the shift to 4g mobile networks

8/2/2019 The Shift to 4G Mobile Networks

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Socio-Technical Map

Student name: Dimitris Bougioukos

Student Number: 4184521


2/15Socio-Technical Map 4G Page 1

Table of ContentsIntroduction ................................................................................................................................ 2

1. State of development .......................................................................................................... 2

1.1 Technology path from 1G to 3G ...................................................................................... 2

1.2 IMT-Advanced and 4G candidate systems ...................................................................... 3

1.3 Deployments around the world ........................................................................................ 4

2. The different stakeholders involved and their views .......................................................... 6

3. Dynamics in the development ............................................................................................ 9

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 11

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 12



Introduction

The wireless revolution will completely change the structure of communications media thenext twenty years. Current users of cellular and personal communication services areamounted to be close to one billion. While the pace of subscriber growth of the wiredtelephone network is relatively slow, users of wireless services is growing at higher rates.The great need for Internet, wireless cable distribution TV systems and for access toinformation technology dictates the deployment of wireless mobile broadbandcommunication systems. Generally, there is an urgent need for future wireless networks to beflexible, to provide to many users the opportunity of upgrading, to provide information on theuser's position on a global scale and to provide security from interception. In addition, it isdesirable to achieve a high level of cooperation with wired networks and thus enablingwireless networks to be adaptable to occasional demands.The term 4G not only describes a standard but it also describes an environment whereinteroperable networks allow communication to be transferred withoutdiscontinuities between them. More than any other technology, the fourth generationwill have a profound influence on the entire wireless landscape and the whole chainmobile telephony. The future will be in the hands of the users and certainly not in the handsof service or network providers.Although there isn t a global official definition, in telecommunications industry 4G is thenext generation of wireless standards that are going to replace current 2G and 3G standardsenabling an integrated IP-based architecture for voice and data [2].

1. State of development

1.1 Technology path from 1G to 3G

1st generation wireless standards were introduced in the 1980s offering analog voice services,it was the era of the so called brick mobile phones because of their large size. 2 nd generationwireless standards were implemented in 1991 (GSM in Europe and the rest of the world,CDMA in the USA) and were based on digital networks offering digital data services such asshort message and e-mail. 3 rd generation arrived in 2002 as a response in the increasing needof wireless users for faster data speeds in order to access internet and exchange multimediafiles (pictures, video) [1]. Currently, operators across the world operate on networks mostlybased on 2G for treating voice and 3G for transferring data.

Figure 1: History of Mobile Telephone Technologies [1]



1.2 IMT-Advanced and 4G candidate systems

Since 2008, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has issued the specifications,

called International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced), that describethe next (fourth) generation of wireless standards further from 3G [2].The most significant features concerning IMT-Advanced standards are:

Worldwide functionality along with the flexibility of supporting a wide spectrum of services [3]

Global roaming capability across multiple networks [3] High peak data rates 100 Mbit/s for high (cell phone) and 1 Gbit/s for low (personal

computer) mobility [3] Smooth transition across heterogeneous networks [3] Interoperability with current wireless standards [3]

In October 2010 the Recommendation sector of ITU decided among six differenttechnologies that LTE -Advanced and WirelessMAN -Advanced fulfill the vision of IMT -Advanced requirements and thus categorized them as leading standards towards 4GTechnologies [4].Later the same year ITU announced during the ITU Radiocommunication Seminar 2010(WRS-10) held in Geneva that forerunners to the two aforementioned technologies can alsobe considered as 4G in the sense that they are improvements of current 3G standards and helptowards the direction of achieving the goals set by IMT-Advanced [5]. The current pre-4Gimplementations, sometimes branded as 4G from mobile operators, that are fully or partlydeployed for final users are:

HSPA+: High Speed Packet Access Plus was standardized by 3 rd GenerationPartnership Project. It is considered as an upgrade to current 3G standards in thesense it can help mobile operators to extend the life of current HSPA network infrastructure, the peak download and upload speeds are 42Mbps and 22Mbpsrespectively, T-Mobile was the first to deploy HSPA+ in the USA throughout itscellular network [6,7,8,9].

