 3G-enabled. Qualcomm’s Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chip set can latch on to the nearest 3G phone network, just as a data card does for laptops and 2G today.

At India Telecom, MTNL had just installed a free trial 3G network — and using MTNL’s own metering tool I measured the download speed of a large picture file using the Kayak at an amazing 1.5 Mbps … a speed I had never experienced before, using a mobile phone connection. Qualcomm has launched a solution called Snapdragon, which will allow a host of hand-held devices to switch seamlessly between available 2G, 3G or WiFI networks — and the result will see a new category of global broadband Internet devices hit the market next year. Companies such as Qualcomm want to buck the trend and project 3G as a technology to penetrate emerging mass markets rather than something that provides the icing on the cake for premier phone users.

If Snapdragon can turn a PC into a phone like mobile device, why not do the reverse?

Mainstream PC chip players such as Intel are doing just that — and they are doing it the WiMAX way. A few weeks ago in Baltimore, US, Intel joined with Sprint to launch the fastest mobile broadband network in that country, which, speed-wise, should be called 4G rather than 3G. Using Intel’s new combined WiFi-WiMAX module, ‘EchoPeak’ will help many PC makers bridge the gap to broadband very soon.

At the Baltimore event, Nokia unveiled its new N810 WiMAX-enabled Internet tablet, with full qwerty key pad, 2 GB of memory, a 4 inch display and a Linux system…. A phone on steroids that looks very much like a PC. Even more traditionally styled smart phones such as the Nokia N97 or Motorola’s M 75 become hand-held computers once they are fuelled by 3G. The MC75 now available in India supports both CDMA and GSM 3G standards as well as all flavours of WiFi.

“It unleashes the power of convergence, allowing a field force to take decisions in real time,” says Motorola’s regional sales director (enterprise mobility), Jayant Rustogi. Intel is partnering with the WiMAX Forum to bring a number of affordable WiMAX-ready devices to India in the coming weeks.

Bridging digital divide

Meanwhile, many Indian States are going ahead with industry partners, putting in place broadband networks to bridge the digital divide:

Chhattisgarh has teamed with Nortel on one hand and Juniper on the other to create a State Wide Area Network (SWAN), partly wired, partly wireless (WiFi, WiMAX) that is already making the State a model for its e-governance initiatives. Nortel has completed similar projects in the North-Eastern states, while Juniper’s solutions have been used in Himachal Pradesh and Bihar.

In fixed network broadband, Alcatel-Lucent is a leader with significant presence in India and partnerships with many telecom providers. Ericsson has launched the Gramjyoti Rural Broadband project to bring the benefits of cellular 3G technologies such as WCDMA and HSPA to rural India. It has been promoting a term, BWA for Broadband Wireless Access, that would include elements of WiMAX and cellular broadband.

That may well be a harbinger of the way things will shake out in future, a ‘masala mix’ of appropriate broadband technologies, 3G, WiMAX, or whatever to connect the unconnected of India, where the situation on the ground decides what works best — not corporate preferences or political expediency. Let’s hope IT’s a happy and ‘connected’ New Year!

[santhoshavanoor 7]

But in India 3G is introduced only before 2 weeks. And there is some problems with the spectrucm allocation. All operators are looking for Metors and importance cities. When they will take care about villages? Why operators are going behind 3G? They should want to look at WiMAX. They can cover village areas also as the same cost or lower than 3G. But they should want to use Mobile WiMAX as Kamal said 802.16e version.

Simple doubt: How much they will charge for 3G datas, video calling, and what will be the speed?

[prakashkadam 1]

This talk about bridging digital divide etc. just hypocrisy. These people are here for business and this type of talk is to generate good will nothing else.

Look at the prices of broadband services and you will understand the situation on ground.

But in India 3G is introduced only before 2 weeks. And there is some problems with the spectrucm allocation. All operators are looking for Metors and importance cities. When they will take care about villages? Why operators are going behind 3G? They should want to look at WiMAX. They can cover village areas also as the same cost or lower than 3G. But they should want to use Mobile WiMAX as Kamal said 802.16e version.

Simple doubt: How much they will charge for 3G datas, video calling, and what will be the speed?

[commonman 228]

BSNL's EVDO wireless datacard service @ 550 p.m. (1.8 Mbps UL) is probably the cheapest u can get.

Only wish they had enabled roaming.

Edited December 30, 2008 by commonman

[santhoshavanoor 7]

BSNL's EVDO wireless datacard service @ 550 p.m. (1.8 Mbps UL) is probably the cheapest u can get.

Only wish they had enabled roaming.

This seems very good with a speed of 1.8 Megabits per second and unlimited bandwidth. But what's the coverage? and did you getting the speed what they offered?

[Honest 836]

^^^

My dear Santhosh, BSNL's EVDO Data Card can be used only in the circles where it has been purchased. No Roaming available.

And regarding speeds, earlier their were some issues. Hope BSNL must have done the needful by now.

Regards.

[Harshal 11]

If such prices are offered for mobile then the fixed ISPs are going to face some serious heat. I am paying 700 for 128 kbps UL to VSNL for fixed internet. 550 for 1.8 mbps UL mobile is too good to be true.

[santhoshavanoor 7]

^^^

My dear Santhosh, BSNL's EVDO Data Card can be used only in the circles where it has been purchased. No Roaming available.

And regarding speeds, earlier their were some issues. Hope BSNL must have done the needful by now.

Regards.

Thanks for the info Kamal...

Why they are charging for roming in different circles with the same operator? TRAI should want to consider whole India, not by state, metros, etc. If we look in Gulf region, in Saudi Arabia, UAE, here in Bahrain there is no roaming charges for the same operator wherever you are in these countries. Now a days Zain is offering free roaming in 20 countries where they have license. Our operators should want to follow like this. we don''t want borders between states, metros, etc. We don't want roaming. We need freedom to use our mobiles within whole of our country without any roaming charges.!!!!

With regards

[Honest 836]

^^^

MY dear Santhosh, even if someone want to pay and use this BSNL Data Card in Roaming, then also he's not allowed to use the same in Roaming.

Can't say, what could be the logic behind this. This is no good of BSNL

Regards.

[commonman 228]

BSNL EVDO is an extension of their Tarang CDMA WLL mobile service. The numbering pattern followed is that of Landline. So mobility limited to the SDCA to which the number belongs. But heard they are soon launching full mobility CDMA operations. May be then things would change.

[commonman 228]

If such prices are offered for mobile then the fixed ISPs are going to face some serious heat. I am paying 700 for 128 kbps UL to VSNL for fixed internet. 550 for 1.8 mbps UL mobile is too good to be true.

Unfortunately BSNL does not operate in Mumbai

[santhoshavanoor 7]

BSNL EVDO is an extension of their Tarang CDMA WLL mobile service. The numbering pattern followed is that of Landline. So mobility limited to the SDCA to which the number belongs. But heard they are soon launching full mobility CDMA operations. May be then things would change.

So when we will get freedom from the SDCA's. Also I remember that I have been complained to Reliance regarding my network coverage, then firstly they inform me that because of this SDCA problem they can't increase the capacity of antenna. There will be a colash between SDCA's. After they have been changed the numbering scheme, still they are not improved.