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• Femtocell market update for the weeks of 8 & 15 Nov 2010

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Femtocell market update for the weeks of 8 & 15 Nov 2010

SFR's 'neufbox Evolution' includes bolt-on femtocell option SFR, which launched its 'Home 3G' femtocell service 12 months ago, has revealed an optional add-on femtocell module for its new neufbox Evolution home gateway ( here's a picture ). Pricing has not yet been announced for the module, which will be available in 1Q11. Although the femtocell is not quite a fully integrated into the home gateway, Light Reading Mobile sees it as " a big step toward combining femtocells with the media and entertainment services available in the home ". Moldtelecom announces femto service Moldtelecom, the leading telecommunication company in Moldova, has announced a femtocell service offering cheaper mobile calls and data within the femtozone area . The 'Femtocell Unite' service is available to subscribers with a fixed Moldtelecom DSL or fibre internet connection. Strategy Analytics updates its femto forecast Femtocell shipments are on track to reach almost 2 million units this year according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. ' Small is Beautiful: Femtocells Set To Grow with New Applications ' explores the future market for RF power amplifiers, transceivers and basebands in femtocells. The report's author, Christopher Taylor, believes "an increasing proportion of femtocells will go into small-to-medium sized enterprises and public access applications." Femto vendor news Ubiquisys and Nokia Siemens Networks have announced a standards compliant WCDMA femtocell solution . The two companies originally entered a partnership back in January 2008, but NSN had been working more closely with Airvana until the latter company's withdrawal from the UMTS femto business. The new solution supports both the Iuh protocol between the femtocell access point and the femto gateway, and the TR-069 / TR-196 specification for management. Meanwhile, NEC has claimed 8 femtocell contracts worldwide. The company also announced trials with unnamed operators in Singapore and India (where it sees femtocell revenues of $100 million over the next 2-3 years). Broadcom has completed its acquisition of Percello . In an interview with David Chambers at ThinkFemtocell , Broadcom's Greg Fischer says that ODMs wanting cheaper femtocell application software have tried to build their own using commercial components, but that it will be several years before these solutions can compete with the leading femtocell specialists. Fischer also believes "it's just too soon to be starting on LTE femtocells". Alcatel Lucent's Chris Kapuscinski agrees ; he thinks dual mode LTE / 3G small cells are still probably a couple of years away. Finally, picoChip has moved to a new headquarters in Bath , completed a new $9 million debt facility with Silicon Valley Bank, and increased its engineering activities to focus on chipsets for 4G femtocells. Repeaters vs femtos The New York Times has highlighted CTIA's request to the FCC for stricter regulation on repeaters , and highlights competition from the operators' own femtocell offerings. GigaOM suggests it's hypocritical of CTIA to take repeater manufacturers' money for exhibiting at its trade shows. Meanwhile, one Twitter post suggests the FCC itself is confused about the difference between femtocells and repeaters: "FCC just informed me that it's illegal to self-install an AT&T 3G MicroCell as it's a cell booster and can cause interference for neighbors. " In other news… Femtocells are succeeding where Wi-Fi based UMA solutions didn't. Network congestion lifts home 3G station market. RCR Wireless "big thinking on small cells" interview with Simon Saunders. Another interview with Simon Saunders. Nomor Research and Node-H to collaborate on HSPA/LTE dual-mode femtocells. Datang Mobile shows TD-SCDMA femto solution at China International Exhibition Cisco makes femto investments in Taiwan. Kineto raises $3m. David Chambers regrets that Verizon's new Samsung-made 3G femtocell does not comply with the 3GPP2 standards. Analysys Mason says the mobile data explosion is a myth … Mobile Europe investigates. Tagged: Alcatel-Lucent , Broadcom , Femtocell , femtocells , Moldtelecom , NEC , NSN , Percello , picoChip , SFR , Strategy Analytics , Ubiquisys

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• Call Setup Time Competition and LTE

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Call Setup Time Competition and LTE

