While there are marginal performance benefits with LTE over that of HSPA+, the major benefit for players like Verizon, AT&T and Clearwire is to leverage new radio spectrum resources. We estimate that Verizon and AT&T will increase the aggregate capacity of each cell site by 40 and 60Mbps for each LTE 10MHz carrier deployed. This contrasts with the 50 to 75 percent performance gain that we estimate between optimized LTE and HSPA+ networks.

As HSPA+ and LTE take hold, the need for multimode and multiband devices and infrastructure will balloon. A player like AT&T will require GSM/EDGE, UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE modes traversing 700, 850, PCS and AWS spectrum bands. Verizon will require similar support across the same spectrum bands with CDMA 1X, 1X Advanced, 1xEVDO and LTE support. From an infrastructure standpoint, equipment vendors like Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei and ZTE have made significant strides with software defined radio (SDR) technologies to support multimodality. Solutions that deliver integrated multiband capabilities remain a challenge.

Since LTE technology has essentially been optimized for data services and leverages an end-to-end IP architecture we do not expect its wide use for voice telephony services any time soon. CDMA based technologies like UMTS and 1X are better suited to voice relative to OFDMA based technologies like LTE. In addition, it will take many years before end-to-end VoIP is capable of achieving comparable performance to traditional circuit switched voice over the air interface. We believe that both UMTS and CDMA 1X will prevail in the absence of viable substitutes for many years.

The race for mobile broadband supremacy amongst service providers will accelerate in 2011. As this occurs, we can expect significant experimentation in terms of service offers. Players will struggle with ballooning traffic and in the face of challenging economics will accelerate efforts to introduce network intelligence and traffic offload solutions.  We believe that AT&T is ahead amongst its peers in developing these solutions.

On the equipment side, a slowdown in spending in China - as well as delays in the next hoped-for 3G goldmine, in India - created a 1% decline in global sales of mobile kit between the first and second quarters this year, even though the general economy was recovering in many areas. According to new figures from Infonetics Research, spending fell to $8.7bn in Q2, from $8.8bn in Q1.

The Chinese operators spent only 12% of their allocated 3G capex budgets in the first half of 2010, while delayed auctions and security clearances meant Indian carriers also spent far less than expected.

“It’s been a tough year so far for the mobile infrastructure market, mainly due to the absence of spending in China and India,” said analyst Stephane Teral. “Last year, China spent like mad on its massive 3G roll-out. This year, India was supposed to pick up some of the slack, but due to a combination of bans on Chinese vendors and a delayed spectrum auction, the spending virtually stopped in 2010.” Teral did predict a recovery in both markets in the second half of the year.

Other weak spots included “prolonged weakness in Europe across the board”, though there was an upturn in Africa and Latin America and “sustainable 3G and CDMA upgrades in north America”. Among the vendors, Ericsson retained the top position for macro RAN equipment revenue share, although Nokia Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent each gained around two percentage points. The French giant pushed ahead of Huawei in this league table, to gain third place for the first time since early 2009.

As for the operators, they are seeing mixed results in from their 3G roll-outs so far. Uptake is still in the early stages, so in some cases the cost of build-out is still weighing more heavily on results than new revenues.

This was particularly evident at China Unicom, the W-CDMA carrier, which suffered a 62% fall in profits in the first half of the year to CNY2.53bn ($372m), largely because of the costs of 3G build, though wireline decline was also a factor. Operating revenue was up 7.6% to CNY82.11bn, but mobile specific revenues outpace this, rising 14.4% to half of the total at CNY41.05bn. Within that figure, 14.4% was from 3G and the rest from GSM.

The firm noted in its statement: “As the company’s 3G business was still at the initial stage of operation, the revenue from the 3G business could not cover 3G network operation and maintenance, asset depreciation and marketing costs.”

China Unicom’s 3G base is now 7.56m, less than 5% of its total of 156.96m mobile subscribers. Predictably, 3G has the highest growth rate, up about 60 times year-on-year, while the total base was up 12%. Compared to the end of 2009, a point at which there was significant 3G coverage, the 3G figure has climbed 175% from 2.74m.

These figures suggest that Unicom’s relatively aggressive build-out and the short term hit on profits may be reaping rewards. Mobile ARPU was up almost 3% year-on-year to CNY42.9 a month and 3G users are delivering the hoped-for boost to ARPU, at CNY134 compared to CNY39.8 for 2G. It also has a far larger percentage of its base, at 4.8%, using higher value 3G services, than its bigger rival China Mobile. Mobile has only achieved 1.9%, though of a larger customer base, partly because of problems with sourcing attractive devices for its TD-SCDMA network. Unlike Unicom’s W-CDMA, there is no global ecosystem for its homegrown RAN system. Unicom plans to exploit its advantage by launching at least 10 new smartphones during the rest of this year, as well as a more layered set of tiered tariffs.

However, Unicom’s 3G percentage is outclassed by the smallest of the three Chinese cellcos, China Telecom, which is using CDMA2000 technology. It now has 9.63% of its base using 3G. Telecom is the most dependent of the three carriers on the stagnant fixed line market, where it is the largest player, so mobile growth is particularly important. It is focusing on narrowing the gap with Mobile and Unicom in higher margin 3G, if not 2G services, and also on leveraging its fixed line base to offer more integrated offerings - half of its mobile customers also take another service.

