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3GPP urges caution over IMT-Advanced promises
Published: 22 October, 2009
Tags >> Standards | LTE | WiMAX
No fewer than six technologies have been submitted, seeking approval as official standards for IMT-Advanced, the next wave of wireless systems, which is designed finally to achieve 'true 4G' or gigabit stationary speeds (100Mbps mobile). Whereas a few years ago, few would have seen the need for such performance, now it seems operators can hardly wait to access the platforms that will let them support massive mobile broadband and multimedia usage, and while they may have years to wait for real 4G, they are increasing the momentum behind current technologies, LTE and WiMAX.
The ITU will select its IMT-Advanced technologies in October 2010. It released details of the six proposals, which are based around the third generation of LTE (3GPP Release 10) and IEEE 802.16m (WiMAX 2.0). The ITU's Radiocommunications Working Party 5D will assess all the submissions over the coming year, supported by "independent external evaluation groups that have been established around the world".
ITU Secretary-General, Hamadoun Toure, told the Union's recent meeting in Dresden, Germany: "IMT-Advanced leads with a strategic vision, but also translates the vision into practical reality in this challenging ICT environment."
Stephen Blust, director of radio standards at AT&T and chairman of Working Party 5D, commented in a statement: "In 2002 when the strategic vision for 4G - which we designated as IMT-Advanced - was laid out in anticipation of the longer term future needs of the marketplace, it established a new level of expectation for the capabilities and performance of global mobile wireless broadband systems that many thought at the time was something that could not be reached in this decade. When ITU-R established the detailed performance requirements of IMT-Advanced in 2008, it truly raised the bar for mobile wireless."
But Adrian Scase, head of the 3GPP, was more circumspect in his comments, speaking at this week's Supercomm show in the US. Big performance numbers "can be misinterpreted", he warned. "It's always dangerous when you extract one or two headline figures performance figures from a specification," he told the audience. Data rates per user will vary considerably, depending on a range of factors from the cell size, number of users in that cell, device type and interference conditions.
The LTE proposal uses 8 x 8 MIMO antenna arrays and channel sizes up to 100MHz (if supported by spectrum allocations in future), to promise peak performance of 1Gbps download and 500Mbps upload when stationary, and 100Mbps download with high mobility. Scrase pointed out that these technologies are still two global network builds away, telling Dow Jones: "It will be three or four years before we see widespread LTE deployments so we won't see the first LTE Advanced networks for another six or seven years."
In the current generation of technology, several LTE frontrunners are vying to be the first to offer commercial services, even if these are likely to be on a very limited basis in 2010. Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo have gained the brightest spotlight, but TeliaSonera also says it is in the running and says it has taken delivery of its first LTE data modems, from Samsung. It says it will launch services in the Swedish and Norwegian capitals, Stockholm and Oslo, next year.
