Mobile Computing

Delivery Channels

Most new UK mobile users subscribe to the digital system which offers enhanced security as well as the new interactive services. However, the bandwidth is low, sufficient for text and basic web pages but users will need to await the next generation of UMTS phones for fast web surfing and video.


1. Analogue

The first generation of mobile phones were based on the analogue system and were introduced in the UK in circa 1990. Like the current BT fixed line systems, they were really unsuitable for data transmission. Also the phones were big, seeming like bricks by to-days standards, and they had poor security with conversations being easily overheard and user identities being easily cloned. Because of the slow adoption of mobiles in the UK and the rest of Europe there are today relatively few analogue mobile phones whereas in the US they still make up over 50%.

2005 Mobile Devices Forecast

No. of Users

UK

Europe

World Wide

Analogue



Digital



UMTS



Total

48m

1 bn



UK

Europe

World Wide

Voice only

Data

600m+

Total

48m

1 bn

2. Digital

GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) is the digital standard adopted by the European mobile networks. Consumers can also now buy dual and tri-band phones that will also work on the digital systems in North America and Asia. Digital phones now represent 85% of world phone sales, the remainder being the old analogue ones.
GSM digital phones are much more secure than their analogue predecessors by employing Subscriber Identity Modules (or SIM cards) and by switching frequencies during the call. GSM also allows the sending of text messages using the Short Message Standard (SMS). One of the down-sides of a digital networks is a greater tendency to drop calls under adverse transmission conditions (like when a train goes through a tunnel), whereas with analogue the call just deteriorates.
The current data rate across GSM networks is 9,600 bps which while sufficient for text based email and SMS is too slow for many more advanced applications and web surfing. Remember, the current PC standard is 56,000 bps, 6 times the speed. In fact, Windows serial communications is poor especially over mobile networks. To address these deficits, 3 further standards data are proposed: HSCSD, GPRS and EDGE.

3 Proposed High Speed Data Standards:

HSCSD stands for High Speed Circuit Switched Data and runs at 14 Kbps but can also combine up to 4 separate channels (called time slots) to increase the speed by multiples of this amount to 56 Kbps (and increasing the cost by the same multiple). Because it is circuit switched it offers guaranteed bandwidth provided the channels are available. In August 1999 Orange announced it would support HSCSD running at 28.8 Kbps. However, this does not conform to any existing standard. Orange argues that users can't wait until 2001 for the availability of GPRS standard phones, though Motorola says it will ship one in the summer of 2000. Nokia will make a HSCSD PC card for between £200 and £300. In mid 1999 Ericsson said it had no plans to make HSCSD mobile phones.

GPRS stands for General Packet Radio Services which as the name implies, acts more like an Ethernet packet switching LAN. So, depending on the call load in a particular mobile cell, speeds up to a 100 Kbps (maybe more) are possible. On the other hand, bandwidth cannot be guaranteed. One advantage of GPRS is that the mobile is "always connected", ready and waiting to receive data at any time, without any need to connect to, say, an ISP. GPRS will require a major upgrade to the mobile networks but once running provides a very efficient way of using the available spectrum for data transmission.

EDGE stands for Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution. It's a more advanced form of GPRS and is capable of speeds of up to 384 Kbps by using all 8 time slots and a different modulation method. It was developed by Ericsson as an alternative for those mobile operators who were unsuccessful in obtaining a 3rd generation UMTS licence. Given the time to fully implement UMTS, the EDGE may well be implemented by all GSM operators from 2001/2.

3. UMTS

This is the next generation of mobile phones due to begin in 2002 and using the Universal Mobile Telephone Service (UMTS) standard based on the W-CDMA protocol. It allows high speed data transmission up to 2m bps indoors for local are networks, 384Kbps outdoors and 144 Kbps on the move. It will deliver a new generation of advanced internet and video based applications. The UMTS standards have now been agreed at an International level so UMTS phones will be usable throughout the world, provided users have a roaming agreement to use the networks of different operators. However, with the globalisation of the telecommunications companies this should be no problem.
In the UK there will be 5 UMTS licenses, with at least one reserved for a new entrant. Discussions are underway as to how to auction the bandwidth. The government is currently opting for variable bandwidth but some of the players prefer that the spectrum be equally split amongst the UK's 4 major players. Bids for the UMTS licences were due in by mid January 2000 with the auction set for March.
Read about the 13 Players bid for the five 3rd Generation Licences
or continue with Next:

Next is Number of Mobile Customers

External Resources

Buckingham, Simon, 1999, Welcome to the next 5 years of mobile phones!!, White Paper, FutureFoneZone
Rysavy, Peter, 1999, The Evolution of Cellular Data: On the Road to 3G, Rysavy Research, 1999
Walder, Bob, 1999, The data future is bright, Computing, 5 August 1999.
Also see the full list of resources for this web site for other related resources.

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