That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker.

THE device in your purse or jeans that you think is a cellphone — guess again. It is a tracking device that happens to make calls. Let’s stop calling them phones. They are trackers.

Javier Jaén Benavides

Most doubts about the principal function of these devices were erased when it was recently disclosed that cellphone carriers responded 1.3 million times last year to law enforcement requests for call data. That’s not even a complete count, because T-Mobile, one of the largest carriers, refused to reveal its numbers. It appears that millions of cellphone users have been swept up in government surveillance of their calls and where they made them from. Many police agencies don’t obtain search warrants when requesting location data from carriers.

Thanks to the explosion of GPS technology and smartphone apps, these devices are also taking note of what we buy, where and when we buy it, how much money we have in the bank, whom we text and e-mail, what Web sites we visit, how and where we travel, what time we go to sleep and wake up — and more. Much of that data is shared with companies that use it to offer us services they think we want.

We have all heard about the wonders of frictionless sharing, whereby social networks automatically let our friends know what we are reading or listening to, but what we hear less about is frictionless surveillance. Though we invite some tracking — think of our mapping requests as we try to find a restaurant in a strange part of town — much of it is done without our awareness.

“Every year, private companies spend millions of dollars developing new services that track, store and share the words, movements and even the thoughts of their customers,” writes Paul Ohm, a law professor at the University of Colorado. “These invasive services have proved irresistible to consumers, and millions now own sophisticated tracking devices (smartphones) studded with sensors and always connected to the Internet.”

Mr. Ohm labels them tracking devices. So does Jacob Appelbaum, a developer and spokesman for the Tor project, which allows users to browse the Web anonymously. Scholars have called them minicomputers and robots. Everyone is struggling to find the right tag, because “cellphone” and “smartphone” are inadequate. This is not a semantic game. Names matter, quite a bit. In politics and advertising, framing is regarded as essential because what you call something influences what you think about it. That’s why there are battles over the tags “Obamacare” and “death panels.”

In just the past few years, cellphone companies have honed their geographic technology, which has become almost pinpoint. The surveillance and privacy implications are quite simple. If someone knows exactly where you are, they probably know what you are doing. Cellular systems constantly check and record the location of all phones on their networks — and this data is particularly treasured by police departments and online advertisers. Cell companies typically retain your geographic information for a year or longer, according to data gathered by the Justice Department.

What’s the harm? The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruling about the use of tracking devices by the police, noted that GPS data can reveal whether a person “is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.” Even the most gregarious of sharers might not reveal all that on Facebook.

There is an even more fascinating and diabolical element to what can be done with location information. New research suggests that by cross-referencing your geographical data with that of your friends, it’s possible to predict your future whereabouts with a much higher degree of accuracy.

This is what’s known as predictive modeling, and it requires nothing more than your cellphone data.

If we are naïve to think of them as phones, what should we call them? Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia University, argues that they are robots for which we — the proud owners — are merely the hands and feet. “They see everything, they’re aware of our position, our relationship to other human beings and other robots, they mediate an information stream around us,” he has said. Over time, we’ve used these devices less for their original purpose. A recent survey by O2, a British cell carrier, showed that making calls is the fifth-most-popular activity for smartphones; more popular uses are Web browsing, checking social networks, playing games and listening to music. Smartphones are taking over the functions that laptops, cameras, credit cards and watches once performed for us.

If you want to avoid some surveillance, the best option is to use cash for prepaid cellphones that do not require identification. The phones transmit location information to the cell carrier and keep track of the numbers you call, but they are not connected to you by name. Destroy the phone or just drop it into a trash bin, and its data cannot be tied to you. These cellphones, known as burners, are the threads that connect privacy activists, Burmese dissidents and coke dealers.

Prepaids are a hassle, though. What can the rest of us do? Leaving your smartphone at home will help, but then what’s the point of having it? Turning it off when you’re not using it will also help, because it will cease pinging your location to the cell company, but are you really going to do that? Shutting it down does not even guarantee it’s off — malware can keep it on without your realizing it. The only way to be sure is to take out the battery. Guess what? If you have an iPhone, you will need a tiny screwdriver to remove the back cover. Doing that will void your warranty.

Matt Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, has written extensively about these issues and believes we are confronted with two choices: “Don’t have a cellphone or just accept that you’re living in the Panopticon.”

There is another option. People could call them trackers. It’s a neutral term, because it covers positive activities — monitoring appointments, bank balances, friends — and problematic ones, like the government and advertisers watching us.