Despite solid first half results, though, its profit growth was marginal, up 0.7% to CNY9.12bn ($1.34bn), on total operating revenue up 4.5% to CNY107.82bn. Mobile revenue was outpacing this growth dramatically, up 57% year-on-year to CNY25.1bn, but Telecom needs to be able to convert the growth into bigger profits. Its mobile revenues were split between voice (56%), data (34%) and ‘other’, mainly handset sales.

Mobile services now account for 23% of its revenues, a change of 7.7 percentage points on the same time last year. Its mobile base numbers 74.52m, an increase of 18.43m or one-third during the six-month period, and its mobile market share is almost 10%, from 5% at the end of 2009. 3G has been a more significant factor in this pattern than for its two rivals, so far at least, partly because of an early focus on business users. Its 3G base is now 7.18m, close to the size of Unicom’s though over 3m less than Mobile’s (though Mobile’s total cellular customer numbers are seven times larger than Telecom’s).

The CDMA carrier’s 3G users were up by 76% during the six months. It said mobile ARPU was stable, though actually, despite 3G, it fell slightly, from CNY59.5 in mid-2009 to CNY58.1. To address this, it is focusing more heavily on value added mobile services - it saw high growth in some of these, notably mailboxes and the eSurfing video offering, and it is introducing location and payments services. The firm said in a statement: “We will also focus on mobile internet traffic and open our service platforms to strengthen the cooperation in applications and handset terminals.”

Last week, China Mobile had reported a 4% rise in net profit for its first six months, and announced a new CEO, with Li Yue replacing six-year holder Wang Jianzhou, who remains as chairman. Profit was up 4.2% to CNY57.6bn ($8.4bn) on revenune up 7.9% to CNY229.8bn. Total subscribers reached 554m, after net additions of 31.76m, but the firm was downbeat in its statement. It said it faced “new challenges amid the already high mobile penetration rate and the intensifying competition in China’s telecommunications market.”

ARPU was down slightly to CNY72, but as at Telecom, value added services were a growth area, especially music downloads and online payments. VAS revenue increased 13.4% to reach almost 30% of total revenue and Mobile boasted 2.7m users of its mobile wallet service just a month after launch, and 6m for its mobile ebook service, also launched in May. Mobile video attracted over 6m customers too but the mobile TV offering only notched up 300,000. Mobile also said it had over 5m machine-to-machine customers, a year-on-year growth of 60%.

According to analyst Levi Shapiro, a partner at TMT Strategic Advisors, 3G has been particularly disappointing to date because the Chinese are already, even with 2G, “voracious consumers of mobile data”. He told RCRWireless News that 80% of the 777m Chinese mobile subscribers use text and there are more mobile web users in China than there are Americans. Yet only about 3% of this base has subscribed and “consumers are not adopting value added services as quickly as they are abandoning voice”, leading to a plunge in ARPU last year by 10%.

Shapiro suggests the Chinese cellcos should learn from the lukewarm early response to European 3G service and employ three key strategies to boost performance - heavier handset subsidies, a wider range of devices, and a clearer focus on web services.

He says the top three reasons given by Chinese consumers for avoiding 3G are all price related - hardware cost, service plan cost and upfront payment. With subsidized, high end products, cellcos could shift their initial focus on rural, non-mobile populations to high value users, whereas currently upfront costs are prohibitive even for most middle class consumers - Unicom requires a deposit of $1,032 for the iPhone, which is then credited against monthly fees. This explains why, according to Morgan Stanley estimates, Unicom has sold 300,000 iPhones compared to 2m grey market Apple handsets in China. By contrast, neighboring Korea, which has 3.5% of China’s population and more smartphone competition, has sold three times as many iPhones in the same period.

I’ll start with a gentle warning. If you’re not into golf - and if you have neither the time nor inclination to get into it any time soon - the rest of this might not be for you.

For the rest of you, bear with me while I try to convince you that golf clubs are like mobile computing devices.

Do you notice any similarities between the decisions you make regarding what clubs to put in your golf bag, and what portable phones and computing devices you carry in your case or handbag? No? Really?

Have you ever stood over your little white ball, 80 yards from the flag, with an inviting sand trap lurking between you and the yellow flag? In those circumstances have you ever thought to yourself - I wish I owned one of those gap wedges? My pitching wedge, with its 45 degree loft, is just too much club, and my sand wedge, with 55 degrees, isn’t quite enough. Right at that moment have you thought - if only I had a gap wedge with the perfect 50 degree loft. Or maybe, like me, you usually don’t give it a moment’s thought - just take out whatever club is closest to hand and hack the thing 20 yards into the bushes on the right?

Have you ever stood on a train station platform, or perhaps waiting for a taxi somewhere, and thought - I need to send a few quick emails or check out Facebook. But my Nokia N96, with its 2.8 inch screen is too small, and my Apple iPad with its 9.7 inch screen, is just too big. Ah yes - the Goldilocks conundrum! Right at that moment have you thought - what I really need here is one of those new Samsung Galaxy Tab things with its perfect 7 inch screen. Yes indeed, what I need right now is the gap wedge of the mobile computing world.

Using a pitching wedge from 80 yards is like holding an iPad up to your ear to make a VoIP phone call - you know you can make it work, but deep down you also know there’s a better tool to get the job done.

