 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific 2004 |
| Article no.: | 9 | |
| Topic: | GSM: The Pervasive Connectivity Bridge | |
| Author: | Alan Hadden | |
| Title: | President | |
| Organisation: | Global Mobile Suppliers Association, GSA | |
| PDF size: | 324KB |
About author
Alan Hadden is President of GSA. He has 18 years’ experience in senior positions in the manufacturing, regulatory, operator and consultative sectors of the mobile communications industry. As Industrial Advisor to the Department of Trade and Industry, one of his key activities was to co-ordinate and represent UK industry views influencing telecommunications regulation and standardisation at national and international level. While working for One-2-One (now T-Mobile), he secured ETSI standardisation of the GSM 1800 standard. He represented the company at the GSM Association, chairing various groups including the European Operators group. He was Vice-Chairman of the UMTS Forum 1996 –1997, and its Program Manager until 2001. An independent consultant since 1997, and a firm believer in the benefits of GSM, Alan accepted the challenge of being GSA’s first President in 1998.
Article abstract
GSM continues to go from strength to strength, and the new non-voice technologies are beginning to explore the advantages and uses of bulk data transmissions. EDGE, standardised in 1999, is now entering the market and revolutionising non-voice applications. On modern networks, adding the EDGE enhancement requires only a simple network software upgrade, but when combined with Wideband CDMA, it delivers an impressively long list of advantages to the customer. The industry is now preparing to reap the benefits that GSM/EDGE will bring.
Full Article
GSM surged through the 1 billion subscribers figure worldwide in February 2004: 1 in 6 people on the planet now use a GSM phone. In 2003, GSM added over 198 million new subscribers, 83.5 million in the Asia-Pacific region alone. The Asia-Pacific region makes the biggest contribution to GSM growth and is set to continue towards the next billion, driven especially by the China and India markets. Today, GSM provides pervasive mobile communications for businesses and people globally, in 95 per cent of the world’s countries. The business fundamentals behind GSM’s success are: Open, standardised technology; enabling interoperability to maximise service potential; roaming; competition; roadmap security; and end-to-end efficiency. Economies of scale: GSM has approximately 5.5 times more subscribers and operators than its nearest competitor; this gives it a sustainable cost advantage. Growth: GSM gains over 80 per cent of all new users, and enjoys annual growth greater than any other technology. Roaming GSM delivers automatic roaming services across 500+ networks. Its customers can connect 24/7 to make and receive voice calls or messages, using one phone, one number and getting one bill. Roaming typically contributes over 20 per cent of operators’ revenues; it is a major component of the GSM operators’ business plan and delivers long-term sustainability. Enhanced data service while roaming is the key to future growth and a fundamental market requirement and business driver. Market acceptance of data on GSM Asia already has the strongest appetite and acceptance of data, or non-voice services. The top 25 operators, in terms of data revenue, report that over 18 per cent of their revenues comes from data. The top five are from Asia; the pack leaders are the Philippines’ GSM operators whose contribution from data approaches 40 per cent of revenue. Twenty-two of the top 25 data earners use GSM networks. Drivers and Investments for Capacity and Quality Just as GSM today is a true mass-market phenomenon, so too will WCDMA and EDGE enter the mass market as enablers of enhanced non-voice services (3G) for the global market. During the last nine months or so, operators have resumed spending programmes to upgrade their mobile network infrastructure, with a clear focus on network quality and capacity. This is critical for delivery of revenue growth and the best user experience in highly competitive markets throughout the world. Data services and Internet connectivity via the mobile phone are growing rapidly in reach, capability, and market acceptance. Over 300 GSM networks today offer commercial non-voice services enabled by GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), allowing faster downloads, file transfers, MMS (multimedia messaging service), etc. The huge range of such services, with access to content and applications, is enriching lives in all market segments and contributes to revenue growth from data services. The services evolution roadmap calls for: higher data rates, increased operation efficiency, better use of spectrum, increased capacity to support more users or connections, enhanced quality of service, and lower delivery cost – cost per bit delivered. The technology is available to deliver all this. Edge All data services benefit from the move to EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution), often referred to as Enhanced GPRS. EDGE is not new; it has been discussed for years. Release 99 of the GSM specifications standardised EDGE as an improvement on GPRS defined in Release 97. These improvements to GPRS change the modulation scheme to better support large amounts of data and improve how data is received and sent over the radio interface to give faster, more flexible and robust transmission capability. EDGE gives three to four times the data speeds of GPRS and can provide increased capacity. EDGE delivers end-user bit rates and spectral efficiency that are at least 50 per cent higher than the corresponding CDMA technology step (cdma2000 1x), which is widely demonstrated in commercial networks in Asia and across the world. Data rates of 80–160 kbps are typically achieved in practical commercial networks, sufficient to support the full range of “3G” services and applications. EDGE is a natural evolution for all GSM operators and can be deployed under the operator’s existing licence. On modern networks, adding the EDGE enhancement requires only a simple network software upgrade. Older systems may have obsolete base-station radio transceivers, which probably need replacing anyway. The leading GSM vendors, including Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens, have