Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. made headlines last week by announcing it was part of an effort to develop standards for a new mobile-phone technology that would transfer data more than 10 times faster than current third-generation networks. But exactly what that technology will be capable of-or even what it will be-is years from being determined.
Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Vodafone Group plc, Siemens AG, Lucent Technologies Inc. and Motorola Inc. are among more than two dozen UMTS technology carriers and manufacturers that have signed on to the effort. DoCoMo initiated the move last month at a meeting held by the Third Generation Partnership Project, a 200-member association of carriers, manufacturers and technology companies.
More members are likely to join the group, which will spend the next 18 months studying the matter. The group hopes to establish specifications for a new technology-which some call “Super 3G”-by mid-2007. New networks could come online by 2009.
“They’re just in the beginning stages of addressing what is needed and how it would be done,” said Chris Pearson, president of 3G Americas, an association of GSM-related companies. “Companies have been doing this on their own already. That’s why it was important to have this as a work item.”
The companies hope to achieve speeds of 100 megabits per second on a downlink and 50 Mbps on an uplink. They’re also working to improve spectrum efficiency and reduce network latency times.
Carriers worldwide are looking to wireless data services to shore up sagging voice revenues and have spent billions developing new infrastructures. Numerous European carriers have launched UMTS networks in recent months. Cingular has said it will launch UMTS/HSDPA services in 100 of the largest U.S. cities by the end of 2006.
Early reports indicate DoCoMo is likely to spend $1 billion to upgrade its network for Super 3G. But a new technology that provides faster, more efficient data transmissions while expanding on existing systems could increase revenues without forcing carriers to build entirely new networks, according to Paul Mankiewich, chief technology officer of mobility solutions for Lucent.
“It’s important to remember that this is backwards compared to what we’ve done before,” Mankiewich said. “We’re not going to rip out any old networks … That was part of the reason for calling it `Super 3G.’ “
Last week, Motorola said it had achieved speeds of 2.9 Mbps during trials of High-Speed Downlink Packet Access with five major European operators. The handset manufacturer said HSDPA-which is expected to enable mobile broadband-will give operators increased transmission efficiency and greater user capacity after its commercial launch later this year.
“The key to HSDPA is its versatility. A whole range of applications can be supported whilst standard circuit-switched applications can be utilized via UMTS bearers,” said Dr. Tom Quirke, director of marketing for Motorola’s GSM and UMTS Radio Active Network Solutions. “The business success of the first mobile broadband technologies will arguably impact the success of future standards,” including any eventual Super 3G network.
Despite its name, it’s unclear where Super 3G will fit in the evolutionary chain of wireless networks. Some believe any real advances in technology may require fundamentally new infrastructures. So the work going into Super 3G ultimately may end up as fourth-generation technology, according to Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research.
“I think (enhancing 3G networks) is what HSDPA, 1x EV-D0 are for,” Rysavy said. “Both of those were, `How can we take the CDMA concept and take it to its fundamental limit?’ “
Several industry analysts have criticized the group for focusing on long-term technologies even as nascent 3G networks struggle with consistency and quality issues. But while some operators may be taking their lumps for over promising and under delivering high-tech data services, they’re constantly working toward next-generation networks-the new pact just allows them to work together.
“This is what we do all the time,” said Lucent’s Mankiewich.
“The standards are always running a year or two ahead of the product, and we’ve got to keep doing that … You don’t really have any time to sleep.”