Are you seeing the similarities yet? Ok I’ll admit there is one really big difference between why golfers choose clubs and why ordinary folk choose new phones and mobile computers. The golfer selects a club to do precisely one thing, and to do it better than any other club in the bag. If he/she buys a new club it’s in the certain knowledge that new club will complement, and not compete with, the other clubs in the bag. It doesn’t matter that they all look the same.

But it’s different with phones and computers. They all do more or less the same thing (if you’ll forgive the gross over-simplification) and they cannibalize the hell out of each other. Hey - but at least they don’t all look the same, right?

The way I see it is that in golf, carrying more clubs - each of which allows you to do something slightly different - will improve your game. In life, carrying more phones and computers - each of which does the same thing - will improve your image (well, you think it will, and that’s all that really matters). But does it improve your game? Think about that the next time you’re salivating over one of those shiny new devices in your local phone store.

I feel another blog post coming on. Something about hybrid irons and co-axial cable.

After five years in the limelight, femtocells have yet to gain a meaningful presence in the marketplace. Currently there are only thirteen commercial femtocell implementations worldwide, with several of these being limited trial offering.

In essence, femtocells introduce a disruptive architecture to mobile operators who have yet to accept that traditional network designs are incapable of economically delivering mobile broadband services. In the face of burgeoning mobile broadband, operators have an urgent need to reduce radio network, site and transmission costs. Femtocells have a unique design philosophy that leverages customer’s broadband connections to improve coverage and provide new economics and reliability for voice and mobile broadband services. To integrate femtocells into existing network expansion strategies, mobile operators must embrace several changes in design philosophies:

• A shift to hierarchical architectures to integrate, macro, micro and femtocells. These introduce distinct implementation and operational approaches for each layer of the hierarchy. For femtocells, service providers must introduce highly automated approaches to provisioning, inventory and interference management.

• A need to intelligently integrate other local area technologies like WiFi. This should see femtocell technology integrated with WiFi and other radio technologies like Wireless HD. Operators could then introduce intelligent network management techniques to manage service continuity across network boundaries to provide optimum delivery.

• In Anticipation of an extended role for femtocells in optimizing service distribution and personalization. As mobile broadband takes hold, an increased proportion of traffic will be delivered over wireless local area networks. Femtocells will play a key role in managing the distribution of services in local area environments, irrespective of the radio technology that is used.

Currently mobile operators maintain a high degree of control over the distribution of femtocells and position them as connectivity centric devices within the consumer market. This approach leads to inadequate market scale and differentiation relative to unlicensed wireless technologies such as WiFi. We believe that operators must relinquish control over the distribution of femtocells and the industry as a whole must leverage independent consumer electronics channels and offer integrated WiFi/femtocell based solutions. In addition, the femtocell technology must evolve from its traditional connectivity centric roots to embrace advanced media management, caching and service distribution capabilities.

Given the potential disruption that femtocells pose for traditional mobile operators, it is conceivable that other players such as Cable companies may prove better positioned to capitalize on the femtocell opportunity. This is particularly the case if the industry focuses on product development, standardization and distribution strategies that release femtocells from the control of mobile operators.

Tolaga Research recently published a report entitled “Fixing the Follies of Femtocells“.  It is also conducting ongoing research to investigate the economic potential for femtocells in the mobile broadband marketplace.

This comes despite the fact that Tata, along with Reliance Communications, was cleared last week to purchase equipment from Chinese suppliers Huawei and ZTE. Although this ruling signalled the end of the frustrating delays over security rules, some western rivals may be disappointed they have to compete with their price aggressive Chinese rivals on an apparently almost level playing field in terms of clearance requirements.

NSN, which has walked away from certain 2G deals because of the intense price war in India, claiming they would be lossmaking, is leading the way in 3G, where the suppliers hope for a greater services component and slightly higher margins. The joint venture beat Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and both Chinese majors for the deal to supply W-CDMA base stations plus implementation support.

The contract highlights two key trends in new 3G deployments, especially in emerging economies - the Flexi base stations will be software programmable, making them upgradeable to LTE relatively easily; and the deal includes managed services, as Indian carriers increasingly outsource the running of their systems. This is where the margins lie in the subcontinent, and all the big vendors have stepped up their services activities in the region in recent years. NSN appointed its former head of services, and an Indian national, Rajeev Suri, as its new CEO a year ago.

“There is huge demand for mobile internet access in India, and that’s what 3G brings - we want to move quickly, which is why we’re the first to secure our key 3G technology and services provider,” said AG Rao, CTO of Tata Teleservices, in a statement. The cellco, which already buys 2G kit from NSN, has 3G licenses in nine of India’s 22 telecoms circles or operating regions. It offers GSM in 17 circles under its Tata DoCoMo joint venture and CDMA offerings under its Tata Indicom brand.

3G services are expected to launch in the country from early 2011, though state-owned BSNL and MTNL are already rolling out the new networks.

NSN may have scored the first points, but the Indian roll-outs will be hard fought battle. For a start, it seems the Chinese suppliers will be able to compete on a level playing field. Earlier this year, it was reported that the Indian government had blocked imports of infrastructure from Chinese majors Huawei and ZTE, or imposed tight approval processes on them, though more recently, it emerged that the authorities were tightening up certification procedures for all suppliers - which has delayed equipment tenders and frustrated the new 3G license holders.

However, progress is being made, with two carriers, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices, being cleared to buy telecom equipment from Huawei or ZTE. This could open the floodgates to a wave of purchases through the fourth quarter. Operators have been concerned at the delays to their roll-outs, the confusing rules, and the threat that they might not be able to take advantage of the price leverage that comes from including the Chinese suppliers in bids.