In some countries there's fierce competition between network operators, and the media is anually reporting about the performance of the networks. To come up with meaningful values, they perform yearly drive tests on their own in cooperation with field test companies. Reported values are then for example call setup success rates, call setup times, call drop rates, average and hotspot data throughput in the networks, etc. When recently analyzing the results of such a test in more detail, it occured to me that it's likely to be a challenge to match call setup success rates that are today beyond 98% and call setup times of less than 7 seconds (mobilt to mobile) once there is one method or the other deployed for Voice over LTE. The challenge will be to match all of those values, be it call setup success rates, call setup times and also the drop rate when the call is handed over (or not) to a 2G or 3G network at the LTE coverage border area. CS fallback for example is unlikely to match any of those values as it is undisputed that the fallback mechanism adds 2-3 seconds to the call establishment time on each side. Also, making the fallback a success in at least 97% of the cases is a challenge as the procedure either requires the UE to blindly drop to the 2G/3G network or a well configured LTE network with perfect neighbor relationships. In addition, good interworking configuration between the 2G/3G CS core network and the LTE core for the signaling exchange of incoming calls is required. Quite a challenge. VoLTE and VoLGA would probably do a bit better in this regard but I won't go into the details in this post, no need for a fight between the two sides today. Think about it, what will happen if a network operator deployes a Voice over LTE solution and the values do not match those of the 2G/3G network today. It's going to be a bloodbath in the press. I can already imagine the headlines...

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• Verizon LTE phone expected in February

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Verizon LTE phone expected in February

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• Call Setup Time Competition and LTE

---

Call Setup Time Competition and LTE

In some countries there's fierce competition between network operators, and the media is anually reporting about the performance of the networks. To come up with meaningful values, they perform yearly drive tests on their own in cooperation with field test companies. Reported values are then for example call setup success rates, call setup times, call drop rates, average and hotspot data throughput in the networks, etc. When recently analyzing the results of such a test in more detail, it occured to me that it's likely to be a challenge to match call setup success rates that are today beyond 98% and call setup times of less than 7 seconds (mobilt to mobile) once there is one method or the other deployed for Voice over LTE. The challenge will be to match all of those values, be it call setup success rates, call setup times and also the drop rate when the call is handed over (or not) to a 2G or 3G network at the LTE coverage border area. CS fallback for example is unlikely to match any of those values as it is undisputed that the fallback mechanism adds 2-3 seconds to the call establishment time on each side. Also, making the fallback a success in at least 97% of the cases is a challenge as the procedure either requires the UE to blindly drop to the 2G/3G network or a well configured LTE network with perfect neighbor relationships. In addition, good interworking configuration between the 2G/3G CS core network and the LTE core for the signaling exchange of incoming calls is required. Quite a challenge. VoLTE and VoLGA would probably do a bit better in this regard but I won't go into the details in this post, no need for a fight between the two sides today. Think about it, what will happen if a network operator deployes a Voice over LTE solution and the values do not match those of the 2G/3G network today. It's going to be a bloodbath in the press. I can already imagine the headlines...

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• Apple, embedded SIMs, NFC and mobile payments - some speculation

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Apple, embedded SIMs, NFC and mobile payments - some speculation

