3G/mobile broadband industry news from the UMTS Forum
31 July 2009
Following approval by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers has unanimously adopted the amended GSM Directive, releasing 900 MHz frequency band for mobile broadband. The new GSM Directive, which will take force in October, is crucial to European operators’ plans to expand WCDMA/HSPA networks beyond 2100 MHz. The Commission estimates that re-farming of 900 MHz spectrum – previously reserved for GSM technology – will bring savings of up to EUR1.6 billion in network costs thanks to wider coverage enabled by this lower frequency.
Huawei Opens LTE Laboratory in North America
Chinese vendor Huawei has unveiled a LTE (Long Term Evolution) Lab in Texas in a move to boost its presence in the North American market. Upgraded to support commercial product releases for North America, the lab will enable Huawei to present its LTE solutions to operators in the U.S. and Canada and test LTE systems with local players before delivery.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware have given the go-ahead to Ericsson’s US$1.13 billion acquisition of Nortel’s CDMA business and LTE Access assets. The takeover, announced on 25 July, will allow Ericsson to boost its LTE portfolio and strengthen its foothold in North America. With Nortel’s CDMA business – the second largest in the world behind Alcatel-Lucent – Ericsson will be positioned to support its Northern American CDMA customers in migration to LTE.
Rogers Debuts Another North American Wireless Network First
Canada’s largest mobile operator Rogers Wireless has announced plans to roll out its HSPA+ network in an effort to boost its peak mobile broadband download speeds to 21 Mbps. The rollout will start in Greater Toronto Area in August, with other cities to be covered later this year. Customers will be able to connect their laptops to the new network using an HSPA+ USB device. Rogers Wireless upgraded its network to HSPA technology in December 2008, enabling mobile broadband peak download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps.
Globalive Wireless Awards Alcatel-Lucent Multi-Million Dollar Contract to Build High-Speed 3G Mobile Network in Canada
Canadian AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) licence holder Globalive has signed a three-year deal with Alcatel-Lucent to deploy the operator’s new 3G network. Globalive was awarded its licence for the 1710-1755/2110-2155 MHz frequency range after successfully bidding more than CA$442 million in the AWS auction earlier last year.
T-Mobile USA will launch the HTC Pro 2 smartphone on 12 August. The new HSPA-enabled device features a tilting 3.6-inch colour WVGA touchscreen, a full QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, built-in GPS, location-based services and Wi-Fi. The HTC Touch Pro2 runs on a customised version of Windows Mobile 6.1 with integrated HTC’s latest TouchFLO 3D interface and Straight Talk technology.
Following the launch of HSPA+ services earlier this month, Singapore operator StarHubhas completed a 3G core network capacity expansion in cooperation with Nokia Siemens Networks. The move is the response to an exponential increase in data traffic over the last two year experienced by the operator. The upgrade will allow StarHubto enrich the mobile broadband experience for its 3G customers.
Japan’s leading mobile operator NTT DoCoMo will reduce monthly subscription charges for its flat-rate data plans from 490 yen (US$5.13) to 390 yen. The operator expects to attract more customers to its Pake-hodai double (for i-mode browsing/email) and Biz-hodai double (for non-i-mode browsing/e-mail via smartphones), as well as BeeTV video streaming. On the top of monthly charges, moderate data users incur pay-as-you-go data charges, while heavy users pay a flat-rate data charge for an unlimited package.
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