LTE: Long Term Evolution standard was developed by 3 rd Generation PartnershipProject. LTEs peak download and upload speed are 100Mbps and 50Mbpsrespectively. Fundamental feature of LTE is the shift from classic circuit switchednetworks, currently implemented in GSM mobile networks, to an-all IP networking

infrastructure, meaning that everything including voice is going to be handled aspackets of data. This is off course why LTE is considered as a predecessor of true 4Gstandards [7,8].

WiMAX: Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a wireless broadbandaccess standard designed and developed by the Institute of Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers (IEEE) under the 802.16 title. The use of WiMAX is for MetropolitanArea Networks and it can give wireless access to fixed stations up to 50 km and upto 15km for mobile stations. Downstream and upstream rates for WiMAX arerespectively 128Mbps and 56Mbps [2,10,11].



Figure 2: Data Rates of different standards [8]

1.3 Deployments around the world LTE

Several mobile providers around the world are testing on LTE deployments; in some casesthe network is available commercially for final users. Notably, the first commercial

deployment was performed by TeliaSoniera in December 2009 in Oslo and Stockholm [2]. In2010, Estonian mobile operator EMT started testing its LTE network along with the Latvianoperator LMT which launched its LTE network under testing in half of its total coverage area[2]. Furthermore, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association has published a report on the LTEevolution in August 2011 claiming that there are 28 commercial LTE networks in 18countries such as USA, South Korea, Germany, Uzbekistan, Canada, Poland. The reportstates that 93 LTE networks are expected to be launched for commercial use by the end of 2012 [14].



Figure 3: Global map of LTE commercial, planned and committed deployments [16]

WiMAX WiMAX deployments were commercially available earlier than LTE, notably Sprint in the USA waspromoting its WiMAX services in selected cities as 4G back in December 2009 even though averagespeeds were relatively low with respect of what is expected from true 4G standards [2]. The industryresearch report of WiMAX Forum published on May 2011 claims that there are 583 total WiMAXdeployments, either in service or planned with some initial action already in progress, in more than150 countries [15]. In addition, the report contains figures about the total users that are covered byWiMAX service providers. The number of total WiMAX subscribers in the end of 2010 was 823Million and it is estimated to reach 1 Billion by the end of 2011 [15].

Figure 4: WiMAX deployments around the world [15]



2. The different stakeholders involved and their views

In this section the focus is on the stakeholders of the emerging 4G landscape. Opendiscussions and broad coordination is needed among the different key players involved inorder to define a satisfying context of future 4G systems. Different visions and strategiesamong shareholders are interacting leading to the culmination of the 4G ecosystem. Thestakeholders can be categorized under three basic groups: market, authorities, society. Thissocial map aims to take a closer look on the translation initiatives that actors undertake withone another in 4G shaping by focusing on how actors conduct their strategies to achieve theirown interests and how they connect among other actors to make that feasible [23].

3GPP

ITU

DeviceManufacturers

EquipmentVendors

MobileOperators

PotentialConsumers

MinorityGroups and

RuralCommunities

IEEEStandards

Association

4G

Figure 5: Stakeholders of the 4G ecosystem

Authorities:

The International and Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the specialized agency under thebody of United Nations that handles issues around information and communication

technologies [17] . ITUs mission is to bring the merits of modern communicationtechnologies to people everywhere around world in the most efficient and affordable way[17]. In respect to 4G wireless standards, ITU-R (Radiocommunications) issued in 2008 theInternational Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced (IMT-Advanced) describing therequirements that next generations wireless standards must fulfill [3]. After that differentgroups of associations in the industry have been working on standards in accordance withIMT- Advanced specifications. The 4G term wasnt introduced by ITU but instead from other parties involved such as mobile operators, equipment manufacturers [7]. More specifically, inthe USA some network operators started marketing their services as 4G which in reality wereimprovements in the current 3G standards [7]. So, while this debate was going on ITUstepped in and defined among six proposed standards two (LTE-Advanced and WiMAXrelease 2 that are compliant with IMT-Advanced giving them the official nomination as true4G technologies [4]. However, the announcement of the seminar held by ITU in Geneva



