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| Mobile operators eye TDD |
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| Tuesday, 17 August 2004 | |
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17
August, 2004: Over the next few months a number of GSM operators in
Europe are likely to announce plans to overlay their WCDMA networks
with TDD in order to deliver the type of high speed data services
promised – but not delivered – by FDD technology. To date time division duplex (TDD) technology has been mainly deployed by alternative service providers to deliver broadband wireless access to enterprise and residential customers but Jon Hambidge, global marketing director for TDD vendor IPWireless, is confident that the technology is about to break through into the mobile market. "The technology works and the business case works", says Hambidge. However, operators have been so tied up in deploying their UMTS frequency division duplex (FDD) networks and getting ready to launch 3G services that they have been unable to spare any resources to consider the merits of alternative technologies."There has been inertia in the market", comments Hambidge; "even when you can prove that the technology is better, faster and cheaper, there is still inertia – but in the last six months there has really been a shift.' Overspill The original concept for UMTS TDD was that it would be deployed when operators had filled their FDD spectrum and had capacity problems in dense urban areas. This was planned to happen in 2007/2008. But a number of factors have significantly accelerated the original timescales. Firstly UMTS FDD has not delivered the performance expected; however, as IPWireless has discovered, in commercial deployments around the world, the asymmetric TDD technology can provide the kind of data speeds that were promised for 3G. Another key factor in bringing TDD ever closer to the mobile world has been the rebanding by IPWireless of the TDD technology into new frequency bands, specifically 2.5GHz (the US MMDS and European UMTS extension bands) and 3.4GHz (the licence-free ISM band). "What that did for us was open up the market to a lot more operators who were a more entrepreneurial and willing to move a lot faster than mobile operators", says Hambidge. As a result IPWireless now has TDD deployments with operators in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Germany and the UK, all using the technology to deliver high-speed data services to corporate and residential customers. Now the arguments for the early deployment of TDD in mobile networks are becoming overwhelming. The technology has been proven by the alternative broadband wireless access providers. TDD can be seamlessly integrated into an FDD network, sharing cellsites and antennas. The majority of operators with 3G licences already have the TDD spectrum. And all this for a minimal incremental increase in capital expenditure. "If you are deploying TDD on top of your WCDMA network it works out at around US$6 per person covered. So, in the UK for example, to cover 50 million people would cost an operator US$300mn", comments Hambidge; "and if you look at the revenue potential we calculate that the network will go cash positive in less than two and a half years." Breakthrough? The first breakthrough has already happened. Portuguese mobile operator Optimus has deployed a TDD network in parallel with its FDD network. Performance, particularly at the cell edge where TDD data speeds were expected to fall off, has been exceptional. With these kind of references, and the powerful arguments in its favour, Hambidge is quietly confident that TDD will begin to take off amongst European mobile operators from the fourth quarter of this year. Ian Channing |
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