We can love or hate these devices — or love and hate them — but it would make sense to call them what they are so we can fully understand what they do.

Peter Maass and Megha Rajagopalan are reporters on digital privacy for ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative newsroom.

A version of this news analysis appeared in print on July 15, 2012, on page SR5 of the New York edition with the headline: That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker..

 

By PETER MAASS and MEGHA RAJAGOPALAN

Published: July 13, 2012

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/thats-not-my-phone-its-my-tracker.html?_r=1

Buitenlandse netwerken krijgen LTE versneller

Waar in Nederland nog begonnen moet worden met het grootschalig uitrollen van LTE netwerken, kijken grote aanbieders van LTE netwerken in het buitenland al naar het gebruik van LTE versnellers.
Door: Tim Wijkman – Vanaf 2013 gaat onder andere AT&T in de Verenigde Staten en SK Telecom in Zuid Korea een LTE versneller toepassen op haar LTE netwerken. Dat schrijft Tweakers.net op basis van een rapport van de Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA). De LTE versneller ‘LTE Advanced’ maakt downloadsnelheden tot 1 Gigabit per seconde (Gbps) mogelijk en uploadsnelheden tot 500 Megabit per seconde (Mbps).
Reguliere LTE netwerken zijn al aanzienlijk sneller dan de UMTS netwerken die in Nederland gebruikt worden. Over reguliere LTE netwerken kunnen onder labaratorium omstandigheden downloadsnelheden tot 100 Mbps behaald worden en uploadsnelheden tot 40 Mbps. De ‘LTE Advanced’ techniek maakt het mogelijk om over hetzelfde netwerk aanzienlijk hogere up- en downloadsnelheden te realiseren en de capaciteit van het netwerk aanzienlijk te vergroten. Hierdoor kunnen meer gebruikers gelijktijdig gebruik maken van een snellere dataverbinding.
Een vergelijkbare techniek wordt momenteel in Nederland toegepast op UMTS netwerken. Over reguliere UMTS netwerken zijn downloadsnelheden tot 384 Kbps haalbaar en uploadsnelheden tot 64 Kbps. De UMTS versneller ‘HSDPA’ verhoogt de maximale downloadsnelheid in Nederland tot maximaal 28,8 Mbps. Voorts zorgt de ‘HSUPA’ techniek ervoor dat uploadsnelheden tot 5,76 Mbps behaald kunnen worden.
In Nederland hebben momenteel KPN, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Ziggo en Tele2 een kleinschalig LTE netwerk. Doordat in Nederland op dit moment alleen de 2,6 GHz band gebruikt mag worden voor LTE netwerken, kunnen providers LTE nog niet grootschalig uitrollen. In oktober van dit jaar vindt een nieuwe frequentieveiling plaats, waarbij naast nieuwe ook de huidige GSM en UMTS frequenties geveild gaan worden. Na deze veiling kunnen providers beginnen met het uitrollen van grootschalige LTE netwerken. Diverse providers hebben al aangegeven dat hun huidige apparatuur al geschikt is het uitzenden van LTE signaal.
Het is onbekend of Nederlandse providers ook direct de LTE Advanced techniek gaan inzetten. Na de introductie van UMTS in Nederland duurde het nog vier jaar voordat providers de UMTS versneller HSDPA in gingen zetten.
Voor het origineel zie:
http://www.gsmhelpdesk.nl/read.php?id=7267

zaterdag, 14 juli 2012 – Dossier: Algemeen

Bron: GSM Helpdesk 14 juli 2012 Buitenlandse netwerken krijgen LTE versneller

Providers plaatsen 43 LTE antennes in 2e kwartaal

Om te voldoen aan de dekkingsverplichtingen vrbonden aan de 4G licenties, hebben mobiele aanbieders afgelopen kwartaal gezamelijk 43 LTE antennes geplaatst. Totaal groeide het aantal antennes met 300.

Door: de redactie – In het tweede kwartaal van dit jaar zijn er in Nederland weer 300 antennes voor mobiele communicatie bijgekomen, een stijging van 1,2 procent ten opzichte van het eerste kwartaal van 2012. Dat blijkt uit cijfers die het Antennebureauheeft gepubliceerd. Voor het eerst zijn in het overzicht ook LTE antennes opgedoken. In het tweede kwartaal van dit jaar zijn de eerste 43 LTE antennes in Nederland geplaatst.

