All, Ericsson & WCDMA;
Ericsson moving on to 3rd generation wireless services
Business Times
JUST imagine being able to switch from writing a report on your laptop to
answering an incoming video conferencing call with a click of the mouse.
Add browsing the Web to that without interrupting the conversation, and the
person on the other end may even browse the same Website at the same
time.
This may sound like science fiction but all these capabilities, and much more
will be a part of an everyday communication services within the next five
years, said Ericsson Telecommunications chief executive officer Sven-
Christer Nilsson.
Giving the local Press a preview of things to come, Nilsson said Ericsson's
move to the so-called third generation wireless service will significantly
expand the range of options available to users. It will allow communication,
information and entertainment services to be delivered via wireless terminals.
A wireless terminal will, in the future, be a vehicle to carry a whole range of
communication services such as voice, data and video and allow wireless
access to all the services available over the Internet.
Although many choose to believe that wireless Internet services is not
necessary, Ericsson believes that as with every new technology and concept,
it is only when new products and services are actually available that people
appreciate the real benefits.
Would anyone in the early 1980s had thought about how indispensable a
handphone is today? Most people would probably thought it nothing more
than an interesting idea but certainly not an idea that would take the world
by storm.
Similarly, very few people would have anticipated that the Internet would
become so popular for business as well as home use.
"That is why we are making the assumption that once wireless Internet is
available, it will trigger a whole range of services that cannot be predicted,"
Nilsson said. The travelling businessman is just one scenario where wireless
Internet will deliver real benefits, he added.
Even doctors will be able to access medical records including high-
resolution pictures such as medical X-rays via a laptop computer with
wireless connection, or workers on large industrial sites will be able to send
back live video images to their head offices.
"The foundation of these services has already been laid down in the shape of
today's digital mobile phone networks. What is needed in order to support
these advanced multimedia services is to expand the information capacity or
bandwidth of the wireless links," said Ericsson Telecommunications wireless
networks specialist Frank Meehan.
He said more bandwidth at the air interface will be needed to support the
demands of third-generation services.
One way to achieve this is to increase the bandwidth available over today's
digital wireless networks.
Another method is to evolve these systems with a new generation of radio
access technology that is designed and optimised from the start to support
these enhanced services.
The company claims to have designed an efficient evolutionary step for the
progression of both GSM and D-AMPS systems to meet third-generation
standards.
Ericsson's evolutionary strategy for these systems will eventually lead to the
implementation of Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) air interface standard on
either the GSM or D-AMPS core networks, enabling networks to provide
multimedia access at up to 2 megabit per second.
(Copyright 1998)
_____via IntellX_____
Publication Date: October 20, 1998
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