“The approval will definitely help the Indian telecom companies on the costing front. It also signals that security issues related to these imports such as spyware are now being resolved,” an analyst told Dow Jones Newswires. The vendors will be celebrating too - nearly all of them had cited delays in Indian deals as a negative factor in their second quarter results, and ZTE blamed a fall in first half revenue partly on delays to India’s safety inspections of communications equipment.

Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent says it is in talks to provide equipment for both 4G platforms in India, and is negotiating with “most of the people who have won the spectrum” in 2.3GHz, recently awarded in India’s broadband wireless auction.

Reports from Reuters and India’s Economic Times quote Munish Seth, Alcatel-Lucent’s new country head for India, indicating the potential customers include Reliance Industries, the only privately held firm to win 2.3GHz spectrum on a national basis (via its acquisition of ISP Infotel). He also mentioned another ISP, Tikona Digital Networks, which has licenses in several telecom circles or operating regions.

The negotiations could lead to orders in early 2011, the reports indicate, though this will depend on the Indian authorities clarifying rules on security checks for telecoms suppliers, which have been holding up deals for 2G expansion, 3G and BWA.

The big debate in India has been whether the 2.3GHz TDD spectrum would be built out with WiMAX, as expected until earlier this year when Qualcomm decided to bid for licenses, in order to promote the newer TDD alternative, TD-LTE. Qualcomm won spectrum in several circles. While the state-owned telcos, BSNL and MTNL, which had early access to BWA frequencies, are already rolling out WiMAX, other players have been less clear about their choices.

Reliance talked about LTE when it first acquired Infotel but is now trialling WiMAX and looks almost certain to use that standard at least for its first phase of deployment. Like operators elsewhere, it may keep its options open for LTE coexistence at a later stage, when TD-LTE becomes commercially viable. Other winners like Ikona and Augere will capitalize on the earlier availability of WiMAX.

This could boost the profile of WiMAX within ALU’s portfolio once again. Unlike Nokia Siemens, the company has never pulled away from the older standard and remains one of its top five suppliers, but it has put far greater emphasis recently on LTE, targeting its traditional cellco user base and FDD bands. However, it will be keen to leverage its expertise in WiMAX to compete for the huge Indian market and wrongfoot Huawei and ZTE, both of which are strongly positioned in the subcontinent and in WiMAX (but bear the brunt of the government’s sensitivities about security issues).

ALU’s president of 4G wireless networks told Wireless Week in a recent interview that he had recently met with seven “key customers” in India to discuss their 4G plans.

Meanwhile, the technology choice for Qualcomm and its two local partners - Global Holding and Tulip Telecom - is clearcut, but the firm still has to cross one hurdle. It needs to get government approval for its investments in three firms that will use the joint venture’s networks to offer services. These are three units of Wireless Broadband Services, focused on Haryana, Delhi and Kerala, the key areas where the Qualcomm JV has licenses.

Although the Department of Telecom allowed foreign companies to bid for spectrum, they can only own 74% of the bidding company (Qualcomm sold 13% apiece to Tulip and GHC) - and can only offer services through locally registered firms. Any foreign company that owns more than 49% in a venture must get separate approval from India’s foreign investment promotion board.

4G Trends contacted Kevin Mitchell Director, Solutions Marketing - Mobile at Acme Packet to gain some insights and his opinions on this critical aspect of 4G wireless.   Kevin obliged me with the following brief and informative interview.

Q:  Data dongles and devices for LTE networks are with us today yet standards, let alone devices to deliver LTE voice have yet to emerge.  What are the approaches currently being considered to deliver voice over an all-IP 4G network?

Until last year, the concern of how voice and messaging service parity would be achieved with LTE was overshadowed by a host of other issues in getting LTE to market. This is not a trivial topic as two-thirds to three-quarters of all mobile service revenue today comes from voice and messaging services. A standard is essential for LTE uptake, drawing from history where as a consistent approach to implementing voice services across service providers helped GSM take-off and become the most widely deployed mobile technology.

The good news is that a standard for voice does exist and it’s been around for a while: IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Now on release 9, it’s a SIP-based next generation core service for not just voice, but multimedia communications as well. The GSM Association’s Voice over LTE (VoLTE) initiative is currently engaged in selecting a sub-set of the IMS standards to deliver end-to-end voice and SMS for LTE devices, including defining roaming and interconnect interfaces.

There are three other alternatives offered up by various industry players. Voice over LTE Generic Access (VoLGA) reuses legacy voice infrastructure and UMA/GAN technology. Today, T-Mobile remains the lone service provider supporter for VoLGA. Other service providers using UMA for FMC are noticeably absent.  Circuit-switched fallback (CSFB), which uses some initial signaling over the LTE RAN and then actually “falls back” to the 2G/3G TDM RAN to establish calls, is another solution. The third option is a hybrid of SIP and legacy that leverages existing circuit MSCs, but uses SIP to deliver the voice to devices connected via LTE RANs or any fixed or mobile IP broadband access network.

But back to VoLTE, it’s not merely about service parity with legacy mobile telephony, but also about access convergence and multimedia communications that makes IMS compelling.

Also, a growing number of WiMAX operators offer residential or business voice today - it’s predominately a fixed offering, that is VoIP delivered over a broadband alternative to DSL, FTTx or cable.

