Telecom analyst company CCS Insight has predicted that 1.86 billion mobiles will be shipped in 2013 and that 53% of these will be smart phones. By the end of 2013 5.9 billion mobiles will be in use around the world. By 2017 they say 2.3 billion mobiles will be sold and that 75% will by then be smartphones and 650 million of these will be LTE capable.
CCS say that the smartphone market will be driven by lower cost units in developing markets and that Apple will have to sacrifice margins on its iOS devices if it wants to keep up with market growth. They also say that as the big two Apple iOS and Google Android battle with two companies desperate to make a mark in Microsoft and Blackberry there are a number of upstarts like Tizen, Firefox OS, Sailfish OS, Baidu Yi and Aliyun waiting in the wings.
EE the company formed from the merger of 1800MHz operators Orange (owned by France Telecom) and T-Mobile (owned by Deutsche Telekom) has the jump in 4G services in the UK. EE launched at the end of October 2012 and now has 500,000 4G subscriptions and nearly 55% of the population covered by its 1800 MHz LTE 4G network. It plans to go to 85% coverage by the end of 2014. Meanwhile O2 (owned by Telefonica of Spain) and Vodafone are rolling out a joint 4G network which they plan to launch in 3Q 2013 with the fourth UK operator Hutchison owned Three UK is planning to market 4G from the end of the year.
EE had the massive advantage of licensing almost all the 1800MHz spectrum in the UK (3UK has a small 1800 MHz holding). The others had to wait to acquire 4G spectrum at auction concluded in February 2013 to get access to new 4G spectrum in the 800MHz and 2.6 GHz bands. The results of the auction were;
| Winning bidder | Spectrum won | Base price |
| Everything Everywhere Ltd | 2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz and 2 x 35 MHz of 2.6 GHz |
£588,876,000 |
| Hutchison 3G UK Ltd | 2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz | £225,000,000 |
| Niche Spectrum Ventures Ltd (a subsidiary of BT Group plc) | 2 x 15 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired) |
£186,476,000 |
| Telefónica UK Ltd | 2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz (coverage obligation lot) |
£550,000,000 |
| Vodafone Ltd | 2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz, 2 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 25 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired) |
£790,761,000 |
| Total | £2,341,113,000 |
The issue for all but EE will be the ability of most of the existing 4G phones like the iPhone to operate in the new UK 4G spectrum bands. The 800 MHz band will give deeper and wider coverage than EE’s current 1800 MHz so in the longer term EE’s competitors will gain on its head start but only when they can get a good range of popular handsets.
Adaptive Multi Rate AMR voice coding is the most common voice coding on modern mobile networks it provides very good quality voice packed into 12 Kbps. This compares to 64 Kbps non compressed PCM (ITU-T Rec. G.711) used in fixed networks. AMR also supports lower bit rates for useful but poorer quality voice yielding more capacity or in some cases some voice communications in dire radio propagation conditions.
W-AMR or Wideband AMR coding is a newer standard which was introduced into GSM and WCDMA with 3GPP Release 5 and provides double the voice bandwidth (50 to 7000Hz) compared to AMR (300 to 3400Hz) using 12.65 Kbps. It also offers 8.85 and 6.6 Kbps coding options for use during adverse radio conditions or to temporarily increase networks voice capacity.
The W-AMR capability needs to be implemented in both the network and the phone. The GSM Association gsmcom.com reported in June 2014 that 109 operators in 73 countries support W-AMR and the new mobiles from the most popular makers like Samsung, Apple HTC and Nokia support W-AMR out of the box. As well the calling and called phone need to be W-AMR capable to get the highest quality voice call. Calls to non W-AMR capable mobiles and to or through the fixed network are limited by the 3,400 Hz G.711 bandwidth. There will be some improvement in quality of a one end W-AMR call due to improved echo and background noise supression capability built into the newer coding.
Telstra launched W-AMR on NextG in June 2011 and it reports that it is now seeing large increases in the volume of calls able to enjoy the higher quality. W-AMR would be of particular benefit to professional broadcasters, businesses using mobile for voice conferencing as well as normal users calling in noisy locations. You can see a demo of W-AMR by Martin Stanford on the (then) Orange Network in the UK here.
You can see GSA’s information on W-AMR here. Note you will have to register first using the link on site.
Samsung Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 are LTE Category 3 Devices
Advanced units sold today such as iPhone 5, HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are Category 3 LTE however components supporting the next speed step in 4G devices Category 4 LTE corresponding to 3GPP Release 10 have been announced and some trial devices supplied to carriers.
Telstra in February reported testing with a Category 4 LTE device which yeilded 100 Mbps in lab testing and in the field in Perth where they have 20MHz of LTE 1800 spectrum it yeilded 90 Mbps. Telstra reported that it expects to have a LTE Category 4 phone and a USB dongle later this year.
Qualcomm MDM 9X25 Family Announced in February Support Category 4 LTE
Theoretically Category 4 devices can hit 150 Mbps downloading using the current maximum channel bandwidth of 20 MHz. This compares to the existing marketed Category 3 devices 100/50 Mbps. There is a useful statement of LTE speeds achievable with different channel widths at LTE University here.
