MobilenniuM Express
3G Industry news from the UMTS Forum
08 December 2008

Ericsson and Telstra World's First to Deliver Mobile Broadband at 21Mbps in Commercial Network
Australia’s leading mobile group Telstra, which has the world’s fastest 3G network, has made another leap ahead and commercially launched HSPA+ services, with support from Swedish infrastructure vendor Ericsson. The upgrade of its NextG network with HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) technology boosts peak mobile downlink speeds from 7.2 Mbps to 21 Mbps, three times faster that the fastest speeds currently available. Ericsson’s sophisticated radio signalling can further boost the data rate to up to 42 Mbps, which Telstra plans to implement next year. Qualcomm provides Telstra with its MDM8200 chipset that supports HSPA+ data cards, USB sticks and embedded modules, and Sierra Wireless supplies its HSPA+-enabled broadband wireless modems.

Japan’s KDDI Selects LTE Core as Next-Generation Mobile Broadband Solution from Hitachi and Nortel
Japan’s sole CDMA operator KDDI has selected Japanese vendor Hitachi, collaborating with Canada’s Nortel, for the deployment of its core network based on long-term evolution (LTE) technology, planned for 2010. After months of speculation, KDDI – Japan’s second largest mobile player – has finally confirmed that it will migrate to LTE, the 3GPP standard for UMTS evolution, abandoning the CDMA2000 standard upgrade to ultra mobile broadband (UMB). KDDI’s announcement comes six weeks after Japan’s leading mobile operator NTT DoCoMo revealed plans to deploy LTE in 2010, setting Japan at the forefront of LTE deployments.

Telecom New Zealand Selects Alcatel-Lucent to Deploy IP/MPLS-based Mobile Backhaul
French networking vendor Alcatel-Lucent has signed an IP Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) mobile backhaul contract with Telecom New Zealand, according to which it will support the operator’s strategic transition to all-IP network. Alcatel-Lucent’s IP/MPLS mobile backhaul solution will enabled Telecom New Zealand to accommodate the operator’s growing WCDMA/HSPA traffic over a unified infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent’s IP/MPLS mobile backhaul solution was validated in June 2008 by Isocore Internetworking Lab, independent leader in validation and interoperability of emerging and next-generation technologies, confirming its scalability and resilience under the most demanding conditions. With one of the industry’s most comprehensive IP/MPLS mobile backhaul platforms, Alcatel-Lucent will be able to take advantage of mobile backhaul networks’ transition from legacy (TDM and ATM) to all-IP networks.

Desktop. Laptop. Pocket: The era of the personal Internet dawns with the Nokia N97
At the 'Nokia World' event in Barcelona, the world’s leading handset vendor has unveiled the HSDPA-enabled Nokia N97 smartphone, its first-ever touchscreen Nseries device. With a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, WiFi connectivity and integrated A-GPS sensors and electronic compass, the N97 integrates social-networking applications with Nokia’s location-based and navigation services, introducing the concept of “social location”. Multimedia features include a 5-megapixel camera and DVD quality video capture of up to 350 frames-per-second. Capable of downlink speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, the device supports 32 GB onboard memory capacity, with an additional 16 GB microSD card. Nokia will start shipping the smartphone in the first half of 2009 at a retail price of 550 euro, before taxes or subsidies, targeting internet-savvy consumers. The N97 is Nokia’s second touchscreen device following the launch of the 5800 XpressMusic handset in November in a response to the success of Apple’s iPhone and other touchscreen devices from rivals, including the HTC Touch 3G, BlackBerry Storm, Google’s Android G1, Samsung's Omnia and Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1.

Nokia Siemens Networks Peers into the Ultra-Fast Future with Groundbreaking Mobile Broadband Demonstration
Researchers at Nokia Siemens Networks’ German research lab have conducted the world’s first demonstration of LTE-Advanced. It revealed that the Relaying technology, which Nokia Siemens Networks has proposed for the LTE-Advanced standard, can enhance the radio signal on the edges of the LTE network coverage area, enabling users distant from the base station to get broadband speeds increased up to 50% of the peak throughput. The Relaying technology for LTE-Advanced can be integrated into a base station without the need to build out an external backhaul system, enabling mobile network operators to improve coverage of the fringe and indoor access points cost-efficiently.