300 nieuwe antennes geplaatst in het tweede kwartaal van 2012

GSM 900 en GSM 1800 Het aantal reguliere GSM (2G) antennes stijgt al jaren flink door. Mobiele aanbieders investeren vooral in de uitbreiding van GSM 900 netwerken omdat GSM 900 antennes een aanzienlijk grotere dekking bieden dan GSM 1800 antennes. In het tweede kwartaal plaatste providers totaal 26 nieuwe GSM 900 antennes. Totaal staan er nu 9689 GSM 900 antennes in Nederland.
Na jaren van daling in het aantal GSM 1800 antennes is sinds begin dit jaar weer een lichte stijging zichtbaar in het aantal GSM 1800 antennes die providers plaatsen. GSM 1800 antennes hebben een minder groot bereik dan GSM 900 antennes, maar bieden over het algemeen wel een betere indoor dekking. Hierdoor zijn GSM 1800 antennes erg geschikt voor gebruik in stedelijke gebieden. In het eerste kwartaal werden negen nieuwe GSM 1800 antennes geplaatst, in het tweede kwartaal kwamen er nog eens drie bij. Het totaal aantal geplaatste GSM 1800 antennes komt daarmee nu op 3847 stuks.
UMTS Door de steeds maar groeiende vraag naar mobiele internetdiensten, investeren mobiele aanbieders vooral in de uitbreiding van hun UMTS netwerken. Na een stevige stijging van het aantal UMTS antennes in het eerste kwartaal van dit jaar, waarbij maarliefst 581 nieuwe UMTS antennes werden geplaatst, hebben mobiele aanbieders het in het tweede kwartaal van dit jaar iets rustiger aan gedaan. Desondanks werden er toch nog 228 nieuwe UMTS antennes bijgeplatst. Het totaal aantal UMTS antennes komt daarmee op 11881 stuks.
LTE Voor het eerst in de geschiedenis van het Antenneregister, zijn nu ook LTE antennes in het register opgedoken. Alle mobiele aanbieders die in 2010 een licentie verwierven op de 2,6 GHz band, hadden de verplichting om op 11 mei van dit jaar een operationeel LTE netwerk te hebben. Om aan die uitrolverplichting te voldoen, hebben de vijf mobiele aanbieders met een LTE licentie totaal 43 LTE antennes geplaatst.
Het lage aantal LTE antennes in Nederland geeft duidelijk aan dat mobiele aanbieders weliswaar aan de minimale uitrolverplichtingen voldoen, maar de dienst zeker nog niet op grote schaal willen aanbieden. Later dit jaar zullen de huidige GSM 900, GSM 1800 en UMTS frequenties onder de hamer gaan en opnieuw verdeeld worden. Daarbij komt ook nog spectrum in de 800 MHz band vrij. Met al deze frequenties samen kunnen providers gaan bouwen aan een landelijk dekkend LTE netwerk om op die manier LTE in de komende jaren breed beschikbaar te maken.
Tele2 heeft momenteel het grootste LTE netwerk van Nederland en dekt naar eigen zeggen honderd vierkante kilometer, een oppervlakte die vergelijkbaar is met vijf keer de oppervlakte van Amsterdam. T-Mobile dekt slechts tien vierkante kilometer met ‘slechts’ zes antenne’s. Ziggo heeft een LTE dekking van veertig vierkante kilometer en KPN en Vodafone bieden beide circa 20 vierkante kilometer aan LTE dekking.

16-07-2012 –

Source: http://www.gsmhelpdesk.nl/read.php?id=7276

TD-LTE needs three more years to hit mainstream

The TDD flavour of LTE is finally being regarded as a mainstream technology, which may still lag behind its FDD stablemate by about three years, but has a strong chance of gaining wide adoption outside the Chinese market where it originated.

China remains the key driver of the ecosystem, but new TDD spectrum will be allocated in most regions of the world during the current wave of 4G auctions, and carriers everywhere are considering how it could be harnessed to augment their capacity. For instance, some European operators expect to deploy TD-LTE as a second wave when their FDD capacity starts to get strained, or to use the TDD band for a separate layer of small cells, within a HetNet, or for a specific function such as machine-to-machine services.

 Other operators, like Orange and AT&T, plan to use unpaired frequencies to add to their initial LTE network capacity, using supplemental downlink techniques. Then there are carriers which already have access to TDD bands, often because they have Wimax businesses, Clearwire being a famous example.

 Most of this spectrum is in 2.3GHz or 2.5GHz, but some players, like UK Broadband, are even harnessing the 3.5GHz band.

