20 Gbps - In Your Home - In Your Car - In Your Pocket

Fixed wireless is a term used to define wireless services to the home, often used to provide residential broadband service where fixed broadband service (cable, DSL, etc) is not available. It's just a fancy term for cellular data service to a residence.

Currently LTE (download speeds between 5 and 12 Mbps [Megabits per second] and upload speeds between 2 and 5 Mbps, with peak download speeds approaching 50 Mbps) is used by providers offering fixed wireless service. Some nice bandwidth when you have a good connection...... 

Recently, Verizon announced  the launch of next-generation 5G wireless residential broadband services in three to five U.S. markets in 2018. The first commercial launch is now scheduled in Sacramento, CA, in the second half of 2018. 5G will be  a significant upgrade to LTE services, supporting a theoretical speed up to 20 Gbps with a latency of ~1 ms, enabling providers like Verizon to offer superior broadband access without running fiber-optic cables to the sides of homes. 

The days of fiber to the home (FTTH) products like FiOS are numbered. Full phase 5G rollouts by all major providers should be across the U.S. by 2020. Don't give up on fiber though. Additional backhaul capacity will require lots more fiber. That fiber won't be running directly to homes but will be running to cell towers - both large and small.

5G is coming and going to come quickly. ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing strategic guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies, forecasts that the global fixed wireless broadband market will grow 30% in 2018 and will generate US$18 billion in service revenue. As 5G fixed wireless broadband access is set to be launched in North America in 2018, it is set to expand and provide consumers with better quality service in the years to come. 

What could you do with 20Gbps in your home, your car, your pocket.....??

Image source: https://www.marketplace.org/2018/01/31/tech/marketplace-tech-blogs/could-antenna-fatigue-be-holding-5g-technology

The Future of Wireless: Spectrum and Cell Technologies

John Garvey from Garvey Communications dropped me an email last week and asked if I could write up a post about small cell wireless technologies. He had read a piece in Business Week titled Want to See the Future of Mobile Coverage? Go to a Baseball Game that describes how Verizon Wireless is using 4G LTE COWs (Cells On Wheels) and COLTs (Cells on Light Trucks) at sporting events. Both of these technologies provide portable bandwidth where and when it is needed. If you've ever been in a packed stadium and tried to make a call, upload a picture to Facebook, or post a tweet you've likely had problems getting a connection.

The more I thought the more I realized a good discussion will take a little more than a single post so I'm going to write a series on new antenna technologies over the next few weeks. Today let's discuss the way cellular is done now and why it's not going to work in the future.

Everyone know what a cell tower looks like and most would describe them as big, tall and ugly with lots of antennas hanging on them. If you look on the ground at the base of the towers you'll typically see a few "huts" that contain (among other things) large amplifiers that provide signal up to the antennas at the top of the towers. Connectivity to the towers (referred to as "backhaul") is provided by fiber. Here's a simplified drawing of a big tower setup.

The towers are fed by fiber and optical signals transmitted on the fiber get converted back and forth to wireless signals, giving us connectivity on our mobile devices. Seems pretty simple and if we need more capacity all we need to do is run more fiber to the towers, right? Well..... not really. Providers can bury as much fiber as they want and convert it to wireless frequencies but that's not going to solve the problem. The bottleneck today is spectrum and (especially) in congested areas this bottleneck is causing the dropped calls and slow wireless data access we've all experienced.

So, spectrum is a problem - what exactly is it? Each provider - AT&T, Verizon Wireless, etc - have licenses from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to use specific frequencies for information transfer. It is important each providers spectrum be allocated in a way that it is kept separate for interference free communications so different providers cannot typically share licensed spectrum. When I think about spectrum I think about tuning the radio in my car - each station is licensed by the FCC and has it's own "channel", broadcasting at a specific frequency.

Now - just like the numbers on your car radio tuner - there is only a finite amount of total spectrum available. This finite availability, along with not being organized in the most efficient way, limits things like coverage, connection speed and quality of service. The spectrum issue is really coming to a head now with high bandwidth LTE services being rolled out by all providers - higher speeds, more bandwidth requirements and more people using their phones for voice, video and data services.

