When a base station sends information to a mobile handset it does so along what is known as the downlink channel, while a signal sent in the other direction travels along an uplink. The downlink is traditionally the more powerful of the two, as base stations are mast-mounted units capable of beaming wide radio signals. Handsets, on the other hand, have limited battery power and are closer to the earth.
Mobile broadband's success hinges on both channels being enhanced, as services such as video telephony and online gaming rely on rapid two-way data transfers. For WCDMA networks, the downlink is enhanced through a technology called High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which has already undergone significant development. Now, Ericsson and 3 Scandinavia's groundbreaking demonstration has put the corresponding Enhanced Uplink), firmly on the telecom roadmap too.
Speed in both directions
Ericsson has previously proven its HSDPA capability, with demonstrations of the technology's first phase at the PT/Expo Comm China in October 2004 and the second phase at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes earlier this year. Ericsson has put a lot of work into improving downlink capacity and bit-rates, achieving unprecedented speeds of more than 10Mbps during the Cannes demonstrations. Now Ericsson is trialing HSDPA with a number of operators, in advance of the technology becoming commercially available towards the end of 2005.
Meanwhile, Ericsson's research focus has shifted to the uplink, from which Markus Ringström says significant bottlenecks have been removed. "We have been able to reduce delays and response (or roundtrip) times, and have raised the bit rate of packet-data transmission, reaching 1.5Mbps in the test lab and over the air in our demo car," he says. "This fast access is crucial for all interactive services – games, video conferencing, web surfing and so on."
Until now, network design has been driven by the web-browsing paradigm, which mainly requires rapid downlink speeds. However, peer-to-peer services such as multi-player online gaming and video conferencing require an equal flow of information in both directions. Ken Rehbehn, a senior wireless analyst at Current Analysis, says this is what makes Ericsson and 3 Scandinavia's Enhanced Uplink demonstration so important.
"The demonstration provides operators with an evolutionary path to start building out additional services, and is important to the industry in general as we move towards IMS as an access-agnostic transport for peer-to-peer communications," Rehbehn says. "The trick now for operators is to come up with compelling services for consumers and enterprises that effectively leverage that higher speed. There simply has to be an economic justification to operators introducing Enhanced Uplink.”
Video services for enterprises
In addition to online gaming, video is an application likely to receive attention from operators that have made the decision to upgrade to Enhanced Uplink. These operators should focus on the enterprise market in particular, as companies could benefit from incorporating video into their business processes. Rapid network speeds allow faster handling of customer transactions and make crucial information more readily available to mobile workforces.
Rehbehn says the enterprise market offers the best avenue for operators to earn a return on their investment in Enhanced Uplink. "The deployment of third-generation networks helps solve business issues for enterprises, as there are operations that can run more efficiently by making high-speed data available to workers out in the field," he says. "Operators need to capitalize on this by incorporating video into their enterprise packages, as this may be the best avenue for them to start monetizing the value of Enhanced Uplink."
Read more about HSDPA and Enhanced Uplink from Ericsson here.
