Will my dream phone be 3G, 4G, 5G, 6G, or Wimax?
Don Sambandaraksa explains
the comp-p-p-p-pplexities behind our mobile phone future
By Jon Fernquest |
What kinds of things will your dream phone do?
Provide a 24-7 live video feed into your son's or daughter's dormitory room?
Blow a goodnight kiss to your wife or sweetheart far away in another province, village, country, or planet?
When will I be able to type reports on my office computer while I sit in a taxi stuck in a traffic jam in downtown Bangkok? (You might be wondering)
When can I purchase my dream phone that will connect me to my favourite place, the internet?
A lot of people are dreaming and wondering, perhaps a bit nervously, since workloads are bound to shoot up to new record levels when there's no excuse for not being connected 24-7.
Today's article by Bangkok Post Database reporter Don Sambandaraksa gives you all the nitty-gritty details about the current state of world technology and how this could figure into Thailand's mobile phone and internet future.
In photo to the right two Korean twins from LG Electronics proudly show off their 5.1 megapixel touchscreen camera phones.
Here is the article in full:
3G MOBILE PHONES
Which generation will it be?
DON SAMBANDARAKSA16-04-2008
Is 3G a tried and tested mature technology that can provide cheap last-mile access to bridge the digital divide or is it a 20th century anachronism that certain vendors want to sell to ignorant telcos (or those that feign ignorance)?
Is WiMAX really the next best invention since sliced bread, or is it an untried, little supported quirk that, as our previous ICT Minister once predicted to be "the first attempt at 4G, which failed"?
...Thailand has to make a decision on 3G soon...
Generally, the vendors seem to be divided into two camps. On the one hand, we have Nokia-Siemens Networks and Qualcomm coming out pro-3G, saying that the technology is mature, proven and that it can help bridge the digital divide by provide wireless broadband access to the masses. The two are also generally anti-WiMAX, but more on that later.
Motorola, Nortel and to some extent Gartner Research, on the other hand are generally anti-3G either in the sense that the technology is old and expensive to run, the investment window has gone, or that without the 2.1GHz WCDMA band, the lack of devices just does not make sense.
The Pro-3G camp say that 3G is now a very mature technology while LTE (Long Term Evolution) is still years away and WiMAX is unproven. Unlike the early 3G networks rolled out in Europe that ran at 384Kbps, today Thailand is looking at the possibility of launching its first 3G at 14.4Mbps, which is a different game entirely. Rather than talk about (the largely failed concept of) video calling and other things one can do at 384Kbps, today vendors are talking about the amount of bandwidth that puts 3G on par with today's fastest wired broadband.
Obviously, if you have the choice between a creaky 512Kbps copper connection or a 14.4Mbps wireless one that works anywhere for a similar price, the choice is clear. The 3G vendors say that this level of 3G, not the old creaky 384Kbps networks that were launched in the West, are a direct competitor to copper, to WiMAX and are a great solution for getting more and more people online.
Upgrading copper lines, shortening the length of copper to new DSLAMs is much, much harder than doing something with radio, and it may well be the ADSL vendors (or vendor, singular) that suffers the most with new radio technologies.
That level of speed also puts it smack bang into the speed of the range promised by the first generation of WiMAX. The main benefit of 3G, the vendors say, is a level of maturity in technology and lower operating frequencies. Dtac is talking about WCDMA 850 and AIS seems to be dithering between WCDMA 900 (now launched in Chiang Mai), 1900 and 2100 depending on which side the boss gets out of bed each day. A 850 or 900MHz carrier would give a much larger cell site and much better building penetration compared to the 2.5 or 3.3GHz WiMAX.
Indeed, it has been building coverage that seems to have been the Achilles' heel of WiMAX so far, with coverage in built-up areas ranging from a challenge to a joke, depending on who you ask.
The pro-WiMAX camp talk of how 3G is so yesterday's technology with low spectral efficiency (2.5 to 3.5 bits per second per hertz compared to 0.8 for WCDMA) and is based on circuit switched technology rather than IP. The cost of running a 3G network backbone seems to be anything from 30 to 300 per cent higher than an IP network. Being based on legacy telco technology, 3G equipment has E1 or ATM connectors in the back, while WiMAX has only an Ethernet port, so they say.
But that criticism is only a half true. Early 3G equipment may have been circuit switched with 2Mbps E1 lines plugging into the back, but today's 3G cell sites all come in an IP, Ethernet flavour. The other key argument against 3G is that the window for investment has simply passed.
Even if Thailand decides to roll out 3G today, it will take at least a year or a year and a half until the network gets built, unless we are talking about just a few cellsites in the Chiang Mai, Sathorn and Silom areas. Meanwhile, the LTE specification is supposed to be finalised this summer and NTT DoCoMo in Japan has already begun talk of rolling out its draft LTE spec compliant 4G network trials as early as this year.
