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...as seen by an international group of authors engaged in mobile systems development and standardization
Ferdo Ivanek
ireless communications
applications offer increasingly attractive business
opportunities for the microwave
industry. This is why the MTT-S
Technical Committee on Microwave
Technology Business Issues (MTT-19)
organized three symposium events
focusing on broadband wireless
access (BWA) issues:
IMS 2005 Workshop on Competitiveness of Broadband
Wi r e l e s s A c c e s s ( B WA )
Systems
IMS 2006 Focused Session on
4 GHz for 4G?
RWS 2007 Focused Session on
Convergence and Competition
on the Way Toward 4G.
The presentations and discussions stimulated follow-up with a
focused issue of IEEE Microwave
Magazine. For timely coverage, we had to
await the outcome of two major events of
the Radiocommunication Sector of the
International Telecommunication Union
(ITU-R) that were intended to make
important standardization and regulatory
decisions within the International Mobile
Telecommunications (IMT) framework:
Ferdo Ivanek is with the Technical University,
Vienna, Austria.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2008.924760
addition, three of the five preexisting radio interfaces were expanded with new orthogonal frequency
division multiple access (OFDMA)
specifications. RA-07 also formally
adopted the term IMT-Advanced
intended to define the next generation of cellular mobile systems [2].
The 22 October16 November
2007 World Radiocommunication
Conference (WRC-07) identified
new harmonized spectrum for
International
Mobile
Telecommunications (IMT) as follows: 450470 MHz band,
698806 MHz band in Region 2
and nine countries of Region 3,
790862 MHz band in Regions 1
and 3, 2.32.4 GHz band,
3.43.6 GHz band (no global
DIGITAL VISION
allocation, but accepted by
many countries) [3]. It is of
particular significance that the
The 1519 October 2007 Radionewly identified frequency
communication Assembly (RA-07)
bands, as well as the bands prerevised Recommendation ITU-R
viously identified for IMT-2000,
M.1457, which is the defining docrepresent generic IMT specument of IMT-2000 [1]. The
trum identifications rather than
revised version includes the new
separate ones for IMT-2000 and
OFDMA TDD WMAN radio
IMT-Advanced.
interface, a subset of IEEE Std
These are far-reaching standardiza802.16 based on the Mobile
WiMAX profile of the WiMAX tion and regulatory decisions of global
(Worldwide Interoperability for scope that are expected to benefit service
Microwave Access) Forum. In providers and system suppliers and,
August 2008
Convergence and
Competition Trends
Cellular service providers keep upgrading their networks in an effort to match
the broadband capabilities of wireline
services or at least approach them as
closely as possible at justifiable cost.
Table 1 of [5] highlights the progress
chronology. To speed up the deployment
of higher broadband services than cellular systems offer at the time, some operators are resorting to service convergence with Wi-Fi hot spots, e.g., [8], or
mobile WiMAX, e.g., [9]. (Note that due
to the pace of new developments, some
references used at the time of this writing
may be outdated by the time of publication). Significantly, such service convergence extends spectrum usage to bands
that are not available to cellular systems,
including license-free bands, which is
beneficial due to the increasing demand
for frequency spectrum that is most suitable for non-line-of-sight (NLOS) wireless operation. Another beneficial aspect
is technological convergence, as exemplified by the adoption of OFDMA for the
August 2008
10
Roadmap of IMT-Advanced
Development, written by Akira
Hashimoto, Hitoshi Yoshino, and
H i ro y u k i A t a r a s h i , f o c u s e s o n
exploratory developments in Japan. The
authors summarize the WRC-07 decisions identifying new spectrum for IMT
usage and the ITU-R framework and
schedule for the development of
Recommendations on IMT-Advanced.
While 3G-LTE deployment is intended
as a stepping stone, a new radio interface is envisaged for IMT-Advanced
using variable spreading factorspread
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (VSF-Spread OFDM) to support both mobile wide-area and
nomadic/local-area radio access by
changing the radio parameters. Lowmobility field and laboratory tests using
MIMO multiplexing demonstrated the
feasibility of obtaining spectral efficiencies above 10 b/s/Hz, and possibly up
to about 50 b/s/Hz in the future.