Q:  What about existing technology solutions such as Skype or Google Talk - are these viable alternatives?

Yes, sure they are alternatives, but with trade-offs, including best-effort “roll of the dice” service quality lacking emergency service support, lawful intercept and fully staffed customer support. Over-the-top communication providers are indeed a competitive threat and increasingly so with the bandwidth increases in 3G technologies and LTE. Today mobile service providers face a new challenge in avoiding becoming a dumb pipe to the richness of the Internet. This is the same challenge that fixed line operators have faced since the advent of broadband. However, I don’t think over-the-top is a mass market replacement for mobile service provider offered voice and messaging services.

As mobile service providers own access infrastructure and the EPC along with IMS/SIP-based services core, they can differentiate themselves from OTP ASPs with the likes of wideband voice codecs for HD voice, interactive video with QoS and Rich Communication Suite services such as integrated presence and diverse messaging.

There is room too for a federated model providing value and revenue all along the chain. The federation is between over-the-top providers and the mobile broadband providers where the strengths of each provider can be leveraged-innovation from the web and quality, security and billability from mobile service providers. There are tentative moves in this direction and peaks at this model with the likes of Verizon and Skype.

Q:  With LTE networks already rolling out, what solutions can (or are) operators likely to employ until clear standards emerge?

As outlined earlier, there are 4 approaches available today or near future-VoLTE using IMS as defined by the GSMA IR.92 document is imminent. The limited geographic availability and form factor of LTE doesn’t demand voice at this moment (but soon). But LTE providers can offer voice softclients on laptops at the outset (and I think they should to minimize or prevent subscriber triple/quadruple play revenue loss from over-the-top). They can do this with MSC VoIP, VoLGA or VoLTE.

Q:  What are the implications to 3G operators?  Is there going to be a clear migration path to 4G voice and what would that look like?

Mobile service providers have not adopted much SIP or IMS today. However, nothing precludes them from doing so, and initiatives like Rich Communication Suite may incent adoption of SIP / IMS ahead prior to LTE deployment. The area with the largest SIP adoption is the core and IP interconnect borders, which does lay nice groundwork for migration to the 3G and 4G access networks. LTE is on the 5-year horizon for some 3G service providers, so they have time to roll-out IMS ahead of their 4G deployment.

VoLGA and VoLTE both offer migration, but only VoLTE offers services beyond voice and messaging of yesteryear. MSC VoIP is an interim step as well, where some investment is preserved for both voice-the MSCs at the outset-and the multimedia-SIP infrastructure for the years ahead.

Q:   When can consumers expect to see the first 4G voice capable device?

For basic voice: today as a laptop with a LTE data card is a voice capable device. There will be LTE phones early 2011, but I suspect they will be dual-radio phones with voice from UMTS/CDMA and LTE being the primary data network (with 3G for non-LTE markets for data coverage). For a truly mobile LTE voice and multimedia communications device, I’d venture to say very likely in 2012. Although, once the LTE radio is available on a phone, anyone could make a call using over-the-top clients.

By Eliot Weinman - Conference Chair & Founder, 4G World & President, Events & Media Division of Yankee Group

It’s hard to believe, but 4G World is less than 8 weeks away, October 18 - 21, at McCormick Place in Chicago.  I am very pleased to report that we have already registered a significant number of attendees, well on the way to our expected attendance of  over 10,000, and just last week we mailed our conference brochure.  If you wish to download a copy, please use the following link: http://4gworld.com/4g-world-brochure-download/ 4G World 2010 has been greatly expanded from our inaugural event last year in a number of ways:

• We’ve expanded our keynote program, and now have more than 17 keynotes from industry leaders around the globe. Keynote info can be found at  http://4gworld.com/speakers/keynote-speakers/
• We’ve expanded our operator program, with more than two dozen operators from around the globe deploying 4G today, including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS, T-Mobile USA, Clearwire, Telstra, KDDI Corp, China Mobile, KT, Rocky Mountain Broadband, Movistar Peru, NTT Docomo and more!
• We’ve expanded our pre-conference day with special programs from WCAI, Light Reading, IEEE and the TM Forum
• Our global association endorsements now include dozens of key 4G ecosystem associations and tens of thousands of their members
• Our total sponsors and exhibitors now exceed 250 4G companies, associations, media channels and industry analysts
• The 4G World Expo will be the largest of its kind ever produced in the world. This year we expanded the Expo to run over 3 days. The 4G World Expo has more than 150,000 sf of exhibit space, 140+ exhibitors, dozens of special 4G Solutions Theater presentations, and a number of other special expo events.
• We have added a special China Pavilion on the Expo Floor with the support and participation of the Chinese government.
• We’ve expanded our Special Events Programs, including three Power Breakfasts sponsored by Alvarion, FierceMarkets and AT&T
• Finally, we’ve expanded the conference program development and other special events, with collaboration from a number of industry leaders:
  • Backhaul and IP Core Summit - hosted by Light Reading
  • Femtocell Market Assessment - hosted by Femto Forum
  • 16th Annual WCAI International Symposium (including a special WCAI operator breakfast)
  • 4G Technology Track - Hosted by 3G Americas
  • 4G Operational Transformation Strategies and Tactics Track - Hosted by TM Forum
  • 4G World / RCR Ecosystem Awards - Presented by RCR Wireless News
  • LTE and 3G: The Next Leap Forward program - Hosted by Qualcomm
  • RCR Wireless Buzz Zone - Live on the Expo Floor
  • Innovative Enterprise Applications - Hosted by Forbes
  • 4G Professional Development Training Programs from Award Solutions, IEEE and TM Forum
  • These and other special events can be found at: http://4gworld.com/home/special-events/

If you haven’t already registered for 4G World 2010, now is the time.  Visit http://4gworld.com/register/ to register on-line now See you in Chicago!