Again, that is a slightly rose-tinted view. What NTT has done is take the lower levels of the LTE technology stack, which have been finalised, and built its own proprietary solution on top, as it has done with 3G - the top bits being the one that are yet to settle in the standards bodies. True open standard 4G might not be here this year, but still everyone agrees that 2011 is a safe bet.
Which means that the window to recoup the cost of a 3G network is merely two or three years. That hardly makes economic sense. Unless of course, our regulators make a dog's breakfast out of 4G licensing again and give the 3G operators a decade to recoup their investments, the way it effectively (if unintentionally) did with 2G operators, stretching their investment out far longer than in any civilised country.
But there is a little mixup here? Is 3G competing with LTE (due in two to three years) or with WiMAX (here now)? Or both? That is the beauty of convergence. We can do 14.4Mbps broadband data on a mobile phone the same way we can use a VoIP program such as Skype to make calls over a WiMAX or ADSL connection. Mobile WiMAX, which allows the terminal to move around like a phone, further blurs the boundaries. I pray that our regulators realise that.
Not issuing 3G and skipping to 4G means another three years (at least) in limbo with the macroeconomic cost to the economy being huge.
A worst case scenario is Thailand finally issuing 3G licences and then protecting them far beyond a reasonable timeframe from a technology standpoint. 3G is more expensive than 4G to run in the long term, and that cost will of course be passed down to the user in the form of higher airtime bills. In three years, perhaps the world will have all moved to LTE 4G while Thailand's new regulator (drawn up with the new constitution the government is so eager to re-write) is waiting to be set up. But if that does happen, at least we journalists can simply re-use our criticism of the lack of 3G, searching and replacing 3 for 4 and WCDMA for LTE, and re-run old columns for another decade.
Vocabulary:
24-7 - 24 hours per day and seven days a week (no break or rest)
blow a kiss - not an actual kiss, kiss hand then blow air off of hand to someone
workloads - the amount of work you have to do every day or week
nitty-gritty details - the most important and basic facts about something
figures into - is an an important part of
show-off - trying to impress people and them admire you
tried and tested - people have used it (tried it) and therefore it is well tested
mature technology - already fully developed technology (not technology that is still evolving and developing)
last-mile access - the copper telephone wire to your home or business (up to this last mile the signal is sent via microwave towers)
bridge the digital divide - give internet access to people who don't have it right now
an anachronism - something old fashion, left over from the old days, now out of date and useless
feign ignorance - pretend you don't know
next best invention since sliced bread - (idiom) a very good invention
a quirk - something strange, odd, unusual, happening by chance
divided into two camps - have two opposing groups with different opinions on the issue
provide wireless broadband access - allow fast connection to the internet without a wire to the telephone (by radio)
the masses - the large numbers of normal users of technology (not geeks or people dream about and first use the latest technologies)
amount of bandwidth - teh amount of data that can pass through an internet connection
on par with - equal with [Thai: tao-tao-gan]
a creaky 512Kbps copper connection -
a DSLAM - allows telephone lines to make faster connections to the Internet. It is a network device, located near the customer's location (See Wikipedia)
puts it smack bang into - emphasis given here (smack your face, the sound "bang" of a bomb going off)
dithering between X and Y - taking a long time to decide between X and Y, indecisive
depending on which side the boss gets out of bed each day - randomly, like flipping a coin
.
the Achilles' heel of Y - the weakness of Y
built-up areas - areas of town with tall buildings
the window for X - the period of time during which X can be done
the window for investment has simply passed - the time period for investment is finished
the window to recoup the cost of a 3G network - the period of time that you can earn money from the 3G technology to pay for your investment (after this time the technology is out-of-date and people will move on to the next new technology)
recoup the cost - get back the money that you spent (costs) on it
roll out - introduce a new product into the market
a spec - a specification, a detailed plan, how to build something
spec compliant - follows the detailed plan
trials - tests over a period of time
rose-tinted view - seeing only good things about something
a proprietary solution - a product or service designed and owned by one company
standards - official public specifications that everyone can use
standards bodies - the committees of experts that create standards
an open standard - a technology standard that every company has access to, not a secret standard owned by one large and powerful company like Microsoft
is a safe bet - will likely happen (you'll probably win money if you bet it would happen)
convergence - the coming together of currently different technologies such as mobile phone, internet, and television into one technology that does all of them
VoIP - internet telephone service, for example Skype (See Wikipedia)
blurs the boundaries between X and Y - become difficult to tell the difference between X and Y
in limbo - don't know what is going to happen yet (limbo is a temporary place to stay between heaven and hell)
