Archive for the ‘3GPP2’ Category

Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

This summarizes a selection from 173 applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during August and September 2011. These are related to long-range low-frequency radar, amateur radio, shortwave data, wireless microphones, single-sideband, mine detection, millimeter-wave communications, signal intelligence, automotive radar, satellite feeder links, meteor-burst communications, aircraft telemetry, white space systems, border security radar, 3G and 4G applications, RFID, wind turbine testing, unmanned aerial vehicles, spacecraft telemetry and control, aircraft passenger broadband, and autonomous aircraft landing systems. The descriptions are sorted by the lowest frequency found in the application.

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Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during January 2011. These are related to land mobile radio, VHF propagation study, satellite communications, network-centric warfare, TV white space, software defined radio (SDR), military command and control, remotely piloted aircraft, LTE, radio direction finding, OpenBTS, Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), peer-to-peer communications, flight test telemetry, automotive telemetry, WiMAX, surveillance radar, vehicle radar systems, and millimeter-wave communications.

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In the Transition to 4G, Voice will Stay on 3G

Friday, October 15th, 2010

Most cellular operators are beginning the transition from 3G technologies to 4G LTE. That will mainly be for high-speed data and not voice, support for which will come years later. Communications engineer Jim Murphy describes some of the networking issues that make voice impractical on LTE on day one.  To his comments I’d add that the preferred LTE voice solution is VoIP on the IP Multimedia System (IMS) framework, which has had slow adoption in the mobile community.

Jim’s example is from the 3GPP family of technologies, of which LTE is part. Most 3GPP2 operators, such as Verizon Wireless, are also planning a migration to LTE. They migrate from a different family of technologies, those specified in 3GPP2 and which include cdma2000 developed largely by Qualcomm. In Verizon’s transition, high-speed data on cdma2000 networks, now provided by EV-DO, will migrate to LTE. Voice will stay on cdma2000 1x for several years. That’s not a problem, because that technology keeps improving. The latest version, called cdma2000 1x Advanced, has achieved a 50x increase in voice capacity over the predecessor IS-95 system launched in 1993.

Both 3GPP and 3GPP2 3G voice feature a soft-handover (make-before-break) scheme that allows for, essentially, a circuit-switched connection. Yes, you’ll be able to run Skype and other VoIP services on 4G LTE data networks, if you want. In terms of the total user experience, however, most will prefer the seamlessness of standards-based integrated voice capability.

VoIP is the future. For 4G voice, though, it’s just great in theory at this time.

Adapting EV-DO to Limited Link Budgets

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

EV-DO (Evolution – Data Optimized) is a popular name of 3GPP2’s 3G air interface for high-speed data. The specification calls it High Rate Packet Data, or HRPD. At the December 3GPP2 meeting, a new framework was proposed that would modify HRPD to allow it to perform better in limited link-budget environments, such as in satellite and machine-to-machine (M2M) applications. The new system is called EXtended Cell High Rate Packet Data, or xHRPD. Contributing companies include TerreStar, DBSD North America (ICO), Skyterra, and Qualcomm.
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