Ushering in a paradigm shift in enterprise mobility and freeing the information worker…for a one-year old company with only 18 employees this is an ambitious goal, but then leapfactor don’t seem short on ambition.

Leapfactor is a cloud-based micro-apps company that is seeking to accelerate the trend of the consumerization of business processes through the proliferation of both ready-to-use and customizable micro-apps that can in theory run on any device and link to almost any back-end system (for starters think automated and customizable alerts & notifications, easy sharing of business indicators, and on-the-go work approval flows).

In an interesting call with their CEO, Lionel Carrasco yesterday, what struck me was not their ambition but how much of the emerging Anywhere could be seen in the micro-apps approach:

• The core proposition is a redefinition of where value resides in mobile communications, no longer HW, no longer even SW, but true to mobility it lies in customization to the business, and agility in deployment and execution.
• Value can be realized quickly, negating in this case the need for large upfront investments in software licenses. Cost becomes OPEX and crucially it becomes flexible depending on user demand.
• The model is intended to be highly scalable, both in terms of the number of users for whom it could be deployed within a business and by having B2E, B2C and B2B applicability.
• Everyone can be empowered by the potential of mobility, not just those core application software license holders in your organization.
• By offering a public SDK aimed not just at the professional developer community but company IT departments, and partners; it’s less about zero-sum winners and losers in mobility, and more about empowering the ecosystem.
• By making it easier to create, customize, and update applications, businesses are not slowed down by the extended product development cycles of for example SAP applications.

There are however the inevitable challenges and they are myriad - leapfactor’s CEO acknowledged that security around the cloud-based architecture is high on the list of their clients’ concerns. It goes further than security however, with recent Yankee Group data pointing not only to security but a host of other potential barriers that enterprises consider cloud computing to throw up.

Add to this the challenges of this business model for markets with a lot of legacy infrastructure. Not so much a problem for Brazil and Mexico, two of the focus markets for the initial deployment, but for Western Europe who is next in the line up, it will be a more complicated sell-in.

And let’s not forget the challenge of growing the whole ecosystem. This is difficult enough to do as a large enterprise, but as a start-up this will require a lot of clever partnerships with systems integrators, OEMs and others to make it work.

Nevertheless, the potential points to one of the most interesting dynamics of Anywhere - when innovations allow the Anywhere enterprise to focus less on the “how” and more on the “where” opportunities in the contact zone between businesses and their customers, and between employees and their business processes, the relationship becomes a reciprocal one, where each one has a mobilizing force on the other.

A tablet for the TV could become something truly ‘home changing’. For Motorola the holy grail would have to be DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance). This is a six-year old, highly labored industry grouping, begun by 18 of the largest constituents in the digital home and now swelled to 26 promoter members, from chipmakers to content producers to consumer electronics vendors to pay-TV operators.

This group has long established use cases for how content can move around a home. Those use cases are quite advanced and consumers are only now just beginning to see the fruits of fairly boring, but necessary, standards work and plugfests, which are the staple diet of this organization. In May, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson all obtained DLNA certification for some of their devices, though curiously this has hardly made it into the news pages at all - probably because those devices are mostly not launched.

Just last week the Alliance said that the number of DLNA certified Blu-ray players had nearly doubled to 105. And before phones, or tablets, can interact with TVs in the home, the core devices - Blu-ray players, TV sets and DVRs - have to make that leap themselves.

DLNA is all about accessing any content, mostly unprotected content, on any device in the home. We say mostly unprotected, because the DLNA has never really got to grips with DRM (digital rights management) and it has no strategy on interoperable DRM.

Until now it has been more interested in defining format types for, say, printers from mobile devices, or defining device classes, or adding support for H.264 video. But there are two ways it can deal with protected content. The first is if a content operator also offers a second device and supplies transparent DRM - this is something that Verizon could easily do, offering DRM keys to portable devices from FiOS, such as to this proposed Motorola tablet.

The other approach, and one we see very clearly on the roadmap of DLNA, is the idea of supporting streaming protocols such as RTP and offering link protection. That way streaming protection such as DCTP can prevent some level of piracy when the content is on the way to another device, and content can simply be streamed to a second device, with no copy being kept.

What DLNA makes possible is the ability to locate content anywhere in the DLNA universe in your home, so on a DVR, a camera, a PC, phone or home server, and shift it to be streamed on ANY of the other devices. This can also work with music and photos.

DLNA breaks all the devices into storage, controllers and rendering devices and makes them plug and play together. So you can watch a TV program on TV, decide to switch it to another portable device, and send the sound to the speakers on your laptop. What the DLNA had to deal with early on was the issue of control and giving control power to other devices. In this way your TV remote can increase the volume on the bedroom TV, where you just sent the rest of your TV program. Now it is embracing the streamed video world, not just one that  relies on storing new copies of video files.

