Mobile is not a Fixed Broadband Solution

watty

Mobile net 'heading for data jam'

Booming mobile data rates could catch operators out

The number of people accessing the net on mobile phones could soon outstrip the capacity of networks, experts warn.

Mobile data traffic looks set to rise 25 fold by 2012, said mobile analyst firm Informa.

via
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8325634.stm

Sponge Bob

And we have no new 3G spectrum available till 2014 when MMDS telly shuts down

watty

Sponge Bob wrote: »

And we have no new 3G spectrum available till 2014 when MMDS telly shuts down

http://www.techtir.ie/forums/showthread.php?p=2073#post2073 (updated on 27/Oct/2009, more later)

You can swap Mobile WiMax (or LTE in 5MHz) for the 21Mbps HSPA line (deep purple) and Fixed WiMax for the DOCSIS (dark green) and the % users getting peak speed is about the same. If you have 5MHz thats the best you can do with ANY fixed/mobile Wireless.

If people need Fixed access, then ANY mobile, even LTE or Mobile Wimax is x16 waste of spectrum. 100Mbps WiMax or LTE needs 20MHz channels. Just multiply everything by 4.

Unless there is going to be 10Mbps minimum coax/fibre/copper run to every house then we need to reserve Most of any new spectrum for Fixed, not Mobile Wireless. Besides they are hardly using the 1800MHz. If 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2.5MHz is getting recycled for Mobile 3G, and Mobile LTE or Mobile WiMax then 2.3GHz and DTT dividend 800MHz should all be for Fixed Wireless. WiMax, LTE or DOCSIS, but omni Nomadic/portable modems forbidden. Only fixed outdoor aerials.

leoc

As far as I can see Watty is right that

1. realistically, some fixed locations - houses, offices - are going to have to rely on wireless - terrestrial wireless, God deliver us from satellite! - for broadband over the foreseeable future, and
2. given that reality, we should be dividing up the available bits of terrestrial-wireless spectrum between mobile wireless (3G/LTE/Mobile WiMax etc.) and dedicated fixed(-only) wireless.

And I very much accept that homes and small businesses which can't get DSL or some other form of wired broadband need to be a priority when it comes to sharing out wireless access. All that said, I think IOffl should also watch to avoid the impression that it tends to think of mobile access as a luxury or an afterthought. Mobile Internet (we needn't argue about the definition of 'broadband') is important, and it's going to become really important over the next few years. Part (only part) of the reason why it's worthwhile to get fixed locations off mobile internet (whether onto wired broadband or a denser fixed-wireless system) is precisely to free up the mobile capacity for truly mobile use.

Given all that, if you have to divide up a pie, the first thing you should do is make the pie as big as possible. So I think my earlier suggestions for freeing up more wireless spectrum are worth mentioning here. In particular

• Should the government buy out the remaining time on the MMDS licenses, so that the MMDS frequencies can be vacated long before 2014?
• Should analogue TV be shut down before 2012? In fact, why not junk terrestrial TV altogether? Not only would this free some (presumably useful) bandwidth, it would save RTÉ (or more accurately the license-payers) the expense of rolling out digital terrestrial TV. (Broadcasting on free-to-air satellite could make it hard for RTÉ to buy live footy and season 9 of 24, but I'm not sure that the problem can't be worked around, or quite honestly that it matters a fig anymore anyhow.)

The more total spectrum for wireless internet, the less hellish it ought to be trying to divide things up between fixed and next-gen mobile services. Presumably the best thing would be to put fixed wireless in the more oddball bits of spectrum, freeing more of the conventional LTE/moWiMAX frequencies for that purpose. (LTE versus moWiMAX is a whole nother problem of course.)

watty

Agreed. I'm totally supportive of Mobile, as something absolutely needed for Mobile users. But even if we accept 3's 50% figure that means because Fixed users use far more data than Mobile users (inherent really), currently in Ireland real Mobile Users only get 1/5th of the pie. If the Fixed users of Mobile Spectrum used a fixed Wireless system (with outdoor directional aerials), then they would get about x16 better performance for the same spectrum bandwidth.

That's why I argue that 900, 1800, 2100 and eventually 2500 (MMDS band) is enough for Mobile. Use of Ripwave/Mobile Wimax should be illegal on 3.5MHz as it's effectively wasting x16 the capacity and can't be used mobile. It just makes for low cost install (no labour), a once off cost vs the forever every day wastage of using Low gain Omni Mobile/Nomadic aerials in a fixed situation.

Perhaps due to high labour cost, Fixed Wireless installs should be subsidised so that install cost is the same as Cable, DSL or Mobile.

450MHz, 800MHz, 2300MHz, *2400MHz, 3500MHz, *5800MHz and 10GHz should all be Outdoor fixed directional aerials only. Licence allocations not should be "diced" into small chunks to have more operators as this limits speed/capacity. At least 24MHz + 24MHz FDD per operator and ideally 120MHz + 120MHz.

(*ISM / licence free shared with WiFi, but used outdoor should be migrated to licenced bands)

I'll be adding more to my article here to prove these assertions.

If there is proper provision for Fixed users then on average the Mobile users for whom Mobile is vital will see a x5 improvement in access and performance (Speed, ability to connect and even lower latency, 100ms to 120ms rather than 250ms+).