Wireless

There's been a lot of talk in 2009 about the next generation of wireless technology, known as 4G wireless broadband, but the current generation of 3G wireless technology is far from dead.

For many wireless operators, especially those that have built their networks using the global standard GSM, the current 3G wireless technology called HSPA still has some legs left. And while many carriers are planning their 4G networks, hundreds of wireless providers throughout the world are also expected to upgrade existing network infrastructure with the latest versions of the 3G wireless technology to increase speeds and offer new services. And because these network speeds will match current 4G speeds, consumers will likely see no difference in capability.

For this reason, the next few years will likely continue to be all about 3G technology. And 4G services, where they will be available, will likely appeal only to niche audiences.

"The average consumer doesn't care about peak data rates or network acronyms," said Dan Warren, the GSM Association's director of technology. "They just care about the experience. They want to be able to watch YouTube or get live traffic updates on their smartphones. And they don't care whether it's a new network or a current network that is being upgraded."

Mobile operators around the world are seeing a huge growth in the amount of mobile data traffic across their networks. This trend is expected to continue as more consumers buy smartphone and jump onto the mobile Web. By 2014, mobile devices are expected to send and receive more data in one month than in all of 2008.

Three-quarters of this traffic will be attributed to Internet access, while nearly all the rest will be due to music and video streaming, the GSM Association recently said. The new usage patterns will put strains on carrier networks, and operators are planning now to keep up with demand. Already, AT&T, which is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., is struggling to keep up with the heavy data usage.

While 4G networks will certainly increase network speeds and capacity, these networks and the devices that can be used on these networks will not be built overnight. This is why many carriers who are looking to meet demands today are turning toward advanced 3G upgrades.

T-Mobile USA, the smallest of the major U.S. wireless operators, has adopted this strategy. The company is currently upgrading its existing HSPA network, which launched just last year, to HSPA Plus, the most advanced 3G technology available. It has already started testing the new service in Philadelphia. And the company expects to deploy the lion's share of its upgrade across its entire footprint in 2010.

Meanwhile other operators, such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel are looking toward 4G technologies.

To the 4th power: WiMax vs. LTE
Two technologies dominate the 4G landscape: WiMax and LTE. In the WiMax corner is a company called Clearwire, which is backed by Sprint and Intel, as well as the nation's biggest cable operators, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The company is currently building its network and has 13 cities up and running with service.

In the LTE corner is the rest of the wireless industry, including at least 50 mobile operators worldwide that have already committed to LTE plans, trials or deployments. The first LTE networks, including one being built by Verizon Wireless here in the U.S., are expected to be rolled out next year. NTT DoComo of Japan and TeliaSonera of Sweden have also committed to deploying LTE next year. That said, major network expansions aren't expected until at least 2011.

One of the problems that 4G carriers will face is that initially their networks will be islands of service. And it will take years for operators to blanket the country with their services. For example, Clearwire has mostly deployed its service in cities, such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Verizon will likely do the same thing with its LTE network. And then the networks will spread from there. Verizon expects to launch 25 to 30 with 4G service in 2010.

Another problem 4G operators face is a dearth of new devices. Clearwire's WiMax service has been available for more than a year in some cities, and it still only offers USB modems, PC cards, subscriber modems and WiMax-enabled laptops. So far no one has started selling mobile devices, such as WiMax embedded phones. In fact, in January Nokia, one of the initial eco-system backers of WiMax, canceled its N810 WiMax Edition tablet. More devices aren't likely to be developed until the network is more extensive. Sprint is offering a dual-mode service that allows laptop users to switch between its 3G mobile broadband service and the 4G WiMax service, where it's available. But the service is only available for laptops.

As for LTE, no devices exist today because no LTE network exists. Since most of the world's wireless operators will likely use LTE for their next-generation networks, it's a fair bet that there will eventually be a plethora of LTE devices. And carriers, such as Verizon, will likely embed dual-mode chips that work with 3G networks, too. But given the fact that new wireless technology first shows up in laptops and then moves to phones, it's unlikely that consumers will see any LTE-enabled mobile devices for at least another 18 months to two years. And after that, it could take many more months to fill the pipeline.

