Nortel's wireless broadband broadening coverage<\/p>\n
Zatni Arbi, Contributor\/Jakarta<\/p>\n
A fellow IT journalist from Thailand commented that Nortel
\nNetworks had the best booth in the exhibition hall of the 3G
\nWorld Congress and Exhibition 2004 in Hong Kong last month.<\/p>\n
I concurred with her. There were more participants this year
\ncompared with two years before, but this vendor's well-designed
\nbooth stood out as the most user-friendly.<\/p>\n
There were around seven display desks, each showing a
\ndifferent technology and attended to by people who knew what they
\nwere talking about.<\/p>\n
That was in itself quite impressive, as this telco vendor is
\nmore than just knee-deep in each of the advanced wireless
\ntechnologies today -- GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA2000 1x, CDMA2000 1x
\nEV-DO, UMTS, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, you name it.<\/p>\n
Talking about size, Nortel is no small player. First, it has
\nthe U.S. as its installed base, with Verizon Wireless as its
\nmajor customer. And then, with 20% market share in China Unicom's
\ninfrastructure, it is also a major player in China, where
\nvirtually all telco vendors have rushed in to grab a chunk of the
\n1.3 billion-people marketplace.<\/p>\n
As we all have heard, the number of mobile users in China has
\njust surpassed 320 million, which this still leaves a lot of room
\nto grow.<\/p>\n
Down under, Telstra is also using Nortel's products and
\nservices to upgrade its CDMA2000 1x networks, which were built in
\n2002, to its data-optimized CDMA2000 1x EV-DO 3G networks.<\/p>\n
Once the upgrade is completed, city dwellers can enjoy 300
\nkbps to 600 kbps Internet access speed from their Telstra
\nnetworks.<\/p>\n
This company is also aggressively penetrating Europe with its
\nCDMA 450 MHz technology. \"Most of the CDMA 450 MHz networks are
\nused to provide DSL services,\" said CDMA Networks president
\nRichard Lowe.<\/p>\n
The good thing about the European market is that the old
\nNordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) analog networks also used the 450
\nMHz frequency band, so no additional license was required when
\nthe network was upgraded to CDMA.<\/p>\n
One of Nortel's most significant advances in Europe so far is
\nEurotel Praha's CDMA 450 MHz broadband network, which provides
\nthe Czechs with wireless broadband Internet access.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, while countries such as India, Thailand,
\nPakistan and Vietnam were repeatedly mentioned as the Greenfield
\nhotspots in Asia Pacific, Indonesia seems to be just a small
\nspeck on their radar screen. Fortunately, it is a growing speck.
\nEsia, the CDMA-based fixed wireless operator, is one of their
\nmajor customers here. Nortel has also completed a trial run with
\nPT Wireless Indonesia in the effort to bring 3G CDMA2000-1x EV-DO
\nwireless data service to the people of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Too bad, there is still no news yet as to how soon the service
\nwill become commercially available to us.<\/p>\n
Broadband DSL<\/p>\n
One of the technologies showcased at Nortel's booth was the
\nBroadband DSL, which was in reality the CDMA2000-1x EV-DO over
\nthe 450 MHz network. The service can bring data and voice
\nservices to customer terminals at broadband speed (153 kbps and
\nup).<\/p>\n
Depending on whether the frequency band is licensed and how
\nmuch the license fee costs, the Broadband DSL can be an
\nalternative that is hard to beat.<\/p>\n
CDMA services usually utilize the 800 MHz radio frequency band
\n(as used by Esia), 1900 MHz (as used Telkom Flexi and StarOne in
\nJakarta, West Java and Banten provinces as well as PT WIN) and
\n2100 MHz.<\/p>\n
The lower 450 MHz frequency band has the benefit of giving
\nbetter propagation. This translates into the need for fewer cell
\nsites and therefore fewer base transceiver stations, resulting in
\na lower investment requirement.<\/p>\n
In terms of voice quality and data-carrying capacity, there is
\nno difference, however. The great efficiency is one of the
\nreasons Nortel is pushing the CDMA 450 MHz so strongly all over
\nthe world.<\/p>\n
By the way, in the CDMA infrastructure market, Nortel is just
\nbehind market leader Lucent Technologies. Its competitors include
\ncompanies such as Motorola, Samsung, Alcatel and Ericsson.<\/p>\n
Wireless mesh network
\nThe broad range of the skills that Nortel Networks has under its
\nroof is also being demonstrated in Taipei, Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Taipei's Mobile City (M City) Project has chosen Nortel's
\nWireless Mesh Network to provide city-wide broadband coverage.<\/p>\n
Taipei has a population of 2.6 million people and covers an
\narea of around 272 sq km. The operator, Qware, is expecting that
\naround 10,000 access points will be available in buildings, MRT
\nstations and other locations in the city by the end of next year.<\/p>\n
Nortel's Wireless Mesh Network is similar to the traditional
\ncellular telephone architecture, where each cell is served by a
\nbase transceiver station (BTS).<\/p>\n
However, while the BTSs in the traditional cellular
\narchitecture are linked to the central hub with cables, in a mesh
\nnetwork one BTS may be linked wirelessly to the BTS in the
\nadjacent cells.<\/p>\n
Therefore, there is no need to hard-wire cell interconnection.
\nThe result is a more scalable network that is much cheaper to
\nexpand. Gone is the issue of right of way and the need to dig up
\nroads and pavements to bury the cables.<\/p>\n
Nortel's Wireless Mesh Network is basically a modified
\nWireless LAN (WLAN). Any 802.11 wireless-capable notebook or PDA
\nwill be able to access the Internet via this network, even when
\nthe user hops from one cell to another. Thus, a major benefit to
\nthe users is that they can roam much more easily. Conventional
\nhotspots based on Wi-Fi technology will not offer such a level of
\nmobility and convenience.<\/p>\n
Exciting times<\/p>\n
Once again, it is clearly an exciting time for those of us who
\nhave been wishing for better data access wherever we go. The
\ntechnology options are plenty and the vendors are competing
\nfiercely against each other for market share.<\/p>\n
What is needed now is a more conducive and more transparent
\nregulatory environment. The telco vendors say: \"We just want a
\nlevel playing field,\" while we, the users, say, \"What we want is
\nubiquitous, affordable services.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/nortels-wireless-broadband-broadening-coverage-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}