So what could a video tablet do? It could flip to the electronic programming guide of a pay-TV service, and then select a channel. It might send the program on that channel to a DVR or just pause it while you go upstairs to another room, and then let you trigger play. You might use the tablet to look up something on the internet, while watching another channel. It might deliver the sound to the channel you’re watching to your earbuds, or to your laptop, which has a better set of earbuds. It might let you control your Blu-ray player, and stream the video to your tablet, notebook or a TV.

All of that you get from DLNA certification. So that’s pretty much without reinventing anything, just putting tried and tested control features, and tried and tested stream and file types, on a new device. Every one of Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson has already proved to the DLNA that they have code which can do all that, so it just needs porting to a new device, which will no doubt run Android, the same operating system that Motorola will have probably first delivered it on.

It’s the other features of the Motorola tablet device which are hardest to design. Well for sure it will play Android Market apps, so that’s games, streaming video services over Wi-Fi in your home and at work as well as some VoIP-style voice capabilities. Already this device is sounding cool to take out of the home, despite its core function being one that is attached to the pay-TV operator.

If you add a TV Everywhere service from FiOS, so that its pay-TV programming can be viewed anywhere over the internet for paying subscribers, including on this tablet, then it is a pretty neat device and probably capable of offering a better video serviced than Apple and iTunes. If that happens, Motorola will suddenly have improved leverage in the set-top world and also have a new product to ship to all of its existing IPTV operators. It might even be able to make it work with cable boxes too, though that comes with a different set of problems.

We have for some time talked about iTunes TV and Apple’s desire to offer TV channels on a monthly pay basis, to rival cable and other pay TV operations. Because it has not yet emerged, and potentially this is because Apple cannot get the kinds of content licenses that it needs, it may well put both Apple, as well as Google TV, at a huge disadvantage in home tablets. Tablets without content are just heavy Gameboys or MIDs.

But we know that Verizon FiOS has content galore if Motorola first targets the digital home at Verizon with tablet number one, and then frees up other tablets to work outside the home with cellular services, it could mount a viable challenge to the iPad outside of the AT&T cellular customer base - which is about two-thirds of the US. Of course people can buy an iPad without an AT&T data contract, either cellular or Wi-Fi, but the number that prefer to be sure that their data is paid for, before they start using a tablet is likely to be a lot higher than those who have their own Wi-Fi service.

The first Motorola tablet will be out during 2010, which is likely to make it one of the first that support Adobe Flash, and it will be thinner and lighter than the iPad, and offer two cameras, one to take pics and the other for video conferencing. All in all if Motorola has the same kind of success or better than it had with the Droid and Droid X, then it will seriously be in the tablet game through America’s second largest telco.

Whatever the future shape of the Motorola tablet, its reported plans highlight how important carrier support remains to the success of media devices - and also how intensely Verizon is relying on broadening its range of gadgets to boost its services and customer loyalty. This is true of FiOS, and also of its forthcoming LTE wireless data offerings. Much of the revenue growth on new networks will rely on non-traditional mobile devices, and the apps and content services for which they are optimized. So tablets, personal hotspots and media players could lure new users to 4G systems, rather than phones, a factor Clearwire has already embraced for its WiMAX offering. Now Verizon Wireless expects to launch tablets on its upcoming LTE network before it releases smartphones.

John Killian, CFO of co-parent Verizon Communications, said the cellco believes it will be able to charge a premium for the speed and quality of LTE services, especially when these are driving new applications or usage patterns. “Customers will pay for quality and premium service and premium speed,” he said. Verizon has previously hinted that it would use LTE as the trigger to introduce tiered data pricing, making it acceptable to consumers with improved quality of service and new content options.

He also said that Verizon would release tablets in the “not too distant future”, meaning early next year, while smartphones would arrive in mid-2011. The timeline, a reversal of the 3G pattern, will be partly down to the complexities of developing and testing phones, which will have to be multimode for CDMA roaming - not essential for data-only devices like tablets, dongles and hotspots, which will be usable just within areas of LTE coverage. It also demonstrates the importance of eye-catching gadgets supporting new services to encourage early 4G uptake.

On a webcast, Killian said Android would remain the centrepiece of its smartphone strategy, despite the rising expectation that Verizon will get its own iPhone. “I definitely think in terms of the Droid franchise we’re going to continue to be unique,” he said, adding, in response to a question about Apple: “All of our assumptions about our business is we’re going to have devices that act and perform just like the iPhone does. If the iPhone became available to us under the right terms, we would be interested in that.”

One reason is that many governments and carriers will regard 4G as a fixed as well as mobile broadband platform. This means it will be deployed more quickly than 3G was, in many cases, in rural areas and emerging economies, because of the urgent need for high speed access. In this scenario, 4G - whether LTE or WiMAX - does not have to be a ‘network in search of an application’ as 3G often was.

The other reason is that some countries will aim to deploy 4G quickly in order to minimize investment in 3G, where this has been limited to date, and to kickstart mobile, broadband and web services expansion via the more cost efficient IP standards. In some countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, 3G may be bypassed altogether, and in others, like Brazil, operators are discussing confining 3G to a few areas and using non-deployed spectrum elsewhere for 4G instead. This would be particularly practical where 3G investments have been fairly recent and used software upgradeable base stations, and where regulators are technology neutral.