been delivering EDGE-capable infrastructure as standard in their GSM infrastructure solutions for several years. The cost of upgrading to EDGE is typically not more than 10 per cent of GSM/GPRS investment. EDGE-capable handsets can now be obtained easily. Some 20 devices are shipping, or announced, in all frequency bands. The leading vendors have committed to EDGE, and many companies state that EDGE will be a standard feature of GPRS phones by the year end. The industry appreciates the benefits of GSM/EDGE, which facilitates early introduction of new revenue-growing non-voice services for only incremental investment. A major contributor to expanding awareness and acceptance has been the EDGE Operators Forum, organised and promoted by GSA, which met during 2001–2003, bringing together over 1100 operators/vendors to discuss the opportunities and practical aspects of deploying EDGE. The EDGE Operators Forum, its work done, is superseded this year by the GSM Evolution Forum®, GEF, to consider mobile services from GSM to WCDMA. The GEF met earlier this year in Cannes and New Delhi; meetings are scheduled in Beijing (May 31st), Latin America, and Hong Kong (November 15th). GSA publishes regular updates on the progress of EDGE. At the end of March 2004, of the 300 operators using GPRS, 76 operators in 50 countries have committed to deploy EDGE. Asian markets shifting to EDGE include China, HK SAR, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Globally, 15 networks now offer commercial EDGE-enabled 3G services. Operators report high market uptake of EDGE-enabled services, and technical performance that exceeded expectations. The world’s first EDGE international roaming service was launched in Asia between AIS and CSL in November 2003. Operators with GPRS roaming can support EDGE roaming. This means that GSM/GPRS/EDGE systems will be able to provide universal connectivity of voice and non-voice services. WCDMA The GSM evolution roadmap has defined WCDMA, another ITU-approved 3G/IMT-2000 radio access standard to support even higher data rates and increased spectrum efficiency, for use by operators in new IMT-2000 spectrum at 2GHz. Data rates achieved in live commercial networks, today, are typically in the range 128–384 kbps. Standardised QoS (quality of service) mechanisms are included for conversational, streaming, interactive and background services. WCDMA efficiently delivers virtually any 3G service, including video telephony, while its inherent QoS management and wideband signal deliver the highest spectral and cost-efficiency of any technology available. A further evolutionary step, HSDPA (High Speed Data Packet Access), will boost WCDMA data speeds up to 10 Mpbs for high-end video applications. HSDPA is expected to reach the market in 2005. Since NTT DoCoMo launched the world’s first commercial WCDMA service in Japan, 120 WCDMA licences have been awarded to operators in 40 countries. The customer base of these operators, on their 2/2.5G networks, exceeds 500 million. At the end of March 2004 there were over 4.1 million WCDMA users. By early May 2004 there were 26 commercial networks (including NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone Japan, 3 HK, and 3 Australia), and another 17 operators have announced pre-commercial launches (SKT Korea, KT Icom Korea, Telekom Malaysia, and Dialog GSM Sri Lanka). Many more WCDMA networks will enter commercial service during 2004. Great progress has been made in ensuring widespread coverage, creating strong demand for non-voice services, and encouraging innovation and variety of handsets. As networks roll out in Europe and Asia, WCDMA users will also benefit from the convenience and global connectivity by international roaming. EDGE and WCDMA are Complementary EDGE is a complementary solution for WCDMA (wideband CDMA) operators. It is a multimedia service enabler for non-WCDMA operators, and provides 3G services using existing GSM spectrum resources. Both EDGE and WCDMA run on the same core network, providing simple service migration – using GSM/EDGE/WCDMA for similar user experience, service continuity, and roaming. Unlike its competition, GSM provides a standardised service platform. Its leading competitor uses different service platforms for non-compatible frequency bands, non-interoperable with operator-proprietary terminals, so migrating proprietary services to a new frequency band or service platform will be slow and expensive. On the other hand, GSM operators migrating to EDGE/WCDMA have a smooth path and can build upon existing applications/service portfolios. The solution for operators is not EDGE or WCDMA, but EDGE and WCDMA. This ensures the best user experience and the most efficient use of technology, existing assets, and new investment. Services and Applications Customers demand locally relevant applications. There are over 100 million Java™-enabled GSM terminals on the market. There are an estimated 2–3 million Java developers worldwide, including hundreds of thousands in India, China, and Asia that can produce any service required by local consumers or specific segments. In comparison, there are virtually no local developers for any single proprietary service standard, and a maximum of only a few thousands for each globally. Meeting the evolving consumer demands in Asia with a proprietary platform is not possible in practice; it is prohibitively costly and time-consuming to recruit and maintain a proprietary developer community. GSM/EDGE/WCDMA for Connectivity in Asia and Globally Everything is in place for mass-market data services in Asia, delivered on GSM networks with EDGE and WCDMA radio interfaces. The availability of terminals and applications is assured. Open standards deliver market acceptance, high usage levels, terminal variety, interoperability, roaming, the richest applications and content offering, and lowest cost of ownership through scale economies. The GSM roadmap brings high efficiency and performance to consumers and operators in Asia and globally. However, for the whole mobile community to benefit from the connectivity bridge enabled by GSM/EDGE/ WCDMA, and to grow the market for the benefit of all players and consumers, industry and governments must work together to achieve both low-cost business models and favourable trade policies and regulatory environments.
