Operators Eye UMTS At 850 MHz

[jones]

Operators Eye UMTS At 850 MHz
By Brad Smith, 08.02.04, 12:33 PM ET

AT&T Wireless has four cities up and running on UMTS and will have two more by the end of the year. But what happens when AT&T Wireless merges with Cingular Wireless and ceases to exist as a wireless network operator?

Both AT&T Wireless and its betrothed, Cingular, have a lot of 850 MHz spectrum across the United States. Both currently use the spectrum for GSM, but if they can't use it for UMTS, the chances of a nationwide UMTS network would be seriously affected.

Presently, no infrastructure vendor makes UMTS equipment for the 850 MHz band. AT&T Wireless rolled out UMTS (aka W-CDMA) in Detroit, Phoenix, San Francisco and Seattle July 20 using 1900 MHz equipment from Nortel Networks. Dallas and San Diego are next.

Cingular, which hopes to complete its $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless by the end of the year, is confident that its vendors will create a solution to the UMTS 850 MHz issue, according to Kris Rinne, deputy chief technology officer.

Rinne says Cingular, which after the merger will become the nation's largest carrier with some 50 million subscribers, has been "encouraging" its vendors to provide 850 MHz equipment next year. "I might be pleasantly surprised or I might be disappointed," she says, but she's confident the vendors will come through.

Cingular also is encouraging its vendors to provide the high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) technology for UMTS in both bands. UMTS provides normal data rates of 220 kbps to 320 kbps, while HSDPA pumps the downlink rate to 14.4 Mbps. HSDPA, which hasn't been finalized, is a software upgrade.

Rinne says Cingular is studying the responses it received from an RFP it put out in June for UMTS at 1900 and 850 MHz, as well as HSDPA. The carrier likely will decide this fall which vendors to go with. Cingular, which has been testing UMTS in Atlanta using Lucent Technologies' equipment, has said it wants to launch the technology starting in 2005. It also may launch HSDPA toward the end of 2005 if the vendors can support it.

"We're absolutely there [in supporting Cingular's plans]," says Alan Pritchard, marketing vice president for UMTS at Nortel Networks. "It's something that Cingular needs and it's a clear element of our plan."

Another major vendor for Cingular, Ericsson, also will support Cingular's requests, a spokeswoman says.

Pritchard says Nortel will have an 850 MHz offering in UMTS and will push as fast as it can on HSDPA. Nortel provided the core network and radio access infrastructure for all four cities in AT&T Wireless' UMTS rollout. Nortel had provided the GSM/GPRS/EDGE core network equipment for AT&T Wireless, but this was the first win for its radio access infrastructure with the service provider.

Pritchard says vendors don't face any major technological hurdles in providing UMTS at 850 MHz or in making it possible for subscribers to roam between the two bands or roaming to the GSM network.

That said, it would appear a nationwide UMTS network is likely in the next two or three years.

[bobolito]

We'll see what happens. Cingular (after the acquisition of AT&T Wireless) plans to deploy UMTS in the top 70 - 80 MSAs by the end of 2005. This will most likely be 1900Mhz only with UMTS 850 starting in 2006.

[ShoresGuy]

UMTS is also slowing launching here in Europe, the UK, Italy and Austria are already live through companies like 3 (www.three.co.uk). T-Mobile, Vodafone and E-Plus Germany are also beginning to offer UMTS data services and UMTS video/phone communication services. For this to be made possible, the networks were deployed in a new band at 2200 Mhz so then getting UMTS at 850 would be possible.

[Gabriel]

T-Mobile, Vodafone and E-Plus Germany are also beginning to offer UMTS data services and UMTS video/phone communication services

hey, have you seen a live vide call in action? maybe you can tell us what it is like. is it too slow? is it like havin a video conference on the net using a webcam with dsl, cable, or higher? does the public like it?

oh, one thing, is UMTS the same as WCDMA?

[bobolito]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

is UMTS the same as WCDMA?

That's a yes and no.

UMTS was originally defined as a 3G system using the WCDMA standard in the 2100Mhz frequency band.

Now, as UMTS is being downbanded, operators around the world are using the term UMTS to these UMTS flavors running at 1900Mhz and in the future at 850Mhz. Probably some operators around the world will downband it to 1800 and 900Mhz as well which is a good thing.

Basically, it is the same technology running at different bands, but the one that was originally intended to be called UMTS was the one running at 2100Mhz. There's nothing different about UMTS running at different bands except of course for the frequency band. Therefore, the use of the UMTS term for lower frequency bands is also being accepted.

[ShoresGuy]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

hey, have you seen a live vide call in action? maybe you can tell us what it is like. is it too slow? is it like havin a video conference on the net using a webcam with dsl, cable, or higher? does the public like it?

oh, one thing, is UMTS the same as WCDMA?

Not yet, Vodafone has two new 3G models on display in their stores, the SE Z1010 (sweet phone, I might add , 999 Euros without a contract) and the Samsung Z105 UMTS (999 Euros without a contract) but these are equipped with deactivated SIMs so you can't make any test calls. When I was in the UK, I didn't see any possibility of making test calls either.

Here are some links to check out:

http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...=pp1&pid=10048
http://www.vodafoneshop.de/shop/hand...=2687&B_ID=382
http://www.three.co.uk

Enjoy