Significant cost and coverage benefits for Optus with UMTS900

UK: The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) recently announced the availability of a new UMTS900 operator case study on Optus in Australia, which shows significant cost and coverage benefits of deploying 3G mobile broadband services with UMTS900.

The case study examines the business drivers and practical experiences of Optus, who launched UMTS900 in May 2008. It confirms the findings from GSA’s earlier UMTS900 case study on Elisa Corporation in Finland, and also provides additional insights.

UMTS900 has given Optus the extra range and penetration to address the challenging Australian landscape. According to Andrew Smith, Director, Mobile Core Engineering for Optus, “UMTS900 is ideally suited for Australia. The extended reach of this frequency means we can deliver better quality and wider coverage across sparsely populated areas, as well as enhanced depth of coverage.”

While the majority of today’s 3G/HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) mobile broadband networks worldwide operate in the 2100MHz band, the use of lower frequencies, such as 900MHz, provides a much larger geographical coverage area when compared to what is possible when using 2100MHz.

Widely used by GSM systems throughout Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, HSPA deployments in the 900 MHz band significantly reduces the number of cell sites needed to cover rural and suburban areas, which translates to major CAPEX and OPEX savings for 3G deployments. These cost and coverage benefits also apply to the deployment of UMTS in other lower frequency bands such as 850MHz.

The Optus network is the largest UMTS900 network in the world. In addition to cost savings, the ability to use existing infrastructure dramatically reduced the time needed for deployment.

According to Andrew Smith, “We had previously completed significant changes to our antennas, so with UMTS900, we could walk into a site knowing limited external work was needed, which allowed a much faster deployment.”

Optus saw the rollout of UMTS900 in suburban and rural areas as a natural extension of its initial 3G deployment in the more heavily populated areas where 2100 MHz was used. UMTS900 has brought 3G and mobile broadband services more cost-effectively to outside the cities.

More than just the need for fewer installations, UMTS900 facilitates the addition of a much larger data market because it provides better indoor coverage than 2100 MHz.

Optus believes that today’s broad array of UMTS900 data products, combined with the increasing availability of UMTS900-capable smartphone devices, will enhance its competitive position.

“In an economic climate where buyers’ purchasing timeframes may move from an 18-24 month cycle to a 36-month cycle, we see the increases in ARPU enabled by better data performance as critical to continued success,” explains Henry Calvert, Director, Product Portfolio Planning, Optus.

According to GSA’s latest research, ten UMTS900-HSPA systems are now in commercial service in Europe, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific region. The availability and choice of UMTS900 user devices is rapidly increasing, with 130 HSPA/mobile broadband devices capable of operating at 900MHz (as well as 2100MHz) announced by 23 manufacturers, with more products being released every month.

The 900/2100MHz HSPA devices frequency combination is becoming commonplace for products destined for European and APAC markets.

“The availability of our second operator-based case study provides further evidence of the benefits of UMTS900 in allowing operators to bring mobile broadband service to underserved areas in a more cost effective and efficient manner,” concluded Alan Hadden, President, GSA.

“The increasing efficiencies and performance improvements using evolved HSPA (HSPA+) systems, including increased peak data throughput rates, are equally available with 900 MHz deployments as on other HSPA mobile broadband bands, to ensure a seamless user experience of mobile broadband services."

LTE to reach 100mn subscriptions faster than any previous mobile standard

CAMBRIDGE, USA: The number of Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscriptions worldwide will grow at a CAGR of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014, a pace faster than any previous mobile standard, including 3G, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.

LTE's Five-Year Global Forecast: Poised to Grow Faster than 3G identifies the main technical and business drivers, as well as the challenges for the LTE platform, and analyzes its market opportunity in comparison with earlier mobile technologies in their first few years of commercialization.

The 19-page report provides Pyramid Research's five-year outlook on LTE adoption, highlighting the largest LTE markets, and comparing adoption rates in emerging and developed markets. It also examines the LTE-related products, demos, and announcements of six of the largest vendors worldwide, including an analysis of how they compare with one another in terms of time to market and customer wins.

For the first time, most of the major players, operators, and vendors alike, are behind the same mobile standard, notes Daniel Locke, analyst at Pyramid Research and author of the report. "By using LTE's more efficient and cost-effective flat IP architecture, mobile operators can transfer the savings to end users in the form of lower prices for access, faster data rates, and higher traffic allowances for a wider adoption of mobile data services," he says.

"To date, 27 mobile operators worldwide have publicly committed to deploying LTE, with 12 of them expected to roll out commercial services in 2010 and the remainder during 2011 and 2012," he adds.

Pyramid expects LTE to grow more rapidly than preceding mobile standards in terms of subscriptions. "While it took nearly six years for UMTS/HSPA to reach 100 million subscriptions, Pyramid predicts that LTE will take just over four years to reach the same milestone," explains Locke. "The number of LTE subscriptions worldwide will grow at a CAGR of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014 and reach 136 million by year-end 2014," he says.

"The majority of LTE subscriptions in the early stage will come in developed markets, where most of the first LTE deployments will occur -- with the US and Japan leading," Locke says. "However, LTE will grow 30 percent faster in emerging markets than developed ones; subscriptions in emerging markets will account for 43 percent of the LTE total in 2014, up from 5 percent in 2010," he adds. Fueled by vendor support of TDD-mode, growth in emerging markets will be driven largely by China with 36.1 million subscriptions in 2014.

Download an excerpt of this report here!

LTE's Five-Year Global Forecast: Poised to Grow Faster than 3G is priced at $595 and can be purchased online here: or by contacting Jeff Claudino via email at claudino@pyr.com or telephone at +1-619-229-9940.

Prospects for UMTS900: Status review and outlook

DUBLIN, USA: Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Prospects for UMTS900: Status Review and Outlook" report to its offering.

UMTS900 is attracting significant interest from mobile operators, primarily because of the coverage advantages inherent in deploying UMTS at 900MHz compared with 2100MHz. All other things being equal, the lower the frequency, the further a radio signal propagates, which means that UMTS900 offers a significant improvement over UMTS2100 for cell range and coverage.

This translates into fewer sites and cost savings for both network build and opex, as well as faster network roll-out. These benefits enable operators to roll out 3G services to rural areas that might otherwise be uneconomical to serve using UMTS2100, or, for GSM-only operators, to reduce the costs of building a new 3G network. Other benefits include potential improvements in indoor coverage and better voice quality compared with GSM.

The ecosystem for UMTS900 is rapidly maturing. The technology is proven not just in field trials but also in a number of operational networks worldwide, and network equipment and crucially devices are in ready supply.

However, the pace of implementation of UMTS900 has been held back, particularly in Europe, by delays in removing technology restrictions from the 900MHz band. While the regulatory situation is improving, any significant delays in liberalising 900MHz spectrum will make it increasingly likely that operators will opt for alternative solutions for rural coverage, or even introduce LTE rather than UMTS in 900MHz spectrum once refarming is permitted.

This report reviews the deployment status of UMTS900 worldwide and evaluates the potential role of UMTS900 in mobile network evolution for a range of operator types.