IT TRENDS
3G: the road ahead It trends
— photo: Anand Parthasarathy
On display: An MTNL engineer sets up the 3G network for its first public unveiling.
When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held up a mobile phone, last week, receiving a television programme that rode a 3rd generation broadband cellular technology, he signalled India’s entry into the 3G era of telecom technology.
Since the Japanese company NTTDoCoMo first demonstrated this zippy increment in the ability of mobile phones to receive and display voice, data and video without jitter or interruption, 7 years ago, the world has moved, albeit slowly towards this new regime in telecommunications.
Clearly, as the fastest growing telecom market — with between 8 and 10 million mobile phones added every month — India has a stake in harnessing cutting edge technologies and services. With the availability of 3G on the ground — MTNL expects to reach 3G services to its customers in January 2009 — there will now be two parallel and separate paths available to grow data and communication services to broadband speeds: The cellular route will see gradual upgrade of 2G or 2.5 G, to 3G, wireless. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) will see Wi-Fi, upgrade to WiMax.
The battle ground
The battle ground where 3G and WiMax will confront each other, is the mobile arena, because the latter has a mobile avatar, spelled out in the technical standard 802.16e. Will they compete with or complement each other?
It will be useful to step back for a moment and recapitulate how 3G itself is, in a sense, a confluence of two divergent paths in digital cellular technology: GSM and CDMA.
Current CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) cellular technology, deployed in India by services providers like Reliance and Tata, is known as CDMA One or CDMA 2.5G. When this upgrades to 3rd generation speeds, it will morph into a technology known as CDMA 2000, its underlying technology being EVDO or Evolution Data Maximised, which theoretically can achieve mobile data communications speeds from 400 kilo bits per second to 2 megabits per second.
GSM or Global System for Mobile networks, on the other hand, will upgrade to what is known as the WCDMA or Wideband CDMA protocol, which will deliver data rates similar to what CDMA2000 does.
In some geographic areas like Europe, it is also known as UMTS or Universal Mobile Telecommunication System. One of the elements of WCDMA is HSPA or High Speed Packet Access, a combo standard that promises a peak of 14 MBPS in the downlink and around 5.8 MBPS in the uplink.
GSM networks will have to install and upgrade their current Internet access (GPRS or Global Packet Radio Service) which currently offers subscribers connect typical speeds of around 114 kilo bits per second to HSPA, before they can roll out 3G services that can theoretically boost speeds to 2 GBPS.
Technology available from players like Vanu Inc. (founded by Dr Vanu Bose, son of Dr Amar Bose of Bose audio fame) has cleverly anticipated the day (now already arrived) when telecom providers would need to rollout services in non compatible technologies like GSM and CDMA — eventually upgrading both to 3G levels.
At the India Telecom show in Delhi last week, Qualcomm displayed laptop computers from Hewlett Packard’s Compaq and Pavilion line, fuelled by the former’s Gobi or Global Mobile Internet solution which enables users to latch on to any of the available 3G data networks in any geographical location, regardless of whether its underlying technology is CDMA (EVDO) or GSM (WCDMA/UMTS).
2009 will see many more such solutions which will effectively untether the portable computer from the constraints of its parent wireless network.
What is not clear, however, is whether the high entry level price points which service providers will have to contend with will result in 3G in India being offered as some sort of premium, added value service, aimed at the corporate customer.
The birth of 3G in India gives the country an unprecedented opportunity to harness it for the masses; to exploit its superior connectivity to enable millions in the rural reaches, who have no land line networks, to get their first experience of Internet, on a mobile handset.
Indeed, companies like Qualcomm are confident they can offer the technology and the reference designs that will allow manufacturers to roll out Internet access devices that will exploit 3G, yet cost less than Rs 4,000.
That will still leave the question: at what price point will the telecom players roll out 3G services in India — and will it be an elite offering for the well-off, or an affordable service for the aam janatha , or both?
Before they cross that bridge, they will also have to contend with the challenge posed by WiMax as an alternative technology that promises broadband services for the unconnected, using a non-cellular approach.
Higher speeds
WiMax can theoretically offer much higher speeds — theoretically up to 70 MBPS — or long ranges in wireless, 50 kms – but not both at the same time. In other words, if you want range, you will sharply degrade the speed or vice versa.
WiMax evangelists at the WiMax Forum, tout its lower operational cost in the long run and its ability to seamlessly integrate wired and mobile networks.
Had WiMax seen reasonable levels of implementation in India, it might have had the advantages of the first mover in the battle to capture broadband hearts and minds. As things stand, 2009 is the year when WiMax spectrum is expected to become available.
ANAND PARTHASARATHY
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