On 12th June Vodafone launched their 4G LTE network in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth , Adelaide, Newcastle and Wollongong. Vodafone is the last Australian mobile network operator to launch 4G LTE. Telstra having launched back in September 2011 claimed to have 1.5 million 4G subscriptions in February 2013 while Optus launched in July 2012.
You can see Vodafone’s 4G launch press release here.
Vodafone has been working very hard to upgrade its network and improve performance after losing almost 1.5 million subscriptions since 2010 due to network performance and service issues. They are preplacing their radio access equipment with kit from Shenzhen, Guangdong based Hauwei and introducing HSPA+ 3G capability using 2X10MHz of 850 MHz spectrum – the same as used by Telstra’s NextG. This low band 3G will give improved breadth and depth of coverage while the newly launched 4G LTE will provide faster data speeds in the areas it covers.
They had been testing their LTE network in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs in Alexandria, Bronte and Randwick with 10MHz bandwidth. They report blistering uplink data speeds during testing of 60 to 67 Mbps with 25 to 30 Mbps up. Of course this is with just test services on the network. They claim that, similar to other carriers who have already launched LTE, customers can expect to see 2 to 40 Mbps speeds in the real world. As always the data speed is principally dependent on the quality of the radio signal, the amount of contiguous LTE spectrum available, the capacity and quality of the backhaul and core network and the data demands of other users on the shared LTE channel.
In major cities Vodafone do have the advantage of being able to deploy 20MHz of contiguous 1800 MHz spectrum compared to 15 MHz for Optus and 10MHz for Telstra in NSW and Victoria 20MHz in Perth and 15 MHz elsewhere.Theoretical maximum data speed for Category 3 LTE devices with 2X2 MIMO in 20 MHz of spectrum is 102 Mbps. For Telstra with 10 MHz of spectrum also with 2X2 MIMO this maximum speed reduces to 79 Mbps. All other things being equal – which they never are – Vodafone 4G should be 20% faster than Telstra over much of its network.
Mobile Spectrum Holding Prior to 4G Auction Showing Vodafones Strong 1800 MHz Position
$1.964 million was bid for 4G spectrum in the 700MHz and 2.5GHz band at the auction concluded in May 2013.
The winners at auction were as follows;
| Bidder |
Spectrum secured |
Total price |
|
|
700 MHz band* |
2.5 GHz band* |
||
| Optus Mobile |
2×10 MHz (20 MHz in total) |
2×20 MHz (40 MHz in total) |
$ 649,134,167 |
| Telstra |
2×20 MHz (40 MHz in total) |
2×40 MHz (80 MHz in total) |
$ 1,302,019,234 |
| TPG Internet |
Nil |
2×10 MHz (20 MHz in total) |
$13,500,000 |
| Total spectrum sold |
2×30 MHz (60 MHz in total) |
2×70 MHz (140 MHz in total) |
$ 1,964,653,401 |
| Total spectrum unsold |
2×15 MHz (30 MHz in total) |
Nil |
N/A |
The 700 MHz spectrum will provide wider and deeper coverage than the 1800 MHz currently currently used on the Telstra and Optus LTE networks and soon to be used by VHA. Due to the high reserve price ($M311 per 2X5MHz) set by the Minister for Communications on this spectrum the 700 MHz band sale yeilded 95% of the $M1,964 for the auction. This despite the fact that largely due to Vodafone’s no show 2X15 MHz of the 700 MHz spectrum worth $M933 at the reserve price was left on the table after the three clock rounds. Ex Communication Minister Stephen Conroy has set in place a public consultation process on disposal of the unsold spectrum. Information on this is here. Already the Police Federation is making a bid for 2X10MHz of the unsold spectrum to be given over for emergency services communications.
One issue which has yet to be played out is the mobile device support for the 700 MHz band LTE Band 28 which Australia has adopted. This band plan termed APT700 is central to the 700 MHz part of the 4G auction. There is growing interest in the APT700 banding outside of the USA which has a different and incompatible 700MHz plan covered by LTE Bands 12,13,14 and 17. A compatible plan could be adopted in Europe though this is unclear at this stage. There is a comprehensive discourse on APT700, including the issue of the need for two duplexors to support it, here.
The question is how big an issue will it be for Australian network operators and consumers to buy a range of advanced devices which will include support for the Asia Pacific (LTE Band 28) plan. Mike Wright ED Networks and Access in Telstra thinks this will not be an issue. Just as Telstra’s use of 850 MHz spectrum for NextG and 1800 MHz for LTE worked well as others joined the bandwagon, Mike says some European and South American, as well as Asia Pacific operators will come on board with the APT700 LTE band 28. See Mike’s post here.
Another question is – what is TPG’s motive or plan for their modest investment? It is hard to see a good business case to roll-out a network built with 2.6 GHz spectrum alone. They might be able to get a roaming deal with one of the big three and use their spectrum in a limited coverage network alongside this. OneTel had an arrangement something like this back in 2000. You could hope for a better outcome for TPG if they tread this path.