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A White PPaper
aper from
With the finalisation of 3G licences, and the massive investments made by the
successful bidders, there is now a race to generate a return on investment.
Operators must strike a balance between cost of infrastructure, value of
services and time to market, or face failure.
This paper examines the technical options open to operators, with or without
3G licences, to evolve or replace existing infrastructures.
Introduction
Network operators have been spending mind-numbing amounts to acquire 3G licenses, with more than
80 operators throughout the world forecast to be committed to 3G by the end of 2000. In the UK, for
instance, licenses of $35 Billion have been sold. To this must be added the estimated $7 Billion cost of
rolling out a national 3G infrastructure. Given that any particular network is never finished, because it is
continually upgraded, no one can accurately peg the “final” cost of new 3G infrastructure.
Many industry commentators have voiced doubts over the viability of the major players. “There are
significant concerns emerging over the future performance of telecommunications companies BT and
Vodafone,” says Paul Donovan, analyst at UBS Warburg. “Markets are getting worried about the costs of
investment that these companies are going to have to make – and also about just how high future revenue
streams are going to be.”
Other analysts are more optimistic about the revenue streams, but remain downbeat about the timescales
– this is not an overnight technology. For example, it has been suggested that although 3G revenues will
grow rapidly, GSM will remain the basis of carrier technology for at least the next five years.
There is little doubt that 3G revenues will be big, forecast to pass the $500 Billion mark by 2010. But as
always, the player that hits the market soonest and hardest will emerge the victor. The ability of 3G licence
holders to implement an infrastructure quickly becomes vital in this scenario.
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What ’s wrong with GSM?
What’s immediate (there is no dial up connection), rela-
First introduced in 1992, and now standard tively fast (up to 115 kbps in the very best theoreti-
across Europe and Asia, GSM is running out of cal extreme) and supports virtual connectivity, al-
bandwidth. Within GSM networks the data traffic is lowing relevant information to be sent from the
increasing enormously, and is expected to grow 40- network as and when it is generated.
50 per cent this year. This growth in demand for GPRS technology is part of a first step toward
Internet access and services has paralleled the ex- 3G. Primarily a software upgrade to the GSM wire-
plosion in demand for mobile data communica- less networks that provide mobile phone service in
tions. Users want access to the Internet while they much of the world, GPRS provides mobile users
are away from their offices and homes. with access to Internet information. It is a natural
The success of I-mode, NTT DoCoMo’s mobile part of the migration path to 3G and uses the same
Internet service, demonstrates there is a market for base stations as GSM with a modification of soft-
wireless Internet access and increased demand for ware and the addition of support nodes, plus a
services, and thus bandwidth, promised by 3G. One link to a packet data network.
million subscribers sign up to I-mode every month, Cellular operators will have to add at least two
drawn to services such as email, online banking new types of nodes to their existing cellular net-
and Internet browsing capabilities. works to provide packet-based services. The nodes
So what choices are available, right now, to op- are:
erators wanting to introduce new data services? 1. SGSN – Serving GPRS support node
2. GGSN – Gateway GPRS support node
GPRS “2.5G
“2.5G”” The cost of these nodes will be significant but
The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a operators can roll out these nodes in phases. The
new packet-based bearer that is already being in- operators will also need to upgrade their existing
troduced on many GSM and TDMA mobile net- BSS software to support GPRS. GPRS will enable
works. It is an exciting new bearer because it is the network up-to 21.4KBPS data rate per time slot.
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GSM TO 3G: EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?
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GSM TO 3G: EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?
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GSM TO 3G: EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?