Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) head of Asia Pacific Region, Rajeev Suri, told CommunicAsia 2007 Singapore that there will be 5 billion people connected worldwide by 2015, with 1.4 billion across the Asia Pacific. Between 2008 and 2010, 31% of new subscribers will be from Asia Pacific, excluding China.

Subscriber growth in that area will be highest at between 40 and 140% in emerging markets comprising Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and India. It will be slower in transitional markets of Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, and slowest in developed markets of Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and South Korea.

Studies show that 75% of consumers in the Asia-Pacific decide to buy at the point of sale. New subscribers will include more among the lower income group with lower average revenue per user (ARPU). The trend will be towards more fixed charges.

More operators will outsource their infrastructure and management to specialised third parties like network infrastructure owners. Without worrying over running a network, and sharing infrastructure, operators will focus on communication services, marketing, billing and customer relationship management.

NSN has 160 managed services contracts with operators like Vodaphone Australia, Hutchison and Bharti Airtel in India, Globe Telecom in the Philippines, and recent startup 3G/HSDPA operator MiTV in Malaysia.

“Future networks will also be Internet-based, with a flat, IP-based network architecture, common identity management and session control. The next-generation of Digital Subscribers Lines (DSL) will be based on passive optical networks to reduce costs. NSN will provide ADSL 2+ and VDSL, with speed of 25Mbps and 100Mbps, respectively,” said Rajeev.

Current 3G and HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) networks and all fixed and mobile communications networks preceding them utilise a circuit switched component for voice and a packet switched component for data. Future networks will carry digitised voice and data over a common, packet-based infrastructure, doing away with the switching component, making it cheaper and simpler to manage.

NSN, expects to see Mobile WiMAX utilised, especially among new operators, or what the industry calls “greenfield operators.” WiMAX is able to replace the lack of fixed broadband infrastructure.

When 3G arrives, it will cater to voice while WiMAX to data. Alternative 3G LTE is expected to be available in Japan in the second half of 2009 and in India and Indonesia in 2010.

NSN is also working with operators to provide HSPA as a broadband solution. It aims to lead in providing Carrier Ethernet, with its converged architecture, which is cost efficient and scalable. NSN had upgraded the speed of M1’s HSPA network from 3.6Mbps to 10.8Mbps per site (ie. base station), ensuring high speed downloads under heavy load conditions.

NSN have flexi base stations supporting 3G, 2G and WiMAX, all in one box, enabling hybrid operators to provide different services. It currently has 600 operator customers in 150 countries, altogether serving over one billion subscribers. It is the market leader, with revenue of 23 billion euros in the Asia-Pacific.

Village Connection
NSN head of Asia South, Joe Doering, said NSN aimed to provide communication systems for rural areas, using technologies like Flash OFDM, demonstrated in a rural area in Malaysia earlier. This is in line with NSN’s Village Connection, launched in May and designed for low ARPU users paying between US$2 and US$3 per month.

 Village Connection helps operators provide rural connectivity in remote villages where operation won’t be profitable. With a license from the communications regulator, village franchisees can operate their own village networks connected to the telcos’ network.

“With an estimated two billion people living in about two million villages in emerging markets, many villages need basic telephony to call a doctor, for instance. But most don’t have access to such facilities,” said Rajeev.

Village Connection comprises GSM access points located in villages and regional access centres. A village would typically host one access point module comprising a GSM module, power, IT hardware and software components.
These access points can be mounted on poles, without air conditioning or “tin-hut” enclosures, with power possibly provided by solar energy. They autonomously switch GSM calls between users within each village. They are connected to regional access centres via IP-based backhaul links. Access centres are, in turn, connected to the main GSM network, to handle calls between villages.

Village Connection will be available in 2008.

 

 

 

WiMAX vs LTE

“While WiMAX is another technology option and governments around the world are providing licenses for it, it’s not accepted as a 3G Partnership Project (3GPP) technology, though a working group is working on it,” said Michael Murphy, NSN head of technology, Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile there is 3G LTE, an evolutionary step from 3G with well established hand-off capabilities of 3G and earlier cellular technologies. 3G LTE has 10 times the spectral efficiency of HSDPA, thus reducing cost per megabyte to one quarter that of 3G and half that of HSDPA. Moreover, its 20 millisecond latency time is 2.3 times less than HSDPA.

NTT DoCoMo in Japan is expected to launch 3 LTE in 2010. But NSN plans to roll out handsets with GSM and WiMAX connectivity. WiMAX will support data rates of between 20 and 40Mbps, while 3G LTE will have speeds of up to 160Mbps. Both will be based on OFDM with non line of site capabilities, and solely on IP, so network costs will be cheaper than 3G.

On Evolved EDGE, Murphy feels it will require more GSM timeslots to achieve its 1 Mbps speed, and will depend on whether the operator has enough spectrum to support it.

 

LTE demo
Meanwhile, NSN demonstrated High-Definition TV streaming video in HSPA and 3G LTE with a prototype suitcase sized LTE mobile terminal device. The video displayed sharper with LTE at 30Mbps streaming speed, compared to the 1.45 Mbps HSPA stream.