I wonder if I've just managed to join up the dots on something rather important: - Recent reports suggest that Apple is intending to use NFC chips in iPhones - Other recent reports suggest Apple wants to use an embedded SIM in iPhones The NFC rumour tends to suggest that Apple is interested in mobile payments. However, that raises the question of whether the mobile operators are involved in the payment value chain, or if it is simply a secure extension of Apple's existing 100m+ credit card iTunes base out to the handset. Presumably Apple has some pretty good relationships already with Visa, Mastercard, Amex et al, given iTunes $4bn run-rate. But that's not enough, on its own, to get those companies to push new card-reader equipment to thousands of retailers, that just support iPhone payments and nothing else. If they were going to go down the NFC path, they would probably wish the EPOS readers to work with a variety of NFC implementations and business models, not just one. I've had a number of criticisms of NFC over the years - including the cost to the handset manufacturers, the unclear role of the mobile operators, the difficulty of getting merchants to adopt costly new readers, the willingness of consumers to entrust payments to new providers, whether customers actually need a new payment method to replace cash or existing cards, the unsuitability of charge-to-my-phonebill models, failure modes such as theft or handset crashing and so forth. In short, I've been unconvinced by the "phone is your wallet" argument. Now, there have been various approaches to NFC which have looked like cutting the operators out of the equation - most notably the NFC stickers that can be attached to the back of the phone. Other ideas have involved extending the role of not-quite-NFC contactless cards used in other applications such as London's Oyster, or Visa's PayWave. But operators (and bodies such as ETSI and GSMA) have been pushing hard for the version of the NFC architecture which links the NFC chip to the SIM card [technically, it's called the UICC card], where the "secure element" of NFC is stored on the SIM itself, and accessed via the single-wire protocol (SWP). A good overview of the NFC/SIM/SWP approach is here . There's a diagram on page 10. But a core problem is the lack of incentive for manufacturers to support the cost of putting the NFC hardware and software in the device, especially if it is based only on SWP use cases. This would essentially mean that the NFC chip would be useless without the SIM, and that therefore the operator could insert themselves in all possible applications, not just payment, unless the device vendor put a second non-SIM secure element somewhere else in the phone. For the manufacturer, this adds to the bill of materials, increases testing complexity, risks support and return costs, may delay time-to-market, yet may not generate extra revenues either from customers directly, or operators via subsidy or some sort of revenue-share. Especially for markets which sell unsubsidised 'vanilla' phones which could end up with non-NFC supporting SIMs, why go to the cost of putting in an NFC chip, rather than say a better camera, or more memory? Yet at the same time, the non-SIM/SWP implementations of NFC are looking even more tenuous in acceptability. Why bother with a sticker (or trust it) on the back of your phone? So we have an impasse: Handset vendors don't really want to be forced to support implementations of NFC where all the control and most of the value resides in the (operator-owned and issued) SIM card, even if they can put secondary applications onto it. The non-SIM implementations of NFC will have problems scaling and getting publicity, especially given the operators' indifference to selling handsets supporting this, and the handset vendors' general lack of clout with the credit card companies. End users seem (largely) indifferent to both a new form of payment, or all the other "near field" applications like waving your phone at a billboard. They also tend to push back against perceived operator lock-in. The merchants don't want to buy new terminals, especially if it's unclear what the new payment value chain will look like. Catch-22. Or maybe not.... Let's revisit the two phrases " technically it's called a UICC card " and " operator-owned and issued SIM card ". Now let's just be a bit clearer about the terms. From Wikipedia : A Universal Subscriber Identity Module is an application for UMTS mobile telephony running on a UICC smart card which is inserted in a 3G mobile phone. There is a common misconception to call the UICC itself a USIM, but the USIM is merely a logical entity on the physical card. And from Zahid Ghadialy's blog CONFIDENTIAL APPLICATION MANAGEMENT IN UICC FOR THIRD PARTIES The security model in the UICC has been improved to allow the hosting of confidential (e.g. third party) applications. This enhancement was necessary to support new business models arising in the marketplace, with third party MVNOs, M-Payment and Mobile TV applications. These new features notably enable UICC memory rental, remote secure management of this memory and its content by the third party vendor, and support new business models supported by the Trusted Service Manager concept. Now... I am not currently an expert on the full inner workings of UICCs and SIM technology. I will read up when I get a chance. But I have a suspicion that this might sum up what's going on: Today, operators issue (but still own) physical UICC cards, which include the SIM functionality for secure authentication to the radio network, and also other applications such as SIM Toolkit and the NFC secure-element functions. They can "rent space" to third parties for other applications, acting as a Trusted Services Manager. Tomorrow, some other third parties may issue physical UICC cards, or embed them into devices rather than distributing them through retail stores . And then those third parties (Apple, for instance) can perhaps "rent space" to operators for applications such as "secure authentication to the radio network". In other words, perhaps we move to a world in which the operators' SIM connectivity function becomes just software running on someone else's physical card. Whether that (removable or embedded) card is owned by the end-user or by the manufacturer is another question. There are a couple of other angles to this as well, which seem to tie in: The GSMA announced its "Embedded SIM Initiative" the other day. I don't actually think it's specifically Apple-driven, but is more about the general M2M market. There are plenty of new business models which could be enabled by this, as well as plenty of problems to solve . However, it is possible that the Apple discussion has brought the issue to a fore. Various operators are reportedly throwing a strop about Apple's plans to allow users to provision and activate services remotely. They are (quite reasonably in my view) threatening to stop subsidising iPhones if this occurs. But so what? Really, a subsidy is just a loan by another name, cunningly designed to make it look like the consumer isn't really taking on more debt. It's quite a *safe* loan, to be fair, as the phone is useless if the operator cancels your number and SIM, and so most people won't default on their monthly fees. But we already know that Apple is friendly with the credit card companies. It already offers finance plans for Macs and iPads . So why can't it also sell "free iPhones", backed up by its own subsidy / credit arrangement? Whether this is charged to your iTunes credit card, set up as a separate agreement or whatever is merely detail. Because if Apple also owns the UICC card, it has a built-in anti-default mechanism just as good as the operators'. For years, we have had people advocating the "Soft SIM" . Intel worked on a project called the "Identity Capable Platform" back in 2006-7 - I remember seeing presentations about it. The operators (and GSMA) have been fairly vociferous in their condemnation of the concept. I'm wondering if Apple has done an end-run around this, aiming to own a separate but embedded hardware SIM - and acting as a Trusted Services Manager itself - provisioning the operator's credentials as software on it. Add this to a way to escape from the "subsidy trap" by doing handset financing without scaring investors with risks of default, and we potentially have another disruption from Jobs. Now.... a disclaimer. I may well be adding 2+2 and getting 7.3 here. But I'd be very surprised if some elements of the recent Apple SIM and NFC stories don't blend together.

