UMB Dies, Mobile WiMAX Chokes

Qualcomm and Intel were dealt a blow on Thursday when Verizon Wireless, the second largest US mobile phone operator, said it would start trials in 2008 of a rival fourth-generation network standard.

Verizon is backing the Long Term Evolution standard, which is being developed by suppliers including Ericsson, Sony-Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens and Nortel, dubbed the Third Generation Partnership Project. This grouping also includes mobile operators Vodafone, China Mobile, Orange and T-Mobile.

picoChip Intros Single-Chip WiMAX Wave 2 and IO-MIMO Femtocell Reference Design

Paul Senior, CTO of Airspan commenting on the current development said, “Once more, picoChip demonstrates the power of its software-defined architecture, and we are delighted to be working as partners.” He further added, “The efficiency of the single-chip solution is attractive, furthermore the ability to seamlessly upgrade our current Wave 1 designs to Wave 2 and full MIMO in both uplink and downlink, gives us a significant advance in performance and capability over alternative solutions.”

SK Telecom Unwillingly Expands WiBro Service

Despite the sluggishness of WiBro service which has attracted less than 1,000 subscribers so far, SK Telecom reluctantly expands the business under pressure from the government. The company established an exclusive team for WiBro to widen the service coverage and run a promotion campaign.

The new team under the marketing division will draw up the mid-long term WiBro business plan, find new business models and do the groundwork for WiBro marketing.

ITU World Radiocommunication Conference Adopts Wireless Spectrum Treaty

The World Radiocommunication Conference 2007 (WRC-07) concluded its deliberations with the adoption of an international treaty to meet the global demand for radio-frequency spectrum.

http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2007/36.html

Bubbly Forecast

If you believe that LTE, UMB and WiMAX will inherit the earth and will have 250 million subscribers by 2012, then he is right. But mobile WiMAX will not get underway until 2009 because there are no Certified devices outside Korea. LTE may start in Japan in 2010 but more likely 2012 in most other countries. Will UMB ever get going? The jury is out. So 250 million subs in-not 5 years-but in 2 or 3 years from service launch. Seems plausible given that GSM added 2 billion users in 10 years, or an average 200 million a year.But UMTS is not growing as fast with only 70 million new subs a year. Even so if LTE and WiMAX between them put on 70 million subs a year, in three years that's 210 million, not far short of the bubbly prediction.

Vanu, Inc. and Mid-Tex Cellular Launch Cellular Industry's First System to Simultaneously Operate CDMA and GSM on a Single Platform

Traditionally, cellular operators use single standard, high-cost infrastructure that requires dedicated hardware and duplicates operating expense for each wireless standard that is deployed. With the Vanu Anywave solution, Mid-Tex Cellular built one RAN to accommodate both GSM and CDMA, and the same platform will enable the addition of 3G technologies via remote software downloads. The download of CDMA has allowed Mid-Tex to evaluate the standard's performance, including roaming revenue potential, without a large capital outlay.