Musings on the advancement of Technology.

 

Technology is advancing rapidly. There are myriad areas where the rate of change is on the upswing enabled by many factors – better access to information, focus, market dynamics and intense pressure to stay ahead of the curve. Where wireless is concerned multiple actors- governments, regulators, OEMs and providers are looking at the next developments and how to prepare and tackle for it. In areas where the reach of technology is still un served or some previous versions of technologies are available, the need is to upgrade and possibly replace some existing ones provided the monies and revenues justify the same.

In this post, I try to capture some of the developments taking place in the wireless space.

·         5G is an area where the interest seems to be extending beyond seminars and discussions over coffee to trials on the ground.  Although standards are not yet frozen completely with the International Telecommunication Union setting 2020 as the target date, the 3^rd Generation Partnership Project the body driving WCDMA and LTE is working on it quite a bit. Operators in Japan and the US are pushing for early freezing of 5G specifications. Trials are ongoing and even in countries where 4G is still not rolled out across the length and breadth, 5G is in favor with vendors and operators signing on the dotted lines to work in this emerging area. Breakthroughs in the Radio area in terms of speed, latency and demos of functionalities like network slicing keep pouring in. Data savvy areas like the East Asia are leading the pack.

·         Older generations of mobile technologies are slowly fading away. Not that these were expected to last for ages. 2G is already being given the burial in Japan with the last rites been done with. How about countries like India? It looks like 2G will still be there for some more time. Why is it so? Mainly because 2G nodes were still getting installed and integrated as recently as in the past years. One major reason is the prevalence of a large chunk of “feature” phones which are user friendly to the users who primarily rely on voice. These phones do not burn that much of hole in the pocket in buying a new one either. The falling price of smart phones and the transition to data will help in the acceleration of replacement of older technologies.

·         Talking of newer technologies and smart phones, are the applications there? What will users get to do with enabling technologies and devices? Will it only be movies, sports clippings, YouTube and WhatsApp content? Or will we see increased use of Internet of Things both for industrial and consumer use? Finding the right type of application, content and use cases will be important otherwise justification for having newer generations of technologies in terms of speed, latencies, power may not be the only allure to justify huge investments. A Hobson’s choice for providers – Build the systems for fast and newer applications first or get the applications and use cases and then decide on how much bigger and wider the highways need to be built? Will one lead to the other?  

·         Different standards in the technology game are cozying up to each other. We have seen Wi-Fi from the stables of the IEEE family working as a standalone functionality in PCs, laptops and mobiles to connect to the net.  ETSI followed by 3GPP started off with developing GSM and WCDMA with their own set of specifications and there was not so much of talking with each other. Now standards emanating from different standard forums are moving towards integration and the trend is increasing. A common core network can now handle both WCDMA/ LTE and Wi-Fi. Again, IMS started by TISPAN for fixed-line for voice functionality is now integrated with 3GPP offerings to offer VoLTE or Voice over LTE for mobile users.

·         CDMA, 3G, LTE networks are offered by operators to serve end customers and thereby earning revenues based on usage. These are commercial networks.  Captive networks to a certain extent are present which use these technologies to serve their in house users. These can be in the defense sector or used by large scale enterprises.  With IOT and Smart cities and newer types of users, will we see different types of services in wireless and mobility space to serve different hues of customers?  As an instance, a utility company may stretch out to offer IOT services to enterprises willing to use IOT specific networks considering that they already have the assets in place like an oil pipeline, or cables and wires carrying information from one substation or station to another? What would the rules and regulations be? We are now venturing out into newer vistas and rules will need to re-written.

·         One interesting area to watch out for is the interplay between services offered in the licensed and unlicensed bands of the spectrum. 3GPP technologies -GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE have been designed to use licensed spectrum while Wi-Fi, DECT and others of that category uses the unlicensed part of the spectrum. This is how devices and equipment have been made and used. Developments are taking place in multiple areas- one free more spectrum in newer bands to cater for existing 3G & 4G and upcoming 5G space and how to use the unlicensed frequencies for mainstream 3GPP technologies. Using unlicensed bands will give flexibility to service providers. The ISM band and more generally 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands are normally unlicensed.  The protagonists who pay for licenses to the government would not like to see similar services offered in non-licensed bands by other providers. Especially so if they are not being subject to the same rules as framed by the government and regulators.  This has to do not with technology per se but more to do with policies and regulations and does affect the way services are availed by the end user.

 
Would love to hear comments, criticisms and feedback.