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• Carrier Aggregation Concepts for LTE Rel-10

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Carrier Aggregation Concepts for LTE Rel-10

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• What Does Cox's 3G Move Really Mean?

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What Does Cox's 3G Move Really Mean?

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• OS Watch: Developers Rally for Symbian

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OS Watch: Developers Rally for Symbian

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• AlcaLu Doesn't Expect LTE Small Cells Until 2011
• U.S. Cellular Believes in SPIT

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AlcaLu Doesn't Expect LTE Small Cells Until 2011	Top
U.S. Cellular Believes in SPIT	Top

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• Enforcing traffic management transparency
• CA (Carrier Aggregation) Scenarios in LTE-Advanced

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Enforcing traffic management transparency	Top
I need to do a full write-up of this week's Traffic Management Conference, but one theme that came out loud and clear (especially from the regulator's panel) was that any non-neutral network policy management will need to be absolutely clear and explicit to the end user. Although regulators have generally not had many official complaints, there have been many, many suggestions of illicit traffic-shaping or degradation. I had an IM chat last night about a particular operator's suspiciously-poor broadband performance with Skype, and how that might be proven or disproven as deliberate. One of the slides in my presentation at the conference yesterday which gained the most attention was the one with the Monopoly-board image of " Go to jail ". It's quite possible that telecom executives who allow broadband to be mis-sold may be legally liable, if it is found that secret policies are going to be applied. I suggested that a certain company with millions of end-points, million of servers, and proven data analytics capabilities should be able to spot any suspicious anomalies in traffic patterns, latencies and so forth. Any "monkeying-about" should stick out like a sore thumb, similar to a bank's anti-fraud systems. So it's interesting that the BBC is perhaps the first major content provider to specifically say that they were looking at software to help keep the network honest, and inform users about who is to blame if there are glitches. Of course, if you've been a regular reader of this blog, and customer of Disruptive Analysis' research and advisory services, none of this will come as much of a surprise to you, as it's been on the cards for more than three years - and indeed the EFF has had a tool available for some time to spot miscreant ISPs. Bottom line is that telcos in markets with liberal attitudes to neutrality will need to be 100% upfront to their customers about policy and optimisation techniques, or else they will get "outed" mercilessly - and perhaps prosecuted as well.
CA (Carrier Aggregation) Scenarios in LTE-Advanced	Top

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• Corporate Dominance Not in the Cards for the iPad

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Corporate Dominance Not in the Cards for the iPad

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• Verizon LTE phone expected in February
• The top wireless turkeys of 2010
• Report: 3G cheaper solution than 2G for M2M apps in the long run
• Tests show T-Mobile HSPA+ upgrades increase average smartphone speeds
• AT&T: 21 Mbps HSPA+ available on 80% of 3G footprint

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Verizon LTE phone expected in February	Top
The top wireless turkeys of 2010	Top
Report: 3G cheaper solution than 2G for M2M apps in the long run	Top
Tests show T-Mobile HSPA+ upgrades increase average smartphone speeds	Top
AT&T: 21 Mbps HSPA+ available on 80% of 3G footprint	Top