Concerning the proposed additional
spectrum identification in the 45 GHz
range, which WRC-07 did not adopt,
the authors are outlining a framework
for spectrum-sharing studies that are
needed to reconsider the matter. In
Japan, however, the spectrum refarming
in progress aims at enabling IMTAdvanced deployment by 2012. The
article concludes with time line projections of ITU-R progress in the continuing IMT-2000 evolution and identification of additional IMT bands, as well as
in the envisaged evolution and deployment of IMT-Advanced.
Physical Relationships, written by
Donald C. Cox and Hyunok Lee, focuses on first-order scaling fundamentals
that, if overlooked, may lead to unrealistic coverage expectations from emerging
wireless systems intended to enhance
broadband capabilities. The relationship
between transmission range and bit rate
is derived assuming two systems with
different bit rates but all other parameters equal. The 2G reference system is
assumed to operate in the 800-MHz
band with a bit rate of 10 kb/s and a
range of 10 km with 90% coverage probability. A propagation exponent of m = 3
is used in the relationship between
received signal level and distance.
The derived fundamental relationship
August 2008
12
Continuing on
the Way Toward 4G
The articles in this issue document the
ongoing efforts in continuing 3G developments that tend to transition into 4G
through consecutive system enhancements. There is no agreed upon demarcation line between 3G and 4G; different
arguments can be put forward depending on the assumed criteria. For example,
if a change in air interface technology is
taken as criterion, then the introduction
of OFDMA into Recommendation ITU-R
M.1457 effectively ushered in 4G.
However, if a technology-neutral criterion is used, such as the data rate objectives
of IMT-Advanced (100 Mb/s mobile, 1
Gb/s nomadic), then a more spectrally
efficient air interface technology may be
needed for 4G, possibly the experimentally implemented VSF-spread OFDM.
Given the continuing 3G evolution
beyond the initial objectives, and the fact
that most of the 3G deployment is still
ahead, 4G remains a moving target. Thus,
the persisting ambiguity of the term
4G, and our suggestion to focus on the
evolving 3G/4G continuum.
Competition is intensifying among
mobile service providers and among
their suppliers of systems, handsets, and
chips. It is remarkable how successfully
these competitors cooperate toward convergence, but it is not surprising because
it is in their best common interest to
minimize the standards variety to maximize the market for their products.
How well is the mobile industry
doing as a whole? Pretty well, considering the initial voice-only services that
grew beyond expectations and soon
started expanding into data services. The
prevailing current mobile broadband
user experience is equivalent to the prevailing current low-end DSL and cable
modem offerings, which is rather successful considering the NLOS propagation impairments, the regulatory restrictions, and the increasingly demanding
consumer market. Mobile broadband
will necessarily always lag behind wireline broadband, but the progressing
3G/4G evolution seems to be delivering
on the ever-higher expectations.
References
[1] ITU-R Radiocommunications Assembly
expands IMT-2000 3G radio interface family
with OFDMA technologyEstablishes IMTAdvanced as the name for 4G, WRC-07
Newsroom, 19 Oct. 2007 [Online]. Available:
h t t p : / / w w w. i t u . i n t / n e w s r o o m / w r c /
2007/itur_web_flash/20071019.html
August 2008
Available: http://www.cdg.org/news/press/
2007/Sep24_07.asp
[15] T. Pica, Verizon selects LTE as 4G wireless
broadband direction, Verizon Wireless Media
Contact Info, Nov. 29, 2007 [Online]. Available:
http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/11/pr20071129.html
[16] Show daily wrapup, Mobile World Congress
Daily 2008, Feb. 20, 2008 [Online]. Available:
http://now.eloqua.com/es.asp?s=667&e=
A073A8E9B6214480B923064356086026&elq=
24A333A189E24111B0A44C68379584F1
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August 2008