Deloitte recently issued a new report on mobile broadband. It positions the U.S. as number-one and offers tips to keep it there, some more useful than others. There’s not much new for the mobile broadband expert. The collection of various mobile-spectrum policy issues into one document, however, could be useful to some, especially to those new to the field. Early on, Deloitte promises suggestions for improving U.S. spectrum policy; the suggestions, however, turn out to be mostly things we’ve heard before. There are a few problems with the report, discussed below, that readers should keep in mind.
Archive for 2012
Deloitte’s mobile-broadband spectrum policy primer
Monday, October 15th, 2012Experimental radio applications at the FCC
Sunday, September 9th, 2012This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during July and August, 2012. These are related to medium-frequency communications, meteor radar, space-to-space communications, UAV communications, synthetic aperture radar, TV white space, 600 MHz LTE, disaster communications, cellular content caching, GSM, passive intermodulation distortion, ultra-wideband, TDD, ground-mapping radar, Doppler radar, and ground surveillance radar. The descriptions are sorted by the lowest frequency in the application.
Qualcomm outlines vision of 1000x mobile capacity increases
Wednesday, August 29th, 2012In the first of a series of webinars, Qualcomm today began reporting on the results of its “1000x Data Challenge,” an initiative to meet what it sees as the need, someday, to increase mobile capacity 1000-times. The webinar, conducted by Rasmus Hellberg, Qualcomm’s Senior Director of Technical Marketing, was an overview. He discussed spectrum, small cells, and other techniques to increase capacity. More-detailed webinars on each of these are forthcoming: spectrum initiatives on September 18, small cells and heterogeneous networks on October 18, and more efficient networks, applications, and devices on November 14. Today’s webinar should be posted tomorrow, and a white paper should appear in about a week.
Why I doubt FaceTime will crash mobile networks
Monday, August 27th, 2012New Video Compression Standard Doubles Efficiency
Tuesday, August 14th, 2012Ericsson discusses the recent meeting of the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), which issued a draft international standard of the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video-compression format. It’s twice as efficient as current standards. Twice as efficient means half the bits, which means half the spectrum capacity is required for the same video quality.
4G Americas Scenario Shows Mobile Data Growth Tapering Off
Wednesday, May 16th, 20124G Americas, a wireless industry trade association representing the 3GPP family of technologies, has released a report looking at broadband devices and applications, and their impact on HSPA and LTE networks. There’s quite a bit of interesting information; here I highlight the discussion on mobile broadband offload and mobile data growth.
Coldplay’s Wireless Hardware Startup
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012I was amused to see a company with the same name as the musical group Coldplay file an FCC application. That turned to surprise when I saw it was, indeed, the group.
Are Fewer Mobile Broadband Competitors Better for Consumers?
Monday, March 26th, 2012That’s what a D.C. think tank says. I take a look at this contrary view in a piece I did for GigaOM.
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
Sunday, February 5th, 2012This summarizes a selection from 215 applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during October, November, and December 2011. These are related to AM broadcasting, FM broadcasting, spread spectrum on HF and VHF, unmanned aerial vehicle control, electronic warfare support, small satellites, white space technology, video production, managed access, TV interference, RFID, and radar. The descriptions are listed in order of the lowest frequency found in the application.