claimed that due to the ambiguity in the definition of the 4G term technologies that arepredecessors of LTE-Advanced or WiMAX 2 along with other improvements in current 3Gstandards could be considered as 4G in the sense that they help the progress of achieving therequirements of IMT-Advanced [5]. The announcement concludes that ITU-R will issue newguidelines concerning IMT-Advanced technologies in early 2012 [5]. Undoubtedly, ITU

remains neutral in this inter industry competition about which one of the two candidatetechnologies are going to dominate the market.3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is mainly a joint collaboration of worldwidetelecommunications associations located in Europe, Asia and USA and targets to producetechnical improvements related to the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM).3GPP has crucial involvement in the proceedings of 4G standards as it is responsible for thedevelopment of LTE-Advanced which was approved by ITU as a 4G candidate system [18].3GPPs partners are also market associations providing a broader view of market trends andopportunities that will enable 3GPP to define and work on standards more essentially in termsof market viability of new technologies [19].

IEEE standards association has also involvement in the 4G development as it authors theIEEE 802.16 series of standards which are known under the common name WiMAX [20].Since the publication of the 802.16m standard WiMAX Forum is working on WiMAXrelease 2 which will meet the IMT-Advanced requirements. WiMAX Forum is an industryoriented organization comprised of network equipment vendors and operators promotingtechnologies based on IEEE standard 802.16 [21]. In addition, the Forum keeps closerelationship with regulators, governments and service providers to monitor if the systemsprovided meet the desired expectations [21,22].Governments around world have also an active and crucial role in this evolution of 4Gwireless standards and networks. Firstly, mobile operators have to go through a spectrumauction regulated by governments in order to acquire license for using certain frequencybands and deploying their 4G networks. For example, last August Spanish government raised1.6 billion euros by granting Vodafone, Orange and Telefonica spectrum bands for LTEdeployment [24] . Its obv ious that similar auctions are taking place globally generatingsubstantial revenues in government budgets. Moreover, many governments deal with theissue as a prospect of strategic planning in the IT industry. They are trying through theirinterstate telecommunications authorities and boards to coordinate the action of domesticmobile operators and every party involved with the ultimate goal to bring themselves at theforefront of 4G evolution so as to have economic growth, foreign investment and uniqueknowledge [23]. Particularly, stimulation of 4G developments by governmental actions couldlead in the enhancement of national economys competiveness and welfare status withpossible increase in Gross Domestic Product and employment [25]. The last two effects could

take place if we consider that 4G investment affects the economic activity of firms andemployees that produce related products and also of individuals, households and groups thatactually use these products [25].

Market:

Device manufacturers and equipment vendors : Technological advances in the field of telecommunications with the spreading coverage of 3G and the introduction of smartphoneshas led consumers to use their regular mobile devices in similar way they use their personalcomputers. In this environment, manufacturers and equipment vendors have revenue growthinterests in building new handset products and providing the new hardware needed to

operators in order to upgrade their networks [23]. However, complications arise in thisprocess from the fact that there are two main standards LTE and WiMAX developed right



now with the prospect in a few years to shift to LTE-Advanced and WiMAX Release 2 whichpractically meet the true 4G requirements [26] . So, its interesting to investigate how bigmanufacturers and vendors position themselves in this technology path dilemma. As it wasmentioned earlier WiMAX was introduced in the market and final users earlier than LTE, soits only logical that manufacturers had incentive in producing devices related to this

standard, for instance HTC MAX 4G was the first smartphone that integrated WiMAX in aregular GSM mobile phone and was launched in early 2009 in Russian market and especiallyfor Yota Network [27]. Moreover, certain other mobile broadband WiMAX equipment arebeing produced by Cisco, Samsung, LG and related companies for 3 years now as the numberof commercial deployments of WiMAX around the world is close to 500 [15]. On the otherhand, as the path to 4G for many mobile providers is by upgrading to LTE because of itsclose roots to the dominant GSM standard [8], manufacturers and vendors realized that thereis space for both standards to coexist in the market and consequently they have strongincentives to support both [26]. According to a recent report of Global mobile SuppliersAssociation on the LTE ecosystem 161 LTE devices are currently or in the near futureavailable for use [28]. With a closer look on the report leading manufacturers standout suchas Cisco, LG, Samsung, HTC, Erricson, ZTE, Fujitsu, Dell providing a variety of supportingdevices from laptops to module chipsets [28].