This gained new prominence recently when the FCC talked about releasing 100MHz of spectrum here, possibly targeted at small cell networks with global roaming potential. The band is suited to small cells because it support base stations with limited range, and so is generally uneconomic for macrocell rollouts.

Doug Pulley, CTO wireless at chip provider Mindspeed, said in a recent interview with ThinkSmallCell: “This is really nice spectrum to use. Significantly, it is one of the few global bands – and it is TDD everywhere. While it’s at the limit of what a macrocellular network could deploy, it’s really good at short range/high bandwidth, it will go through walls a little better than the 5GHz used by Wi-Fi 802.11ac. There’s also plenty of bandwidth available.

The rules about how this spectrum could be allocated and used aren’t yet clear. It could be standalone or possibly use carrier aggregation with other bands which could be quite interesting to existing spectrum holders. Perhaps it will be positioned somewhere between the ‘free for all’ Wi-Fi and completely independent cellular networks.”

 These are interesting options for the future, but the real focus today is on the major new TD-LTE roll-outs like those in China and India, and even a few cellcos looking to do dual-mode FDD/TDD from day one to maximize their data capabilities (such as 3 Scandinavia).

According to DigiTimes, the chronicler of the Taiwanese device business, local handset makers expect demand for TD-LTE devices to take off in the second half of 2013 or the first half of 2014, while the latest figures from the GSA says that 68 of the 417 LTE devices now available have TDD mode enabled (this figure includes fixed gadgets and modems, not just handsets, and enabling TD-LTE does not mean it is actively used).

The expected uptick in late 2013 will depend on China Mobile sticking to its schedule for deploying 4G services from later this year. The cellco‘s vice general manager, Li Zhengmao, said this week that the operator would launch more than 10 TD-LTE smartphones by mid-2013, rising to over 100 by 2014. It is currently testing TD-LTE in 13 cities, including Shanghai and Beijing.

Li Zhengmao told local reporters: “The TD-LTE industry chain has become mature and it will have enough models within one or two years”, though Mobile also needs to obtain new operating licences for 4G to achieve full coverage, and the government may not grant these for another two years at least. However, it will upgrade existing TD-SCDMA base stations in the meantime. Its growing network continues to be described as a trial because of the lack of licences, though with 200,000 base stations planned by next year, that “stretches the definition of what a trial is” as Ric Clark, an Asia-Pacific vice president at Alcatel-Lucent, put it. Most of the phase two “trials” are in 2.6GHz rather than refarmed 3G spectrum.

With all this activity, TD-LTE will account for 25% of all LTE connections by 2016, according to new estimates from Ovum. Analyst Daryl Schoolar said that mobile broadband services will be the main application of TD-LTE, but it will also be deployed for fixed wireless and small cell backhaul. He said: “Thanks to multi-standard base stations, mobile operators will look to the same vendors that deployed their 2G/3G and LTE FDD networks to deploy their LTE TDD networks.”

 He added: “Combining multiple standards will grow the overall network capacity and increase quality of service. This is just a small part of it; the bigger opportunities lie in operators deploying it as their primary 4G network, such as Bharti Airtel in India and Mobily in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, LTE TDD provides cost benefits due to the price of unpaired spectrum, which can be passed on to end users.”

In this multi-standard world, interworking will be crucial. Ericsson recently performed the first bidirectional handover between FDD and TDD flavors of LTE on a live network, demonstrated on an FD-LTE network run by China Mobile Hong Kong. “As the handover demonstrates, Ericsson can offer operators a fully integrated FDD/TDD network that, from a systems point of view, is as simple as handover between a system running two frequencies,” said the firm.

 Caroline Gabriel/Wireless Watch  |   July 16, 2012

Source: http://www.telecomasia.net/content/td-lte-needs-three-more-years-hit-mainstream?page=0%2C2&goback=.gde_136744_member_134770098

Improving Public Safety via LTE

Imagine what it might be like if emergency workers who respond to horrific catastrophes like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes all were carrying small video cameras. Further image that they could share in real-time the video and other critical information they capture on the scene with colleagues at the site and with the entire emergency response ecosystem. 
The vision of video and rich data being efficiently and effectively share between all critical aspects of public safety emergency response ecosystems — from those onsite to all of their support capabilities and the command and control centers of all agencies for whom the speed of responsivenss is essential is being relized. The advent of 4G LTE mobile broadband is at the core of Alcatel-Lucent’s push to make the vision of public safety communication reality.

