Nikkei Electronics Asia -- February 2007
Tech Feature
ITU Telecom World 2006: "Living the Digital World"

ITU Telecom World 2006, held last December at Asiaworld-Expo, Hong Kong, attracted some 62,000 visitors, all keen to preview the latest offerings from some of the biggest names in the industry. Among the companies exhibiting at the show were China Mobile, China Netcom, China Unicom, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Huawei, IBM, Intel, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Motorola, NEC, Nortel, Oki, Qualcomm, Samsung, Siemens, SK Telecom, Toshiba, Verizon, ZTE, and many others.

The theme of the event - "Living the Digital World" - was played  out in the elaborate layout of some of the booths, many of which were extended over multiple floors in order to demonstrate such technologies as broadband in the home and in the workplace, converged product offerings, and IP-enabled services such as TV and video.

CDMA2000 Evolves
As rivalry between CDMA and GSM technologies further intensifies, James Persons, chief operating officer, CDMA Development Group (CDG), believes that CDMA2000 is secure in maintaining its lead. "CDMA2000 is the most widely deployed 3G technology," he said at the ITU show, "and it's a technology that continues to evolve in exciting ways" (Fig 1).

CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rel 0 is by now well established and is currently available from many networks across the globe. An enhanced version of this - CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev A - became commercially available mid-2006 and is currently being deployed by companies like KDDI, Sprint-Nextel, Telecom New Zealand, and Verizon Wireless.

"Rev A has increased peak download (forward link) rates to 3.1Mbps, making it ideal for bandwidth-intensive applications such as video and transferring large files," said Persons. "But ideally you need a fat pipe in both directions. One of Rev A's strengths is that it increases peak upload (reverse link) speeds to 1.8Mbps, enabling the user to both send and receive large files." Rev A also enables voice-over-IP (VoIP), with latency of 32 milliseconds, making it suitable for delay-sensitive applications such as push-to-talk (PTT), VoIP and virtual private networks (VPN).

While deployment is under way with Rev A, "The standard for CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev B has already been finalized by the standards body, with commercial implementations planned for as early as 2008 or 2009," Persons said. Rev B offers "dynamically scalable bandwidth". Through aggregation of multiple 1.25MHz Rev A channels, Rev B enables data traffic to flow over more than one carrier, improving user data rates and latencies on both forward and reverse links. This results in higher performance for multimedia delivery, bi-directional data transmissions and VoIP-based concurrent services.

And timed to coincide with ITU Telecom World was CDG's announcement of a departure from the "CDMA2000 1xEV-DO" naming convention. When Rev C becomes available in early 2009, it will carry the brand name "Ultra Mobile Broadband" (UMB), instead of CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev C. The new UMB standard is expected to be published early in the second quarter of 2007, with commercial availability on a global basis planned for early 2009.

With the ability to support peak download speeds as high as 280Mbps in a mobile environment, according to Persons, UMB can be deployed in existing or new spectrum allocations using scalable bandwidths up to 20MHz. It combines certain aspects of all the leading air interface techniques - CDMA, TDM, OFDM, and OFDMA - and incorporates multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) and space division multiple access (SDMA) advanced antenna techniques.

Plastic Optical Fiber
Also at ITU Telecom World, Martin Schenk, VP Marketing at Infineon Technologies' Communications Access Business Unit, proposed a solution  for home networking called fiber-to-the-TV (FTT-TV) using plastic optical fiber (POF). Schenk said consumers have various kinds of broadband connection in the home, but each of these has disadvantages. For example, Ethernet is not easy to install, wireless is not stable, powerline is not secure, etc.

Schenk said POF is the perfect solution for video home networking. Unlike other existing wired and wireless solutions, POF is highly flexible, secure, stable and has virtually no bandwidth limitations. He said the technology was taken from Infineon's automotive business, and is already used in luxury cars today.