What's being done by the wireless providers to get around this spectrum bottleneck? There's been a mad scramble to purchase as much spectrum as possible but..... utilizing a finite amount of spectrum the way it is currently being used is not going to solve the problem long term. They'll still end up running out. What's being done?

There are a number of solutions. We're also seeing providers building WiFi networks (WiFi uses unlicensed spectrum) to offload some of the licensed spectrum traffic. There's a bunch of other technologies including small cells (the COWS and COLTS John was asking about), spectrum re-farming and cell-splitting that look promising. I'll take a look at some of these in my next few posts.

See You Later WiMAX

I've written here in the past about WiMAX and the slow but inevitable take over by LTE. Well, it's starting soon - at least with Sprint's wireless services. Here's some details from an Inside Sprint blog post yesterday:

• On 6/7, smartphone customers in markets slated for LTE will be notified via text message of the upcoming launch.
• The message states: SprintFreeMsg: Ready for some GREAT news? Sprint is rolling out an all-new network in (insert city here). Learn more at sprint.us/sat Reply End to stop.
• Sprint’s all-new network launches by mid-summer 2012 in 4 cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta.
• More cities launch later this summer and throughout the year.
• The all-new network includes the launch of 4G LTE and improvements to Sprint’s 3G network.

Benefits include:

• More reliable connection to voice calls, emails, and apps, and the internet
• Expanded coverage in their area
• Faster downloading, surfing and streaming
• Improved indoor/outdoor signal strength
• Enhanced voice quality
• Fewer dropped calls

See you later WiMAX!

Bits and Bytes Podcast - 4G LTE, Motorcycles Made From Car Parts, and Bamboo Clothing

Last week Mike Q and I recorded a new 36 minute and 10 second podcast covering 4G LTE, Motorcycles made from Car Parts, and Bamboo Clothing. Here's links to referenced content  in the podcast:

Verizon HomeFusion Uses 4G LTE to Complete Last Mile Nationwide  

Cariloha Bamboo Clothing

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization

Google Translate Car to Motorcycle

You can listen directly in your browser clicking the play arrow below.

If you have iTunes installed you can subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

Wireless Shift: LTE Macrocells -> Small Base Stations

I’ve written about femtocells here in the past - basically micro-cell antennas that users attach to their broadband network. They are used to fill in areas where coverage is weak or does not exist. It looks like this idea is catching on. With increasing traffic demands along with OPEX and CAPEX savings in mind we’re starting to see a shift in the deployment of small range cell base stations (what some are calling simply “small cell”). 

Looking at a recent ABI Research report that examines the ecosystem and outlook for LTE base stations titled “The LTE Base Station Market,” we see the uptake of small cells and remote radio heads (RRHs) as elements of the distributed base station. 

Here’s some detail from the report:

• Operators will initially deploy small cell equipment as in fills on the pico and microcell layers, but will quickly transition to deploying them as a fundamental part of a network rollout. 
• The number of LTE small cells sold (127,000) will surpass the number of LTE macrocells, forecast at 113,000, as early as 2014. 
• Semiconductor suppliers are positioning themselves to participate in this market with TI, Freescale, Cavium, Mindspeed, and DesignArt among the manufacturers offering new “base station-on-a-chip” SoCs.
• However, LTE base station revenues will continue to be dominated by macro base station revenue with small cell revenue of $1.09 billion representing only 5.2% of the total revenue of $20.86 billion in 2014 and growing to $4.44 billion or 23.9% of the total $18.60 billion LTE base station market by 2016.
• Equipment manufacturers have been quick to respond to this shift in RAN (Radio Access Network) architecture. Ericsson acquired BelAir networks as part of its “HetNet” initiative, Nokia Siemens Networks announced Flexi Zone, Alcatel-Lucent continues to expand its lightRadio™ portfolio and Huawei has announced its AtomCell products.

Nick Marshall, principal ABI Networks Analyst, comments regarding the report, “This mobile broadband-driven data storm is stretching traditional macrocell network capacity to the limit and driving the move to heterogeneous networks.” Nick continues, saying, “These base station baseband SoCs (System on a Chip) are among the most complex ICs on the market today and raise the bar in terms of complexity.”