As noted by Alcatel-Lucent, most public safety agencies today use digital Professional or Land Mobile Radio (PMR/LMR) networks that are based on the TETRA standard in Europe and most other parts of the world which typically use the 400 MHz band. Project25 is used in the U.S. for essential communication with dedicated radio spectrum in the 700 MHz frequency band. 

The challenge for traditional systems is that while they provide emergency teams the ability to talk securely in a one-to-one or group situations with ‘push-to-talk’ to prioritize speakers, they  cannot accommodate the video and rich data services that now are available to any consumer on a 4G LTE mobile broadband network. This is the situation that Alcatel-Lucent (News – Alert) is looking to rectify by enabling public safety agencies to have their own dedicated spectrum to avail themselves not just of connectivity and interoperability for basic voice interactions during times of crises, but also to the full panoply of capabilities broadband provides.   

In May, Alcatel-Lucent and Cassidian, an EADS (News – Alert) company, unveiled the Evercor solution, which brings 4G LTE (News – Alert) mobile broadband to professional mobile radio users in the 400 MHz frequency band.

“It integrates LTE mobile data with mission critical voice capabilities enabling real-time video, collaboration and data services,” said Philippe Keryer, Executive Vice President of Alcatel-Lucent Networks Group and Jean-Marc Nasr, Senior Vice President of Head of Cassidian Secure Communications Solutions, in an announcement about the solution.

Delivering backhaul networking capabilities that can support the power, bandwidth and speeds needed for effective emergency video and data services has also been at the core of Alcatel-Lucent’s public safety work. The company leverages its Wireless Packet Core portfolio, including its all-Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) communications protocol and its family of IP/MPLS Service Routers such as its  7705 Service Aggregation Router.

Last August, the company demonstrated its ‘Striker 1’ mobile command vehicle, which the company said, “provides LTE mobile broadband support in the public safety band 14 spectrum for mobile devices such as tablets, radios and video cameras.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s work with public safety agencies around the world on incorporating 4G LTE mobile broadband into their response effort is reflected in two recent projects. It assisted the City of Charlotte on giving fingerprint and face recognition to first responders over the 700 MHz frequency. And, it is working with the São Paolo, Brazil military police to leverage high-speed video and data at two of its police operational centers.

We hear a lot about the revolution 4G LTE is bringing to personal and commercial markets. In various major catastrophes around the world in the past few years, significant gaps in connectivity and capabilities have exposed the critical need for dedicated wireless broadband to enable first responders and aid providers to be able to act quickly and coordinate activities decisively in times where every second matters. It is encouraging how LTE is being used in dedicated frequencies and not just traditional but innovative ways to greatly improve public safety ecosystem response capabilities.    
July 15, 2012 By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Edited by Peter Bernstein

Source: http://next-generation-communications.tmcnet.com/topics/dynamic-enterprise/articles/298869-improving-public-safety-via-lte.htm

Wi-Fi vs. 4G: Is There Really a Debate?

Call it the metaphor meeting the point break. With last year’s installation of Wi-Fi service that covered Venice Beach in Southern California, Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) brought Web surfing to the home of the real thing — perhaps heralding the future of wireless communications, where Wi-Fi would be everywhere, including the beach.

With mesh-network technology and solar-powered access points mounted on lifeguard stands, Time Warner Cable’s SoCal beach infrastructure is just part of what some see as the “network of the future” — a collection of Wi-Fi clouds that will deliver faster, better and cheaper wireless services, with coverage broad enough to free us from our cellular overlords, no matter where we hang out. This new, big Wi-Fi network idea was one central thought that emerged during a recent one-day conference at Stanford University, where all kinds of smart people involved in the business of wireless contemplated how unlicensed spectrum was going to “expand the reach and decrease the cost of broadband.”

One answer is that Wi-Fi will not just be something you turn to periodically, but will instead become the dominant way we connect to the Internet when mobile. Wi-Fi gear supporting the new 802.11ac protocol — which promises Gigabit connection speeds — is already heading to store shelves, meaning that your Starbucks experience is probably going to get a lot better sometime soon. But will it be good enough to make you drop your cellular contract? In this column and one to follow I’ll consider why a super, independent Wi-Fi network makes sense, and then get cynical and reason that in the end it may be the big telcos and cablecos who end up owning most of the Wi-Fi infrastructure. But let’s start with the basics on why Wi-Fi is going to win, no matter who brings you the service.

