Long Term Evolution (LTE) - Likely?

Johnboy1951

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0604/1224271808931.html

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/16479/comms/ericsson-trials-high-def-tv-over-mobile-broadband

Speeds of 50, 80, 120 and even 150Mb/s are being bandied about.

Trials in Ireland. Trials in England.
Roll out in Sweden.

Taking a realistic look at this technology - for those with the tech info - and presuming the spectrum is made available, is it in any way reasonable to expect that such service might be available outside the main urban areas in a few years time?

Technically ... will it do what it is touted as being capable of doing - for all users making use of it?

Unless the ESB does something soon about fibre to the pole, something like this LTE seems to be the only hope for users outside urban areas.

regards.

watty

LTE is just better Mobile Internet and unless it gets 4x bigger channels and twice as many channels, very little better Mobile than 3G/iHSPA. It's not the solution to giving Ireland Broadband. Fixed Wireless for same spectrum is x8 to x16 better.

http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/
http://www.techtir.ie/comms/fixed-wireless-broadband-better

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66838760&postcount=48
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66845235&postcount=52

We need fibre to Home in urban, Fibre to cabinet in Suburban, Villages and supplement with quality fixed wireless (not Mobile) for those too far from a cabinet to get 10Mbits.

Fixed Wireless delivers a consistent 8Mbps per user. LTE's alleged 100Mbps is the peak capacity close to mast. A cell edge it's 0.6Mbps. Real cell throughput is same on unloaded HSPA in same channel size and twice as good under heavy load.

The clue is in the name. It's designed for MOBILE use.

Johnboy1951

Thanks Watty.

Sometimes I wish I did not ask such questions .... now I just gotta read all that and try to understand it

Much thanks for the links

regards.

watty

Sweden is doing LTE sensibly. The operators have pooled the spectrum to create a single higher capacity network. They then act like MVNOs on it (as if they were tesco and Postphone instead of O2 & Vodafone). This can give up to 3x performance increase and an average x2 performance increase.

To ensure this happens here, Comreg should only offer ALL the spectrum to a single Wholesale only operator, or if they spit spectrum for 2 to 4 operators to bid, they should make "spectrum pooling" and shared physical network (RAN sharing where all the owners act like MVNOs on a single infrastructure) as a Licence Condition. It's Greener Mr. Ryan.

Matt Bauer

watty wrote: »

Sweden is doing LTE sensibly. The operators have pooled the spectrum to create a single higher capacity network. They then act like MVNOs on it (as if they were tesco and Postphone instead of O2 & Vodafone). This can give up to 3x performance increase and an average x2 performance increase.

I didn't know that; it's exactly what I have suggested should happen in Ireland for years. I always thought perhaps I was crazy and I'm a crackpot, as I wasn't aware of any country where this was actually done.

PogMoThoin

Lets have a lottery, lets have the highest bidder get the spectrum to waste whatever way they feel, lets make lots of money on this and not regulate it

Johnboy1951

watty wrote: »

Sweden is doing LTE sensibly. The operators have pooled the spectrum to create a single higher capacity network. They then act like MVNOs on it (as if they were tesco and Postphone instead of O2 & Vodafone). This can give up to 3x performance increase and an average x2 performance increase.

To ensure this happens here, Comreg should only offer ALL the spectrum to a single Wholesale only operator, or if they spit spectrum for 2 to 4 operators to bid, they should make "spectrum pooling" and shared physical network (RAN sharing where all the owners act like MVNOs on a single infrastructure) as a Licence Condition. It's Greener Mr. Ryan.

If a decision were taken to insist on pooling, would it not be better to have one "pool" rather than two?
Would a decision to opt for two be purely on competition grounds?

,,,,, not that I expect to see anything too reasonable introduced here .....

watty

Having 4 x 3G operators is for "competition". (3, O2, Vodafone and Meteor/Eircom)

Technically with the bandwidth it's stupidity. They only have three FDD channels each. An efficient 3G network needs 9 channels. There is only enough bandwidth for one infrastructure.

Voice calls are over priced. SMS costs nearly nothing. Huge markup. Data packages are massivly underpriced to build customer base at expense of real broadband. We have highest line rental in the world, which helps them.

As a result in many areas the number of Fixed users on "Mobile Data" means performance is up to x5 poorer for users that actually need Mobile.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1147

Peak times are often only ISDN speeds. As they add more subscribers and more people switch to 3G phones and smart phones it will get worse and 10G caps will be expensive with current pricing only giving 1G instead of current 10G.

Matt Bauer

watty, do you think there's any chance Comreg will go with the Swedish model in Ireland, where the networks share one infrastructure that benefits everyone by delivering more efficient use of infrastructure, higher speeds and lower costs?

watty

Only if it makes the Government more money. Maybe not even then.

I have no input to Comreg policy nor do I any longer have meetings with them. Comreg, Dept of Comms, BAI, ASAI etc are all beyond my capability to understand.