Mobile Operators : Mobile network operators are companies that provide services for mobilephone subscribers [32]. Operators consider crucial the transition to 4G as they see a robustsolution to the data traffic congestion problems that are currently experiencing [33].Obviously, beside the technical opportunity operators see a revenue growth opportunity asdemand for data will increase and new services can be provided to subscribers [23]. In thatsense, they are trying to form key alliances with device manufacturers so as to offer acomplete final product with enhanced services based on the functionalities of 4G standards,they are investigating possible mergers and joint ventures with fixed line carriers asconvergence of different networks could take place as 4G vision states [3,23]. Again, the pathto 4G is dictated for operators also by the two competing standards LTE and WiMAX.Although some operators turned to WiMAX because of its earlier availability on the marketthe majority of operators today is committing to LTE as it is related to the dominant GSMstandard which is widely used in cellular communications. Consequently, this fact impliesthat a possible deployment of a LTE network will save expenditures of upgrading the currentinfrastructure. Some officials of mobile operators have suggested even the convergence of thetwo standards because of their technical similarities and these views were supported bytelecom manufacturers also [8].

Society:

Potential Consumers: The needs and expectations of future 4G users and customersconstitute the real social aspect in this social-technical map analysis [23] . Its fundamental topoint out that today technologies coming from the telecommunications field is an inseparablepart of p eoples daily lives. In this context, any potential development s of 4G technologieswhich dont take account this irrefutable fact will end up as market failures [29]. Hence,device manufacturers and mostly mobile operators have to assess the current trends in theircustomers usage of 3G and pre -4G services and accordingly to step further into the 4G era.Currently, users are exploiting the wealth of content and applications provided by operators networks at maximum level putting an extra strain on networks as theyre accessing an

incremental amount of data. Consequently, its easy to understand 4G demand will be drivenby these niche services, namely, high definition mobile TV, high definition video on demand,



online gaming, advanced location positioning applications and clearly the peak data rates that4G standards are aiming to achieve will serve the interests of future users in the mostsatisfactory way [23]. With this enhancement of download and upload speeds users will betransformed into both consumers and producers of content if we consider that participation insocial media and blogs can substantially rise and so more people will be in position of

externalizing their views to the public and then igniting a public conversation around them[23]. All this increasing need for data speeds affects directly mobile operators which have toupgrade their core network capacity and offer competitive prices in the market.

Rural communities and minority groups : In most of the developed countries minority groupssuch as immigrants, low-wage population, teenagers are generally poorer and usually locatedin urban areas [25]. Consequently, senior citizens and middle-class people have an advantageover minority groups in the usage and access of devices related to information andcommunication technology considered the high prices that ICT related firms charge.However, there are surveys which indicate that minority groups bridge this digitaldiscrimination by having broadband internet access on their smartphone and this tendencyappears specifically in higher percentage rates among these groups than any other [30]. Stillthis digital divide is sustained by carriers actions which serve effectively only some cities interms of spectrum allocation and network capacity because they have the proportionalcompensation related to their expenditures for providing users with enhanced wirelessservices [25]. The 4G era of telecommunications promises to deal with these issuesessentially as smartphones will become more affordable and more similar to personalcomputers and laptops and thus minority groups will have bigger social and economicparticipation. Moreover, the widespread coverage and roaming capability of 4G networks canreestablish the position of rural communities within a given country and why not even in aglobal context. The advanced infrastructure that 4G networks will involve can attract industryinvestments, specialized workers, immigrants, technology incubators to smaller cities andtowns giving a new economic breath [25,31]. Local communities can take advantage of theopportunities given from continuous Internet access over 4G networks and bridge the gap ineducation, health and social services ameliorating the quality of life [25,31].

