Super3G DeHyped
As I had begun to suspect. After reviewing the output of November's 3GPP Workshop for Long Term RAN Evolution, I had concluded that initial press reports of 'Super 3G' were in fact misleading in many if not most respects and had snowballed in the press in ever-expanding and misleading fashion since originating in Japan.
Three articles on this subject here -- and a thanks to Data Rox for locating 2 of them.
I suspect The Informer will have some comments on this.
>> Reports Of 'Super 3G' Highly Misleading - ETSI
3GPP to look at how to ensure the long-term competitiveness of 3G systems in new Study Item – ETSI.
Total Telecom
January 6, 2005
totaltele.com
A report that circulated last week about plans to develop a "Super 3G" standard was "highly misleading", according to a spokesman from European telecoms standards body ETSI.
The report, which originated from the Japan newspaperNihon Keizai Shimbu,said 26 mobile operators and vendors had joined together to drive a standard that would significantly boost the performance of current 3G networks.
But ETSI said the activity refers to the adoption by the 3GPP in Athens in December of a new Study Item that will look at ways of ensuring the competitiveness of 3GPP systems in the longer term, for the next 10 years and beyond. While the 3GPP document outlining the study plans notes that 3G enhancements such as HSDPA and HSUPA will ensure the 3GPP radio-access technology will be highly competitive for several years to come, a longer term evolution of the technology needs to be considered.
The Study Item was originally proposed by 26 members of the 200-member 3GPP, but all 3GPP members could potentially be involved in the work.
3GPP, or the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, is a collaboration agreement that was established in December 1998. It brings together a number of telecommunications standards bodies, which are known as "Organisational Partners". The current Organisational Partners are ARIB, CCSA, ETSI, ATIS, TTA, and TTC.
The scope of 3GPP is to produce globally applicable technical specifications and reports for a 3G mobile system based on evolved GSM core networks and the radio access technologies that they support, such as FDD, TDD and UTRA. The body also maintains and develops GSM specifications, including GPRS and EDGE.
The spokesman said the Study Item adopted in December last year will focus on the radio interface, looking at issues such as modulation techniques, new spectrum arrangements and so on.
ETSI said the first phase (to June 2006) will be a study of various possible technologies to identify the basis for the next phase, which will be the standardisation activity, scheduled for completion in 2007. <<
>> ETSI Slams Reports of 'Super 3G'
Adrian Baschnonga
World Markets Analysis
January 07, 2005
A report circulated earlier this week, detailing plans to develop a 'Super 3G' standard, has been criticised as 'highly misleading' by telecoms standard body the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun has disclosed that some 26 mobile operators and vendors had clubbed together to drive a standard that would enable data rates of 30-100Mbps. However, ETSI has underlined that such activity referred to a new Study Item under consideration by 3GPP, which would ensure the competitiveness of 3G in the long term.
Significance: ETSI is keen to contextualise rumours of 'Super 3G' within work being undertaken by 3GPP to ensure technical development beyond high-speed downlink and uplink packet access (HSDPA and HSUPA, respectively) upgrades to W-CDMA services. As such, reports of greatly enhanced network speeds should be seen in light of a market-wide prescription, rather than the result of vendor or operator 'push'. <<
>> Wireless Group Studies 'Super 3G' Standard
Jim Duffy
Network World Fusion
01/05/05
nwfusion.com
The 3G Partnership Project - a consortium of some 200 wireless vendors and operators - has begun a study to determine the feasibility of defining a standard that would support wireless downlink speeds as high as 100M bit/sec.
Advertisement:
The group agreed at its December meeting in Athens to "undertake a study on the longer-term evolution of the (3G) radio interface," a 3GPP spokesman says. The study will be conducted by the 3GPP's Radio Access Network (RAN) working group, which expects to complete its investigation in June 2006.
Specifications for this "Super 3G standard" may be ready by June 2007, according to the 3GPP spokesman.
Though the proposal for the study was authored by 26 firms within the 3GPP - including NTT DoCoMo, Alcatel, Cingular Wireless, Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel, Qualcomm, Siemens, T-Mobile and Vodafone - the work will include all 200 members of the 3GPP, the spokesman says.
The project follows up a 3GPP RAN Longterm Evolution Workshop that took place in Toronto in early November. The work does not specify any particular technologies - such as High-speed Downlink Packet Access (HSPDA), EV-DO, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) - but instead indicates a need for identifying methods for greater bandwidth that maximize the use of the radio spectrum and offer increased flexibility for the delivery of future services, the spokesman says.
It will be the task of the study to define the relevant technologies, spectrum requirements and other issues - and then to launch the standardization activity, he says.
Currently, 3G technologies such as EV-DO and UMTS offer speeds of up to 2.4M bit/sec and 384K bit/sec, respectively. Both are based on CDMA technology.
OFDM provides download speeds of between 1M bit/sec and 1.5M bit/sec and upload speeds of between 300K bit/sec and 500K bit/sec. HSPDA, which is being trialed by Cingular and other operators, offers data rates up to 14.4M bit/sec. <<
- Eric - |