Meanwhile, there are already 1,600 HSPA-enabled devices on the market, including smartphones, Netbooks, and laptops, according to the GSM Association. There are currently 321 HSPA networks across 120 countries worldwide, and 285 of these networks are commercially live, supporting more than 167.5 million connections.

And while Clearwire reported it added 173,000 new WiMax subscribers in the third quarter of 2009, the GSMA reports that more than 9 million new HSPA connections are added globally every month, with about 1.3 million of these connections coming from the U.S.

The need for speed
Of course, it's true that current 3G technology is considerably slower than 4G networks. Today's 3G technology, whether it is HSPA or EV-DO, offers typical download speeds of between 400 Kbps to 700Kbps. But the latest version of HSPA, called HSPA Plus, offers average download speeds between 4 Mbps and 6 Mbps. This is the same download speed range that Clearwire's WiMax service offers today.

It's difficult to compare these speeds with LTE, since there are no commercial deployments of LTE. But some experts say average speeds for LTE will initially exceed the 4Mbps range. Some people are expecting the service to offer average speeds around 15 Mbps to 20 Mbps.

Because there is little difference between WiMax and HSPA Plus in terms of speed, many operators are opting to invest in upgrading their networks to this technology while they plan for their eventual LTE migration. The GSMA says there are now 56 networks globally deploying HSPA Plus. And 28 of those networks are now live.

T-Mobile USA, as mentioned earlier, is one of them. AT&T initially indicated it was looking into HSPA Plus, but the company has more recently backed away from those claims. Instead, the company has said it is upgrading to a different version of HSPA called HSPA 7.2. AT&T's chief technology officer, John Donovan, said at the CTIA Wireless trade show last month that AT&T will start its LTE upgrade in 2011.

Mark Siegel, a spokesman for the company, said AT&T is keeping its options open.

"We are trying to stay flexible in how we increase 3G speeds as we transition to LTE," he said in an e-mail.

This means that T-Mobile is likely to be the first major U.S. carrier to compete against Clearwire's WiMax service.

T-Mobile has been criticized for entering the 3G market in the U.S. late, but the company has been working aggressively to catch up. At the beginning of 2009, T-Mobile could reach about 100 million people with its 3G wireless service. By the end of the year more 200 million people will have access to its network, according to Neville Ray, senior vice president of engineering operations for T-Mobile.

By contrast, Clearwire's WiMax service currently reaches about 30 million U.S. residents. And the company plans to reach about 120 million by the end of 2010.

As for subscribers, Clearwire said that at the end of the third quarter of 2009 it had about 555,000 subscribers, which includes people who have subscribed to the service via its partners Sprint, Comcast, and Time Warner, which are reselling the service. T-Mobile finished the third quarter with a total of 33.4 million customers.

"We have been rapidly expanding the reach of our network over the past 12 to 18 months," Ray said. "And in 2010 we are looking to jump ahead with a leading 3G experience. The only thing that will come close are data sticks from Clearwire. And their service is limited geographically."

Ray said the HSPA-Plus strategy allows T-Mobile to better compete against AT&T and Verizon, because it allows T-Mobile to stretch its 3G investment while still offering faster and more ubiquitous coverage for consumers.

"We may have been a little late to the 3G dance," Ray added. "But clearly the mobile data explosion is rapidly growing today. And our plan for 2010 will put us in a leading position to handle these demands."

T-Mobile USA hasn't said for certain that it will use LTE when it eventually builds a 4G wireless network. But considering that its parent company in Europe, T-Mobile, has committed to using the technology, it's a safe bet the U.S. affiliate will as well.

Ray said for now it's better for T-Mobile to leverage HSPA's existing device ecosystem. The company is already offering several devices, such as the Motorola Cliq, the HTC myTouch, and the Samsung Behold that are equipped with the faster HSPA 7.2 technology. And he said that T-Mobile expects to have HSPA Plus handsets on the market in 2010.