3. Dynamics in the development

Naturally, the question arising is how far are we from the real 4G era? What could be arealistic timeline?Technological progress in the field of 4G wireless networks is driven by the requirements of

IMT-Advanced but certainly influenced by the leading players and opposing technologieswhich can either boost or delay the process.3G networks were introduced back in 2002 and are almost deployed for a decade now aroundthe world. The total number of subscribers globally is estimated to be 1 billion and isexpected to increase enabling more people to take advantage of data usage and internetbrowsing on their cell phones [34]. This fact puts an extra pressure to operators networksforcing them to take under serious consideration what their next steps will be in order tomake a smooth transition to 4G standards and exploit the profits of increased data usage.However, this transition translates in choosing firstly among the two dominant pre-4G

standards LTE and WiMAX. WiMAX based networks are currently deployed along withLTE networks but the latter are going to expand mostly in 2012 and 2013. The point is that

for the next few years these two standards will be established in the wireless



telecommunications landscape before the LTE-Advanced and WiMAX-release-2 standardsare implemented fulfilling the 4G vision.

Figure 6: Timeline towards IMT-Advanced [35]

Both of standards, LTE-Advanced and WiMAX-release-2 incorporate some new technologiesin order to achieve the desirable speeds such as Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output Antennas,Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) scheme [35]. Consequently,these new technology techniques must undergo field tests and measurements before they areproven practical for use [34].Costs and existing regulations are also part of the dynamics of further development in theshift to 4G networks. The deployment of the new standards requires utilization of newunoccupied spectrum bands which is a considerable hard task because on one hand there arealready many existing mobile services crowding frequency spectrum and on the other handthe high expenditures arising for leasing a frequency spectrum. Costs for upgrading thecurrent infrastructure in terms of new equipment and in terms of a new architecture based onthe Internet protocol (IP) should also be considered as a task that is needed to be tackledeffectively [35]. Again issues concerning copyright claims have substantial importance [34].As 4G promises to provide enhanced data usage a possible restriction to the informationaccessed by services would raise barriers in exploitation of the true potential of the

technology at hand [34].Admittedly, 4G will result in the formation of a new ecosystem of supporting technologies[34]. Devices have to become multimode and as a result of this enhancement adoption amongconsumers will increase. Traditional electronic devices, for example CD/DVD players,televisions, stereos will transform in mobile internet devices. Furthermore, services andapplications will improve making user experience more satisfying and enriching. Key factorsof the services overlaying the 4G networks will be adaptability and personalization in termsof different mobile gadgets and individual consumer needs. Cloud computing will alsobenefit from the migration to the next generation of wireless standards as the faster dataspeeds will make the access to the cloud services and applications easier from every mobiledevice.



Conclusion

This paper provided a socio-technical analysis around the evolution and eventually the shiftto 4G wireless standards. In the first part it was discussed the different interpretations anddefinitions around the term 4G and also it was given a broader context of the underlyingtechnologies. Namely, confusion in the recent years arose because some operators andmanufacturers rushed to brand their latest developments in existing standards and services as4G in order to create a positive marketing effect [8]. Undoubtedly, InternationalTelecommunication Union corrected any misinterpretations and defined LTE -Advancedand WirelessMAN-Advanced as the standards that will bring the 4G vision in reality but atthe same time gave the informal permission to current standards LTE and WiMAX to beconsidered as 4G with the expectation that through their deployment and developmenttelecommunications landscape will reach the desired 4G era.Even though the technological trajectory appears to be relatively linear the social one is morecomplicated and is expected to have nonlinearities. This is understood because in the processof building the 4G ecosystem the different opportunities and challenges are not being decidedby one actor. The different stakeholders coming from the larger groups of market, authoritiesand society have their own perspectives about what the 4G technologies can offer them.Consequently, each one of them will try to act in a way that ensures he will acquire the bestpossible exploitation of the new technological enhancements. For instance this conflict aboutwhich of the two standards LTE or WiMAX is going to conquer is sustained by equipmentvendors and device manufacturers who have economic incentives in dominating the onetechnology over the other. At the same time operators are pushing things as they see theirnetwork capacity to overheat due to increased data usage and a possible delay in upgradingtheir infrastructure could signal a failure in meeting their custo mer s demands. In turn, futureusers demand better quality of services provided and social groups previously excluded fromthe information&technology advancements see a possible reestablishment of their position insociety. Moreover, government initiatives, standard organizations, corporate alliances canfurther complicate proceedings.In conclusion, all these actors will determine the 4G evolution in a global scale. In someregions around the world customers are already experiencing the higher data speeds andenhanced services promised by LTE and WiMAX but within 2012 the commercial expansionof 4G networks will be more profound giving a first taste of the future potential in wirelesscommunications.



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