The future of 4G wireless, according to Ericsson

• Tags:
• Wi Fi,
• Coverage,
• Operators,
• Stations

Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 14 Oct 2008 16:13 BST

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...who use video content several times a week, 36 percent will use video from YouTube, 26 percent use video clips, 16 percent share videos and 12 percent buy video.

That is on both fixed and mobile networks, but there is a move towards mobile. We know that in 2009, the number of people accessing broadband by mobile networks will be greater than the number on fixed networks. By 2013, 75 percent of people will use mobile broadband.

If they have to provide a lot of video downloads, will operators have vast problems upgrading their backhaul to meet the demands?
I'm not at all concerned about the technology. It's there to keep up. From the point of view of affordability, it may be more of a challenge. But BT has agreed to provide Vodafone with 60Mbps backhaul on its 21st century network, with an option to increase that to 80Mbps. That's a landmark — a step change in the amount of bandwidth available to serve mobile data.

The move to LTE is a move towards data and data is usually done indoors, where traditional 'macrocell' base stations give poor coverage. Will that be a problem?
This depends which part of the spectrum is used. Penetration into buildings is a problem at the higher end of current spectrum, say 2.6GHz. But there is also spectrum from the digital dividend and spectrum re-farming, which we think should be made available for mobile applications. We think that would be really appropriate for LTE. This could provide broadband connectivity in rural areas, to people who wouldn't have it otherwise.

Speaking of 2.6GHz, every time I look, Ofcom has put off the auction for another two months. It seems the delay is coming from mobile operators or service providers who say they are worried about the connection with other auctions. They say they don't know how much to spend on 2.6GHz spectrum, till they know more about the availability of other spectrum. What's going on there?
Yes. We're interested in this, obviously. There's the 900MHz spectrum, and the UHF digital dividend.

Are they just trying to delay the auction to kill off WiMax operators in the UK?
Do people think that? I shouldn't comment.

Stepping back and taking an Ericsson perspective — how much of an issue is it for you, when that spectrum becomes available?
We have a very good roadmap and an ecosystem. The most important thing is that operators continue to invest in their networks — and have the spectrum that allows them to do that.

It's been suggested that since mobile data is usually done indoors, the LTE upgrade could be rolled out with small indoor 'femtocells' instead of traditional outdoor 'macrocell' base stations. Indoors, LTE handsets would get full data rates, over broadband backhaul, while outside, they would fall back to 3G. This could save operators money, and allow them to buy fewer LTE base stations from companies like Ericsson. Is it possible that the market for LTE macrocells might be vastly smaller than the market for 3G macrocells was?
I agree with some of this. Indoor coverage is an issue, and fixed backhaul has to be consistent with the capacity required for 100Mbps mobile broadband. We make an indoor base station, for 2G networks; 3G femtos and LTE femtocells may come along, but our focus is on 2G femtos because they work with existing handsets. Will femtocells delay macro networks? I don't know.

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