One of the most interesting countries in terms of the 4G pattern will be Russia. In the top five growth markets for wireless, Russia’s 3G expansion has been slow and bureaucratic, but in 4G it is moving far more quickly as the momentum behind broadband and web services rises. It already has several WiMAX operators, one of which, Scartel/Yota, is also trialling LTE. The early WiMAX spectrum auction opened the door to some smaller players and now the three main cellcos - MTS, VimpelCom and Megafon - may face another wave of new competition as Russia gears up for its main tranche of 4G auctions.

Russia is facing a dilemma that has affected the spectrum policies of many economies - whether to let experienced operators expand wireless availability, or encourage new competition. The main cellcos are dismayed at president Dmitry Medvedev’s belief that new spectrum should be opened up to new entrants so that 4G services are spread more widely than 3G between different operators and business models. In particular, they are keeping a wary eye on the rising mobile ambitions of landline incumbent Rostelecom which gained licenses in the first tranche of 4G auctions. A second wave of auctions around 2.5GHz will be held later this year.

According to Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, Medvedev has told the minister of communications, Igor Shchegolev, to draw up plans to distribute ‘4G’ licenses on a broad basis. This could speed up development of new services in Russia, which is one of the world’s largest potential markets for wireless and broadband, but whose development has often been delayed by bureaucracy. In particular, localized carriers could be encouraged to bring access to rural areas, which are vast but sparsely populated in the highly urbanized country. Medvedev also hopes smaller players would introduce innovative web offerings and support government and industrial applications.

However, as the US and other countries have discovered in the past, new operators can be financially unstable and inexperienced, raising the risk that spectrum goes unused or new services fail.

Of course, Medvedev’s proposals are encountering fierce opposition from the big three. The newspaper reports that they have all written letters to Shchegolev and prime minister Vladimir Putin arguing that only they have the cash and expertise to handle the roll-out of LTE in Russia. This will not stop them lobbying for state support in the financing of LTE, though. Medvedev argues that national LTE will cost far more than 3G because he wants it deployed as much as 10 times faster than the sluggish pace of 3G, in order to support fixed as well as mobile broadband. This may require state financial support, which in turn will increase his negotiating power over the cellcos. Last week Vedomosti reported that Osnova Telekom, 25% owned by Russia’s Defense Ministry, is willing to help build the LTE system.

The Russian press says that potential new spectrum bidders are already making themselves known. They include Rusenergotelekom, a new firm formed last October and controlled by energy investor Grigory Berezkin, who also owns a blocking stake in national landline operator Rostelecom. This company is getting increasingly active in wireless services and has said it will increase its influence and revenue streams by supporting new mobile entrants in order to boost competition.

Rostelecom has also invested directly in spectrum. It was recently awarded 30MHz of spectrum in the 2.3GHz to 2.4GHz band, covering one-third of the country’s population, and plans to launch LTE test networks in Penza by the end of August.  The carrier, an arm of state-owned conglomerate Svyazinvest, won licenses in 38 of the 40 Russian regions covered by the tender, while fellow Svyazinvest subsidiary Sibirtelecom got the license for the Tomsk area and local operator Vainakh Telecom won in Chechnya. The operators have 18 months to build and launch networks and must adopt Russian-made equipment. However, the largest cities, Moscow and St Petersburg, were excluded from the tender to give the big three cellcos - MTS, Vimpelcom and MegaFon - more time to get return on their recent investments in 3G.

Svyazinvest is currently undergoing a reorganization, combining Rostelecom with its local divisions nationwide to provide integrated fixed, broadband and mobile services, but the group has less power in the cellular than the fixed market. It has regional cellcos like Sibirtelecom, Uralsvyazinform and SkyLink, but has been rumored to be considering a bid for one of the big three, or even a start-up like Scartel/Yota, which has 2.3GHz spectrum in the main cities. Svyazinvest’s wins of new 4G spectrum make it the fourth largest cellco in terms of licensed area, overtaking Tele2. It plans an IPO in April 2011.

Another hallmark of Russian 4G is the way that its operators are using their subsidiaries in neighboring, former Soviet states to test LTE at a very early stage, with less cost and risk than building out in key Russian cities. So an unlikely nation, Uzbekistan in central Asia, has become the world’s first to gain LTE networks from two different operators - TeliaSonera’s UCell and Russian-based MTS. Both are primarily serving as testbeds for the cellcos’ larger owners, which can trial LTE in tough terrain but without the significant expense and risk of rolling out at such an early stage in their key territories. MTS recently switched on its LTE network in capital Tashkent and has plans for the main Russian cities once it validates the technology and acquires spectrum, probably later this year.

Meanwhile, UCell is a subsidiary of TeliaSonera, which was the world’s first operator to launch commercial LTE networks in Sweden and Norway, and is looking to expand the technology around its many bases in the Nordic, east European and central Asian regions. The two providers have a combined 78% market share in Uzbekistan.

UCell has turned to ZTE for its equipment, favouring the Chinese firm’s software defined base station architecture, while MTS is using kit from rival Huawei. ZTE now claims seven commercial or pre-commercial LTE networks and 50 trials while Huawei has been part of several high profile early awards, including Telia’s in Norway.

Uzbekistan may be a testing ground rather than a strategic market for its carriers, but it does illustrate a key trend - the squeezing of the upgrade cycle between 3G and 4G in emerging nations. In some areas, 3G may be largely bypassed altogether as operators chase the better economics and spectral efficiency of the new IP-based systems, and their superior ability to support fixed broadband and packet data services as well as mobile offerings.