"Because there are a large number of operators throughout the world upgrading to HSPA Plus, it's already on the device roadmaps," he said. "This means we can bring the advanced 3G experience to consumers in mobile devices in 2010. And that is not the case with either LTE or WiMax."

The next generation of wireless may be on its way, but it's a slow road. In the meantime, consumers will likely get more out of faster 3G networks, such as T-Mobile's network than the budding services from Clearwire or Verizon Wireless. It will certainly be a fun horse race to follow.

AT&T launched a prepaid wireless broadband service on Monday, following the lead of competitor Verizon Wireless.

Pricing for the new AT&T DataConnect Pass plans are the same as what Verizon Wireless is charging. Customers can pay $15 for a daily pass with a data usage cap of 75 megabytes. A weekly plan costs $30 and allows for 250MB of data usage. And the monthly plan is $50 and offers 500MB of usage.

While AT&T and Verizon Wireless have offered prepaid cell phone service for years, up until now the companies have required customers sign a contract for their wireless broadband services. Wireless broadband services allow users to connect their laptops to the Internet via the carriers 3G wireless network. These services have mostly been targeted at business users.

As these big phone companies move mobile broadband services into the mainstream, they are expanding their payment options to attract more consumers. But for many consumers in this tough economic environment, taking on a new contract and monthly service fee is simply too much. As such, the prepaid model is now moving to these services as well.

Prepaid niche players, such as Leap Wireless and Virgin Mobile, have recognized the demand for prepaid wireless broadband services, and they are already selling services to address the market. Leap Wireless offers an unlimited usage plan for $40 a month. And Virgin Mobile, which is now owned by Sprint, offers a $60 plan that has a usage cap of 1 gigabyte for a month.

Will these new prepaid offerings be enough to entice consumers to sign up for 3G wireless broadband service? That's a question yet to be answered. But AT&T, especially, should be careful what it wishes for. The company's 3G wireless network is already overburdened with iPhone users' heavy wireless data usage.

Verizon Wireless on Thursday said it will offer customers who want Internet access on-the-go a prepaid wireless broadband option for their laptops.

The new services will be bundled with the Verizon Wireless USB760. They will operate on laptops running Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. The modem will be sold at Verizon Wireless Communications stores and at Best Buy locations beginning November 16.

Here's a breakdown of the new service plans and what users can expect to do with the limits that Verizon is offering.

The daily plan costs $15 and allows users to access 75 megabytes of data. This would allow users to send or receive about 25,600 e-mails, download 500 Web pages, and send and receive 150 low-resolution digital phones.

The weekly plan costs $30 and allows for 250 MB of data. This plan would allow users to send or receive about 85,300 e-mails, look up 1,700 Web pages, or send or receive about 500 low resolution digital photos.

And finally, the monthly plan costs $50 for 500 MB of data usage. And Verizon claims this is enough capacity to allow users to send or receive 170,000 e-mails, look up 3,400 Web pages, and send or receive 1,000 low-resolution digital photos.

Verizon's contract wireless broadband service costs $60 a month and allows users to transmit up to 5 gigabytes worth of data. It also offers a $40 a month plan that offers 250MB of data per month.

Big Internet service providers don't seem to be interested in applying for federal stimulus funds, but smaller players like Leap Wireless are looking at the grant program as an opportunity to provide wireless service to underserved populations.

Prepaid wireless carrier Cricket Communications, which is owned by Leap Wireless, on Monday filed an application with the nonprofit organization One Economy for $8.6 million to help it expand a program called Project Change Access. This project, which launched last fall in Portland, Ore., has helped low income residents get online to improve their access to education, job training programs, health care, and social assistance, according to Leap.

The federal funding is expected to pay for about 80 percent of the cost of expanding the program to five other cities. Specifically, the plan is to provide high-speed wireless Internet access to 23,000 low-income families in Baltimore, Houston, Memphis, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.

Leap said it submitted its proposal to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is overseeing the allocation of $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus grants. These grants are part of the bigger $787 billion stimulus package that Congress passed earlier this year. The government recently extended the application deadline to August 20 for applications for the broadband stimulus grants.