Infineon has introduced POF to an Ethernet transceiver solution that enables mass deployment of video home networking. According to Schenk, the technology is completely independent and is able to convert video signals delivered by any kind of fixed line and wireless connection. Infineon's POF transceiver provides better economics, high reliability due to dedicated high bandwidth for each connection, and can be easily installed without any need for special equipment.

Test Solutions
Products demonstrated by Agilent Technologies at ITU Telcom World include a TDS-CDMA design verification system, a WiMAX test system, and a Triple Play Analyzer.

The TD-SCDMA UE RF conformance test system complies with 3GPP TS34.122 UE performance test requirements. Its main features include a system simulator based on the TD Tech Node B+RNC; a shared platform for both the TD-SCDMA UE protocol and RF performance test; advanced TD-SCDMA signal generator and analysis tools; a cellular environment simulator to test UE performance in different scenarios; and auto calibration and diagnosis tools.

The WiMAX test system includes the WiMAX RF design verification system, designed to perform complicated RF tests at the product development stage of design verification, as well as the WiMAX manufacturing system designed for manufacturing mass production RF test. Both systems support Fixed WiMAX (802.16d) and Mobile WiMAX (802.16e). The main features of the system include a preconfigured WiMAX waveform frequency range up to 6GHz, bandwidth up to 10MHz/20MHz with multi-purpose AWGN (noise) or interference source; spectrum measurement with bandwidth up to 80MHz (PSA), comprehensive OFDM, OFDMA demodulation with Vector signal analysis software; cover RF measurement for standard 802.16-2004 and 802.16e test specifications; and a pre-conformance test and measurement solution that supports ATS.

The Triple Play Analyzer (J6900A) is claimed to be the most complete monitoring and troubleshooting tool in a single solution for network equipment manufacturers and communication service providers, who develop, install and troubleshoot voice, data and video applications to realize faster time to market. The architecture of the analyzer leverages the Agilent DNA platform for data acquisition. It comes with software add-ons for data, voice and video QoE (quality of experience) and performance analysis.

X122 Platform
Targeting the low-cost mobile audio solution market, Agere Systems launched a new platform at the ITU show based on TrueNTRY technology. The TrueNTRY X122 platform consists of semiconductor chips, software and a design kit. It provides capabilities such as CD-quality music playback, camera/camcorder functions and Internet access to entry-level phones in a bill of materials cost of less than US$30. When put together with a storage system, the platform realizes quality music playback on entry-level mobile phones, according to Agere.

According to Oiman Polz, global senior manager, Production Marketing Management at Agere Systems, unlike conventional solutions which have the communications and applications software sharing a single processor and memory bandwidth, the multi-core Vision Architecture of the platform has a dedicated processor for applications, and incorporates communications services with audio processing. By providing a dedicated applications processor separate from the communications engine, the platform helps reduce a phone manufacturer's product development costs, and overall speed is boosted, resulting in improved efficiency. The platform supports advanced audio processing including dynamic noise suppression, echo cancellation, full-duplex speaker-phone and a stereo equalizer. The X122's analog baseband integrates the GSM/GPRS handset features such as power control, frequency control, analog baseband processing, audio mixing and conversion, real-time clock and power management.
       
WiMAX Demonstrations
The upcoming next-generation wireless standard WiMAX is receiving more attention now that it has passed the "concept" stage, and there were a number of WiMAX demonstrations at the show. Alvarion, an active promoter of Mobile WiMAX, is staging hundreds of WiMAX deployments and trials all over the world, according to Tzvika Friedman, president & CEO of Alvarion.

The ultimate goal is to enable users to connect whenever the need arises, regardless of location. Wi-Fi is a good initiative for this, providing an increasing number of hotspots. WiMAX, however will allow more variety due to its wider bandwidth. But it is not likely to pose a threat to 3G, according to Friedman. "There must be people who use 3G, and people who use WiMAX. The industry is trying to strive for a balance now, with different countries deploying different standards based on their own grounds."

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