Some intelligent creatures like Brough Turner have been saying for quite some time now that the cellular infrastructure, especially here in the United States, simply isn’t going to be able to handle the demand for wireless broadband services, which continues to grow explosively without a top end in sight. At the place where I spend most of my time these days, a website called Mobile Sports Report, we are seeing perhaps the extreme example of cellular overload, when tens of thousands of sports fans invade stadiums with their smartphones and can’t understand why their devices can’t connect. The big trend right now in the sports world is to put Wi-Fi into stadiums, so that fans can send and receive emails, photos, videos and more, ensuring that they keep coming to games and not staying home on the couch.

And while this might seem like a special situation, in reality it’s just an early window on what is going to happen soon to many public spaces where a large number of folks gather, with devices in hand: The normal cellular infrastructure is going to get overwhelmed. Anyone who’s been to a big conference, like CES, knows what I’m talking about. This already happens now. And it’s not getting better anytime soon. The devices have outstripped the cellular networks, and the networks are never — never — going to catch up.

Though the next version of LTE will theoretically support download speeds much higher than today’s, the real-world services will likely be hamstrung by the small amounts of wireless spectrum available for commercial use. In the 5GHz unlicensed band, however, there are huge chunks of spectrum available. And with the new 802.11ac protocol, Wi-Fi could conceivably support wireless download speeds into the hundreds of megabits per second. Which technology would you rather choose when it comes to supporting the demands of the future? Which will be the one with any hope of staying ahead?

“We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to the amount of [wireless] data that’s going to be used,” said Dave Fraser, CEO of Devicescape Software Inc. , a company that is taking unique advantage of the cellular crunch. Though it doesn’t own or operate its own wireless network per se, Devicescape is already providing valuable cellular offload services to big carriers by linking public hot spots together in what it calls a “curated virtual network,” where it vets and selects top-quality hot spots and then uses client software and other smarts to create a sort of wide-ranging service cloud that lets carriers redirect their customers’ connections to a Devicescape Wi-Fi hot spot, alleviating cellular congestion. (See Mobile Internet Offload Grabs the Limelight and Startup Taps Devicescape for Wi-Fi-First Network.)

Speaking at the Stanford conference, Fraser said Devicescape’s business has given him a unique observation point on what is happening with Wi-Fi: Basically, it’s going in everywhere.

“It’s a subtle but increasing revolution that’s already underway,” Fraser said. “We all know there’s Wi-Fi at Starbucks, but who knew it was in Macy’s, and Nordstrom’s? Or that there’s a great network at Home Depot?” According to Fraser there are 100 million access points that Devicescape knows how to connect to, and perhaps 8.5 million of what it calls “quality” hotspots that are designed intentionally for free use.

“Nobody really knew how much public Wi-Fi was out there,” Fraser said.

It’s tempting to look at those numbers and say yes — the revolution is nigh! Let us all combine our small business, government and personal networks into a big, humongous Wi-Fi cloud, where service is free or cheap and we have massive group cookouts, barbecuing our food over fires fueled by our needless cellular phone bills.

Could that happen? Maybe. There’s some hard work that needs to be done on several ends, mainly in the area of discovery and authentication — people are going to want to know how to connect to this new cloud and what it’s going to cost, and how good the connection is going to be. And then the providers of services, individuals and businesses whose “real” purpose probably isn’t being a wireless service provider, are going to need to offer some kind of reliability guarantee if this super-network is going to be something people rely on. Plus, they’ll have to have a pretty good back-end connection to the Internet to ensure decent capacity.

Hmm … so the new network will need solid infrastructure, high-capacity backhaul, deep pockets for capital expenditures … smarts and experience at customer billing and administration. Does this sound like any business you already know? Like the telcos … or the cable company that put the wireless network on the beach? I’ll discuss why they did that, and why they may be your Wi-Fi provider of the future, in Part 2.

Paul Kapustka is editor and founder of Mobile Sports Report, a new site dedicated to the intersection of mobile-social technologies and the sports industry.

July 16, 2012 | Paul Kapustka

Source: http://www.lightreading.com/blog.asp?blog_sectionid=776&doc_id=222867&

US Pushes Forward on Public-safety LTE Network

The body defining standards for a mobile LTE network serving police, fire departments and other public safety agencies across the U.S. has finished testing radio-access gear and will start interoperability testing of packet-core equipment on July 9.

The Public Safety Communications Research Program (PSCR) is on an accelerated schedule to set down rules for the network following the Feb. 22 approval of a mechanism to fund it. The funding plan, which was attached to a middle-class tax cut bill, calls for auctions of other spectrum to cover most of the estimated US$7 billion cost of the network.