Much of the money is intended to help bring broadband access to rural areas where it's traditionally been difficult to get broadband service, as well as help provide affordable access and education to people who can't afford broadband access.

What makes Cricket's application interesting is that many larger Internet service providers and wireless operators are not applying for funds.

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon Communications aren't expected to apply for funds at least in the initial round of funding. The companies aren't talking publicly about their decision. But the Post reported that the companies are leery about possible strings attached to the federal money that would include Net neutrality conditions. The companies also supposedly don't want to deal with unwanted scrutiny from the government and the public on how it builds out its network.

"We are concerned that some new mandates seem to go well beyond current laws and FCC rules, and may lead to the kind of continuing uncertainty and delay that is antithetical to the president's primary goals of economic stimulus and job creation," Walter McCormick, president of USTelecom, told the Post. USTelecom is a trade group that represents AT&T and Verizon.

Meanwhile, some companies affiliated with these bigger service providers are expected to ask for grant money. Clearwire, a company that is backed by some big service providers like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint Nextel, said it plans to apply for stimulus grant money. But an executive recently said that the money received for broadband stimulus would have to be used outside its current expansion plan.

Even though Verizon doesn't seem interested in taking any government money now to help build networks to reach underserved customers, the company says its new 4G wireless network will reach more rural customers than its existing wireless network. And due to conditions established by the Federal Communications Commission on spectrum Verizon will use build this network, Verizon will have to make the 4G network more open than its traditional wireless network.

Still, even as Verizon pledges to offer more wireless access to rural customers, it is actually selling off traditional phone lines in rural areas. And even though it is required to make its 4G wireless network more "open," the company still opposes new rules or legislation mandating Net neutrality.

Clearwire, which is using Sprint Nextel's 2.5GHz spectrum to build a nationwide 4G wireless network, announced Monday 10 more markets that will get the company's Clear WiMax wireless broadband services starting September 1.

Eight of the newly announced cities are in Texas: Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Killeen/Temple, Waco, and Wichita Falls. The other two markets are Boise, Idaho, and Bellingham, Wash.

These 10 markets will join four other officially launched WiMax markets: Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Portland, Ore.

Some of the additional markets planned to launch in 2009 include Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle.

Clearwire says it's on track to launch 80 markets by the end of 2010. In 2010, it plans to roll out service in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area among others.

It's important for Clearwire to launch more markets, especially in major cities where its joint venture partners can also resell the service. Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks have each invested in Clearwire, along with Google and Intel. Altogether the companies pitched in $3.2 billion. Comcast and Time Warner Cable have already announced plans to start reselling the WiMax service in areas where they offer cable service. These cable companies plan to bundle the 4G wireless broadband service with their existing high-speed broadband services.

Sprint Nextel, another major Clearwire partner, is also reselling the service combined with its 3G wireless service in some markets, such as Baltimore.

Clearwire uses a technology called WiMax, which offers faster speeds than current 3G wireless technologies, but offers wider coverage than other high-speed wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi. Clearwire claims that it can provide up to 4 megabits per second for downloads and 500 kilobits per second for uploading, which is more than double what consumers can expect using a 3G wireless connection.

The Clear WiMax service from Clearwire starts at $20 per month for in-home wireless broadband. And its mobile Internet plans start at $40 per month. Customers can also get a day pass for $10. The company also allows customers to add voice service to their in-home package for $25 per month.

More people throughout the world are hopping onto the high-speed bandwagon.

Global broadband access jumped by 16.6 million lines in the last quarter, reaching a total of 429.2 million lines throughout the world, says a report released Tuesday by industry group Broadband Forum.

Despite the sluggish economy, growth was slightly higher in the latest quarter than over the prior three months, according to the report.

In this past quarter, broadband access grew by 10 percent in 20 different countries. The biggest gainers were India at 13.4 percent, the Ukraine at 15.2 percent, Egypt at 10.6 percent, and Mexico at 10.3 percent. Access in North America rose 3.87 percent, reaching 93.5 million lines, the report said.