Verizon FiOS Buildout Essentially Done, Fixed LTE Coming

In a quarterly earnings conference call last Friday Verizon confirmed a couple of things I've been saying here for the past couple of years. The FiOS build out is basically done for now and Verizon Wireless will be offerring a fixed LTE option in direct competition with the landlind side of the business.

Here's an interesting Q&A from the VZ - Q3 2011 Verizon Communications Inc Earnings Conference Call held on October 21, as posted at DSL Reports:

Citigroup Analyst: Is there any thought of taking that non-FiOS bundle of presumably LTE broadband LTE voice,what about taking that more nationally and making that more of a national product for you versus just maybe an out of FiOS region but in territory Verizon product? 

Fran Shammo: Well, we are. And you're going to see that come in the fourth quarter with the -- what we now call the Cantenna which is not a commercial name obviously, but it's the antenna that we actually trialed with DIRECTV, which was extremely successful. And again, the benefit of this antenna is it operates the spectrum extremely efficiently. So if you look at a MiFi card or a dongle, this is very, very efficient, way above those two devices which is why it's critical to have that bundle with that Cantenna. So when we launch that you're going to see us go nationally with that type of an offer.

Worldwide 4G Wireless Service Deployments

TeleGeography’s 4G Research Service has a new report out on worldwide 4G service deployment. Here's some highlights from the report.

• There were more than 600 WiMAX networks either live or at the planning/deployment stage by the end of 2009.
• The number of WiMAX deployments significantly exceeds HSPA and LTE deployments.
• Only around 300 cellular networks have been upgraded with HSPA technology and fewer than 70 operators have committed to deploying LTE equipment.
• Only a relatively small number of these WiMAX systems offer wide coverage areas; most only offer local or regional service.
• Late 2009 saw the introduction of the world’s first commercial LTE networks, with TeliaSonera beginning to offer limited services in Stockholm and Oslo.
• 2010 is expected to bring further LTE service launches in Europe, the US and Asia.

Where is it? Here's a great WiMAX deployment map from TeleGeography --> (click to enlarge).

LTE and WiMAX services both get lumped in to the 4G category. In the U.S. we're seeing Sprint/Clearwire rolling out WiMAX is selected areas (currently in 27 cities) and we'll see Verizon and AT&T launch their LTE services this year.

Which technology will "win"? TeleGeography analyst Peter Bell is quoted in the report press release:

While the footprint of WiMAX worldwide is still growing steadily, LTE deployments should gain momentum in 2010 and 2011. With LTE receiving strong backing from major cellular operators and equipment vendors, we project that LTE subscribers will ramp up far more quickly than WiMAX subscribers.

WiMAX is not going away however. Here's Peter Bell's response to the question:

The answer to the question ’LTE or WiMAX?’ is both. LTE and WiMAX both have roles to play, and both technologies will be with us for years to come.

To find out more about TeleGeography's 4G report, visit http://www.telegeography.com/product-info/4g/index.php.

Telco TV Subscribers Predicted To Double by 2011

Here's some interesting numbers from a new ABI Research report:

• Global pay-TV subscribers will number more than 730 million by the end of 2011.
• North America has the highest subscriber penetration and should reach 115.4 million by the end of 2011.
• Western Europe has the highest Telco TV penetration rate and continues to increase in subscriber numbers, especially in France, Italy and Germany.
• North America and Asia-Pacific regions are the second and third highest in Telco TV penetration. The numbers of subscribers in those regions are forecast to exceed 9 million and 15 million respectively by the end of 2011.
• In the Asia-Pacific region South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are the leading countries in Telco TV adoption.
• Telco TV subscribers will number 47 million by the end of 2011, with a CAGR of 22.5% over the next five years (2009-2014).

Traditional Telco providers (like AT&T and Verizon in the U.S.) should continue to push hard and try and lock customers into broadband-based voice, video and data (triple play) contract offerings. What about the other providers? ABI Research associate Khin Sandi Lynn is quoted - Other type of pay-TV platforms, satellite, cable and terrestrial are also found to be increasing, although at a slower rate.

Wireless providers are not specifically mentioned in the summary but I'm guessing they will be next year as higher-bandwidth fourth-generation (4G), LTE and WiMAX service offerings grow in 2010.

You can get more information on this ABI Research report here.