The U.S. has long sought a unified nationwide network so federal, state and local public-safety agencies can more easily work together. This was one recommendation of the 9/11 task force that studied the 2001 terrorist attacks on the country. The current plan calls for an LTE network using a block of spectrum in the prized 700MHz range.

The new infrastructure, which would be built from the ground up, would replace a patchwork of different systems in use today and give public-safety workers in the field the capacity to send and receive rich data types, especially video, said Emil Olbrich, a lead project engineer at PSCR. His agency is a joint project of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

“Because they didn’t have standards for the last 80 years, they have to duct-tape everything together,” Olbrich said at the Next-Generation Mobile Networks conference in San Francisco on Thursday. He estimated the network might start to be available next year, though an official timetable has not been set.

The Feb. 22 tax-cut law calls for NTIA to establish a service provider, called First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), to operate the network and deliver services on it to the approximately 60,000 federal, state and local agencies that need it. FirstNet will have more stringent coverage requirements than the typical commercial mobile operator. It will need to cover 95 percent of the U.S., including all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all territories, including places such as Guam and the Marianas Islands in the Pacific. The system will also have to cover 98 percent of the U.S. population, Olbrich said.

PSCR’s job is to find out what first responders need from the network and translate those requirements into a set of technical standards, Olbrich said. Because the thousands of agencies have so many different needs, it’s often hard for vendors to develop products to serve all of them, he said. Just to provide the extensive coverage required, PSCR is looking at options such as satellites and at public-private partnerships, he said. It will also have a research and development budget to fund grants for development of specialized client devices.

The agency has already finished interference tests and basic performance testing for the radio network. Next, it will test equipment for the packet core, which processes data after it passes over the wireless network and on to wired backhaul networks. That includes functions such as traffic prioritization. PSCR carries out tests at Table Mountain in Colorado, one of two radio-frequency “quiet zones” in the U.S., where NIST keeps a large plateau free of radio signals so it can do tests in isolation, Olbrich said.

FirstNet is being created by NTIA and will be run by a board, scheduled to be seated on Aug. 20, that will include representatives of key federal agencies and other members appointed by the secretary of commerce. That board will set the timetable for network rollout, Olbrich said.

By Stephen Lawson, IDG News Jun 16, 2012 2:20 am

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/257756/us_pushes_forward_on_publicsafety_lte_network.html

Buitenlandse providers komen met ‘lte-advanced’-netwerken in 2013

De eerste providers komen in 2013 met netwerken op basis van lte-advanced, een doorontwikkeling van lte. Dat blijkt uit een rapport van een koepelorganisatie in de telecomsector. Het is onduidelijk of Nederlandse telco’s daar ook snel mee komen.

Lte-advanced, een 4g-technologie, verhoudt zich ongeveer tot lte als hsdpa tot umts; het is gebaseerd op dezelfde netwerktechnologie, maar door de doorontwikkeling daarvan kunnen met dezelfde capaciteit meer mensen tegelijkertijd met hogere snelheden internetten. Bovendien is de latency bij lte-advanced lager dan bij lte. Bij lte-advanced zijn snelheden mogelijk tot 1Gbps, maar door drukte op het netwerk en als de gebruiker zich met hoge snelheid beweegt, bijvoorbeeld in een trein of auto, gaat die snelheid al snel omlaag tot ongeveer 150Mbps. De theoretisch maximale uploadsnelheid is ongeveer 500Mbps.

De eerste providers komen in 2013 met netwerken op lte-advanced, zo blijkt uit een rapport van GSA, de koepelorganisatie van toeleveranciers in de telecomindustrie. Het rapport staat niet openbaar online. De providers die al hebben bevestigd met ‘lte 2.0’ te komen zijn onder meer SK Telecom in Zuid-Korea en AT&T in de Verenigde Staten. 

In theorie zouden Nederlandse providers gelijk kunnen beginnen met de uitrol van lte-advanced als ze hun netwerken willen uitbreiden. De frequenties worden komend najaar geveild, waarna de uitrol op veel frequenties pas mag beginnen na een overgangsperiode, die afloopt rond begin 2014. KPN, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Tele2 en Ziggo hebben allemaal afzonderlijk een kleinschalig lte-netwerk in de 2,6GHz-band, die ongeschikt is om grote gebieden te dekken of binnenshuis dekking te bieden. 