China ranks at the top of the list for highest number of broadband lines at 88 million, while the U.S. is number two with 83.9 million lines, the report said.

Among broadband technologies, DSL is still the most popular with a 64 percent slice of the market. Cable is next at 20 percent. Fiber is pulling up fast, capturing more than 3 million new lines to gain a 12 percent market stake, the report said.

Based in California, the Broadband Forum is a worldwide group of around 200 companies involved with telecommunications, computing, and networking. The broadband report was prepared for the forum by industry research firm Point Topic.

Virgin Mobile USA is launching a new pay-as-you-go mobile broadband service called Broadband2Go.

Novatel USB broadband modem

(Credit: Virgin Mobile USA )

The service uses Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network. It will not require a monthly subscription nor will it require an activation fee. To use the service, people need to buy a Novatel USB broadband modem that costs about $149 from Best Buy.

The device and service will be available in late June, the company said. The service is sold in megabyte and gigabyte packages. For $10 a month, users can get 100MB of data usage for 10 days. For $20 they can get 250MB of data, and for $40 they get 600MB. The most expensive pack costs $60 and provides 1GB of data usage. These buckets of data usage are available for 30 days before they expire.

Users will be able to monitor their data usage when they connect to the wireless network, and they'll be reminded to top up their account as they near their data limit. And users can add more data to their account as often as they'd like by using a credit card or a Virgin Mobile Top-Up card.

Prepaid services for cell phones have long been popular in Europe and other parts of the world, but in the U.S. these services have traditionally served only niche markets. With the economy in a deep recession, however, prepaid is gaining steam in the United States. Consumers of all stripes are looking for good deals with no service contracts.

Regional prepaid provider Cricket, which is a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, also offers a pay-as-you-go wireless broadband service. Like the Virgin Mobile wireless broadband service, Cricket's service also doesn't require a contract. And users can get unlimited wireless broadband for $40 a month using the company's 3G wireless network.

The big nationwide wireless carriers, such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, have traditionally gone after business users with their broadband wireless services. As a result, the pricing of their service is usually pretty high--around $60 to $65 a month for an unlimited plan that typically offers up to 5GB of data per month.

But the wireless data services offered with pay-as-you-go plans and no contract seem to be geared more toward consumers.

"We have seen a big opportunity to provide this service to our consumer customers who can't afford a similar service from Verizon and AT&T," said Greg Lund, senior manager of corporate communications for Cricket Communications. "A lot of these customers were on dial-up, who want broadband service. And because they're very mobile, the wireless broadband service is good fit for them."

Corrected on June 12 at 7:24 a.m. PDT: Virgin Mobile USA's 100MB data plan costs $10 and expires after 10 days. The company's 600MB offering, which expires after 30 days, costs $40. A previous version of this story misstated the expiration time of the 100MB plan and the amount of the 600MB plan.

The world's first radio base station in a commercial 4G network has been deployed in Stockholm, Sweden. Or at least that's what the Swedish national incumbent telecommunications operator Telia has announced.

Telia is among a handful of mobile operators worldwide building next-generation networks for mobile broadband with 4G or LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology. The largest is Verizon, identified as a world leader by Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg.

"The U.S. is back in the driver's seat and Verizon has taken the lead in rolling out LTE," Svanberg said in an interview recently.

Though Telia says it has connected the 4G base station to its IP network and to a test network belonging to Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson, commercial launch of the network is not expected until 2010, when modems will be available. Verizon has announced the same time frame.

Expected speeds are "10 times faster than the speeds customers enjoy today with mobile broadband in 3G networks," according to Telia.

That would mean between 60 megabits and 100 megabits per second, given that today's 3G networks with HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology can attain 6Mbps to 10Mbps, depending on the version deployed.

One reason why Verizon is aggressively planning for a 4G network is that its 3G network, based on EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology, doesn't match the speeds possible in HSPA networks belonging to the GSM/WCDMA family, used by operators such as Telia and AT&T. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications, while WCDMA is short for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access.