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• LTE, Competition, Sweden and Network Sharing
• Wallets don't crash
• Quick Recap of Self-Organising Networks (SON)

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LTE, Competition, Sweden and Network Sharing	Top
Over at Light Reading, Michelle Donegan reports that TeliaSonera over in Sweden who were early in starting their LTE network about a year ago have now gotten competition from Telenor, who has built an LTE network together with Tele2 . From a consumer point of view it's great to see a second LTE network being fired up. I haven't heard of any other country in which two overlapping LTE networks are running and open to the public yet, so that's another first. Personally, I am a bit sceptical about the network sharing part of the announcement because that reduces competition between network operators which in the long term might not only have positive consequences for the consumer. I've done some background reading and Sweden seems to be one of those countries where this is already done for 3G as well. Interestingly, the constelation is a bit different here. While Tele2 shares the LTE network with Telenor, it's 3G network is a shared operation with TeliaSonera (click on Sweden for details). Interesting triangle.  And on top, Telenor seems to share it's 3G network with Hutch 3G according to Wikipedia . Is your head spinning? Mine is, so here's a summary: TeliaSonera -- LTE Tele2 + Telenor -- LTE Tele2 + TeliaSonera -- 3G Telenor + H3G -- 3G Pretty much everyone with everyone, except for Hutch 3G who doesn't yet seem to have ties with TeliaSonera.
Wallets don't crash	Top
Yesterday evening, I exchanged a couple of debating points with some others in the industry, after one of them had reported hearing a at a conference that Nokia would include NFC chips, allegedly in all its smartphones, next year. ( I doubt that's accurate - if you're racing to the bottom vs Android on smartphone pricing in India, for example, you don't put a few $ of useless bill-of-materals in all your products, especially those sold in markets with no readers ) We've also heard a lot of hype in the past couple of weeks about NFC chips supposedly going to be in the next iPhone and also the next Gingerbread-powered iterations of Android. It's also worth noting that the "official" NFC may sometimes get confused with other short-range RFID solutions. Anyway, all that is outside the point of this post, except as context. And irony, given what happened next: In short, my phone spontaneously turned into a brick. One minute I was taking a photo at an interesting event last night, then switched it off. And it stayed off. Completely black - nothing happened holding the power button, the home button, nor trying the usual trick of physically hitting it against the table. [It was on about 85% battery] This was at about 8pm, just before the start of the dinner & event I was attending. Eventually when I got home, attached to my PC, looked up on the (PC!) web for help & support, and eventually reincarnated it by holding all the buttons down together for about 20 seconds. I was very, very glad that it hadn't contained my wallet, my house-keys, or my Oyster London travelcard. Maybe an NFC chip might have worked with the phone dead. Maybe not. But would I have felt like taking a chance, and staying out until 11.30pm & having a really enjoyable evening, knowing I might need to call a locksmith when I got home? Or if I'd get home, if the tube ticket barriers rejected my defunct psuedo-Oyster? Instead, I was just mildly grumpy I'd have to reorder another phone and I'd lost a few weeks' of photos, phone numbers and other stuff, since I'd last backed up. [Sidenote: would I pay for a network backup service even after this experience? No, probably not. But I am glad I've got the phone from an operator, on a subsidy, with a warranty, who I could have harassed for a replacement. And I will be syncing it with my PC more often] Yes, I know that NFC is supposed to work when the battery is dead. But in this case the kicker was that it wasn't dead.... there was *something* going on in the phone, as when I breathed life back into it, it had dropped to 32% battery, and still felt slightly warm 5 minutes after I'd taken it out of my pocket. Will NFC work when the OS is stuck in a loop or some other software / firmware Hades? Will any phone company want to take the risk that crashed phones render m-wallets and m-keys useless? What's the support cost of that? Could I have charged the locksmith to my telco, if I'd bought its phone-lock service? Or will they try and bill you extra for insurance? The bottom line: I'm very glad that my phone isn't a "single point of failure for my life". Ironic that I had a wake-up call just after a discussion about NFC.
Quick Recap of Self-Organising Networks (SON)	Top

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