Door Arnoud Wokke, zaterdag 14 juli 2012

Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/83140/buitenlandse-providers-komen-met-lte-advanced-netwerken-in-2013.html

LTE-Advanced technologies: eICIC, CoMP and CA presented by SK-Telecom

SK Telecom announced today that it successfully demonstrated a core LTE-Advanced technology named ‘Enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC)’ under cooperation with Qualcomm and Nokia Siemens Networks.

eICIC is a technology that coordinates signal interference between macro and pico base stations and is rapidly gaining importance as more and more micro base stations are being built in traffic concentrated areas to accommodate explosive data traffic growth, thereby aggravating inter-cell interference.

To demonstrate the technology, SK Telecom, Nokia Siemens Networks and Qualcomm created an environment where the strength of micro base station signals being transmitted to mobile devices was weaker than that of nearby macro base signals, resulting in signal interference. Then, they applied eICIC to prove that it can actually control the interference and stabilize data communications. The companies also succeeded in showing that the technology is capable of offloading data traffic by adjusting the coverage of micro base stations based on the level of data traffic concentration in macro and micro base stations. As commercial base station equipment has been used for the demonstration, the companies are expecting to achieve early commercialization of eICIC.

With the successful demonstration of eICIC, SK Telecom gained an important edge in commercializing the next-generation telecommunications network as it now holds the record of demonstrating the three core technologies needed to usher in the era of LTE-Advanced: eICIC, Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) and Carrier Aggregation (CA). The company successfully demonstrated CoMP at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 and CA at MWC 2012. At present, SK Telecom is the only company in the world that has succeeded in demonstrating all these three technologies.

CoMP is a technology that prevents base station interference and abrupt call disconnections in coverage boundary areas by enhancing signal strength, the lack of which leads to a significant drop in data transmission speed, and CA is a technology that provides twice or faster data rates by utilizing multiple frequency bands at the same time.

SK Telecom expects to commercialize eICIC in the second half of 2013 to control signal interference and effectively offload data in downtown areas that experience heavy data traffic so as to provide customers with a mobile data service with greater speed and stability.

The company commercialized CoMP, for the first time in the world, in January 2012, after adjusting the technology to suit the current LTE system, and plans to achieve early commercialization of CA in the second half of 2013.

Meanwhile, on June 14, a consortium between SK Telecom and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI, President Kim Heung-Nam) has been chosen by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy to carry out the Ministry-led project, aimed at developing next-generation LTE technologies.

Kang Jong-Ryeol, Head of Network Technology R&D Center of SK Telecom said, “Building on its competitive LTE technologies, SK Telecom will make redoubled efforts to develop next-generation network technologies to achieve early commercialization of LTE-Advanced by next year and secure technological leadership.”

Posted: July 13, 2012

Source: http://4g-portal.com/lte-advanced-technologies-eicic-comp-and-ca-presented-by-sk-telecom?goback=%2Egde_136744_member_134009523

GSA confirms LTE investments by telecoms operators in more than 100 countries

The GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) has published an update to its Evolution to LTE report which confirms 338 telecoms operators in 101 countries have committed to commercial LTE network deployments or are engaged in trials, technology testing or studies. The report covers LTE FDD and LTE TDD technologies.

280 operators have made firm commitments to deploy commercial LTE networks in 90 countries. A further 58 operators in 11 more countries are in a pre-commitment stage and are engaged in LTE technology trials, tests or studies.

89 LTE operators have now launched commercial services in 45 countries. This figure includes 9 commercial LTE TDD systems which are launched in Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and the UK. [continues after image]

 

63 operators have launched commercial LTE services in the past 12 months.

By the end of 2012 GSA forecasts there will be 150 commercial LTE networks operating in 64 countries.

LTE commercial network launches per year:

• 2009 = 2 networks launched
• 2010 = 15 networks launched (year-end cumulative total = 17)
• 2011 = 30 networks launched (year-end cumulative total = 47)
• 2012 to July 11th = 42 networks launched (total to date = 89)
• GSA end 2012 outlook = raised again, to 150 networks in 64 countries

GSA re-affirms LTE as the fastest developing mobile system technology ever.

The Evolution to LTE report is researched and published by GSA and provides a concise update of the business drivers, objectives and targets for LTE – Long Term Evolution and the evolved packet system, including network operator commitments, deployments, launches, trials, the growing eco-system including device availability, spectrum requirements and developments, Voice over LTE developments, standardization activities including LTE-Advanced, and more.

Source: http://www.gsacom.com/news/gsa_355.php?goback=%2Egde_136744_member_134025718