Verizon expects to cover 25 to 30 markets in the first year, and to blanket the continental U.S. and Hawaii by 2015.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian incumbent Telenor has been criticized for running advertisements that promise indoor coverage for 99 percent of the Swedish population at 80Mbps to 150Mbps in its Swedish 4G network that will compete with Telia's.

Though 3G coverage is at this level in Sweden, a country slightly bigger than California, Telenor's promise is "completely unrealistic," Jens Zander, a professor in radio technology, said recently in an interview with Swedish technology weekly Ny Teknik (in Swedish).

But compared with Swedish operators, Verizon has an advantage. Verizon's 4G network will use the 700MHz segment of the wireless spectrum, permitting each base station to cover an area about five times larger than delivered in the 3.6GHz spectrum initially being used in Sweden, and also resulting in better indoor coverage.

The advertisements by Telenor were published just weeks before mobile operators in Sweden agreed on marketing realistic maximum speeds of mobile broadband, as opposed to theoretical maximum speeds often used by the industry.

The agreement stemmed from the governmental agency for consumers rights threatening the operators with heavy fines for misleading marketing.

Some telecommunications consulting firms have criticized the 4G deployment and the whole 4G concept.

"The weakness of the telecom industry is that when it's time to harvest the success of its investments, it rushes into new technology," Bengt Nordström, CEO and founder of Swedish firm Northstream, told Ny Teknik. He pointed out that both 2G and 3G technology matured four to five years after their initial launches.

And although LTE involves new radio networks with different technology, the Danish firm Strand Consult says that the 4G concept is a media invention, as LTE technology is part of the 3G standard IMT-2000.

"We know for a fact that customers that purchase mobile broadband are not asking for 1G, 2G, 3G, or 4G, they are asking and paying for the possibility of getting online and using the available services," Strand Consultant states.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has backed off his plan that would require free wireless broadband license holders to filter for smut.

On Monday, the chairman told the blog Ars Technica that he has revised his proposal for free wireless broadband so that it doesn't require license holders to filter for porn. Martin said in an interview with the Web site that he has already started circulating the new version of the plan.

The FCC has been considering auctioning off 25 megahertz of wireless spectrum in the 2155MHz to 2180MHz band for several months. As part of the auction, Martin proposed requiring license holders to offer a portion of their service for free. Also, the free service would be required to filter for pornography and material deemed unsuitable for children.

The idea behind the proposal was to provide wireless broadband Internet access to millions of Americans who may not have been able to afford it.

But several consumer and civil liberty groups opposed the Web filtering requirement, believing that the filter could potentially allow the government to block any content it finds objectionable.

Martin told Ars Technica that he didn't want the Web filtering provision to kill the whole proposal. So he took it out.

"I'm saying if this is a problem for people, let's take it away," Martin told Ars Technica. "A lot of public interest advocates have said they would support this, but we're concerned about the filter. Well, now there's an item in front of the Commissioners and it no longer has the filter. And I've already voted for it without the filter now. So it's already got one vote."

Several consumer groups including, Public Knowledge, Consumers Union, and the Media Access Project, have said they support the idea of offering free wireless access without Web filtering in an effort to provide more broadband options for consumers. They also like the open-access provisions of the proposal, which would require license holders to allow any device to connect to the network.

But others, including the wireless industry, oppose the idea of opening up this spectrum. T-Mobile USA, which spent $4.2 billion in 2006 to acquire spectrum in an adjacent band, has complained that using this spectrum would cause interference with its newly acquired spectrum. The FCC says it has disproved these claims. But it's very clear that T-Mobile, which just started offering 3G wireless service using its new spectrum, also doesn't want to compete with a service that is free.

Martin wanted the FCC to vote on the free wireless proposal on December 18. But the meeting was canceled after several objections over the vote from Congress. The Commission met for an open meeting via teleconference on Tuesday, where it bid farewell to Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate. But no items were voted on.

The revised free wireless broadband proposal could be voted on during the Commission's open meeting on January 15, but there's been no word yet on specific agenda items. Needless to say, with the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, the next FCC open meeting will likely be Martin's last to opportunity to push through any items, such as the new proposal.