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Monday, 16 July 2007 |
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Asia cranks up next generation wireless efforts…
With, so to speak, the 3G paint still drying on the canvas, a number of organisations in
Asia are ratcheting up efforts to take the lead role in the development of 4G. The trouble is, though, that no-one’s agreed on what 4G is.
China Mobile’s Research Institute believes it’s something dubbed Wireless Internet protocol on Internet Service Environment (WIISE) and is reportedly increasing efforts to develop that and mark out the ground for it IPR-wise over the next two years. This government-funded effort is apparently aimed at delivering data rates of 100Mbits/s outdoors and 2Gbits/s indoors.
The Chinese government, in the form of its Ministry of Science and Technology, is also reported to be collaborating with its Swedish counterpart, in the form of the VINNOVA agency for innovation, in a 4G research project initially funded at nearly US$8mn. Public details of that collaboration are minimal (that is, none at this juncture).
More forthcoming is
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo which this month began testing what it styled ‘…an experimental Super 3G system for mobile communications’. NTT DoCoMo is seeking to achieve a downlink transmission rate of 300Mbits/s over a high-speed wireless network. DoCoMo says it will begin with an indoor experiment to test transmission speed using one transmitting and one receiving antenna. The company will then expand the experiment to examine downlink transmission by employing up to four Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas for both the base station (transmission side) and mobile station (receiving side).
DoCoMo believes Super 3G will allow the company to make a smooth transition to 4G in the future. In July 2006, the company began accepting proposals from suppliers seeking to develop Super 3G equipment and expects to complete development of Super 3G technology by 2009.
John Williamson |
