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."

GSM/3G market update May 2009: GSA

UK: Key kacts from May 2009 GSM/3G market update, provided by theGlobal mobile Suppliers Association (GSA)!

Network commitments, deployments, launches
· 3G/WCDMA: 284 operators launched in 120 countries
· WCDMA has more than 72.8 percent market share of 390 commercially launched 3G networks
· 94 percent of commercial WCDMA operators have launched HSPA
· 306 HSPA network commitments in 126 countries
· 267 3G/HSDPA operators launched in 114 countries
· 125 HSDPA networks launched in Europe including in all 27 Member States of the European Union
· 196 HSDPA networks have launched 3.6 Mbps (peak) downlink service or higher = over 73 percent of commercial HSDPA operators, thus establishing the baseline for mobile broadband services
· 105 commercial HSDPA networks, i.e. over 39 percent, support 7.2 Mbps (peak) or higher
· 72 HSUPA networks launched in 42 countries, plus another 14 network commitments/deployments
· 10 commercial UMTS900 (i.e. WCDMA-HSPA operating at 900 MHz) networks launched, in Europe, APAC and Latin America
· 4 HSPA+ networks have launched commercial service (21 Mbps downlink peak)
· At least 25 additional HSPA+ operator commitments worldwide
· 31 LTE network operator commitments worldwide
· Up to 12 LTE networks are expected to enter commercial service by end 2010
· 441 GSM/EDGE network commitments in 184 countries; 413 networks launched in 177 countries
· Over 80 percent of commercial GPRS operators globally have committed to EDGE
· 172 of 267 commercially launched HSDPA operators (over 64 percent) also launched EDGE

User devices
· 1,470 HSDPA devices launched by 171 suppliers
· 944 devices support 3.6 Mbps peak or higher (excluding notebooks)
· 514 devices support 7.2 Mbps peak or higher (excluding notebooks)
· 260 HSUPA devices launched (compared to 75 in July 2008) (excl. notebooks)
· 1,068 HSPA devices (over 93 percent) operate in 2100 MHz band (excl. notebooks)
· 512 HSPA devices (over 44 percent) operate in 850 MHz band (excl. notebooks)
· 365 tri-band HSPA devices 850/1900/2100 MHz (excl. notebooks)
· 130 HSPA devices operate in 900 MHz band (UMTS900) (excl. notebooks)
· 212 HSPA phones (including smartphones) incorporate 802.11 WiFi
· 248 HSPA phones (including smartphones) incorporate GPS/positioning functionality
· Over 83 percent of HSDPA devices also support GSM/EDGE

Subscriptions
· 3.72 billion GSM, WCDMA-HSPA subscriptions (Q1 09)
· GSM/WCDMA has 89.4 percent worldwide market share
· Over 329 million WCDMA subs including HSPA worldwide (Q1 09)
· WCDMA now has 8% share of global mobile subscriptions
· 103.8 million HSPA subscriptions (Q4 08) included in the WCDMA subs total
· WCDMA has over 72.3 percent market share of global 3G subscriptions
· APAC has almost 1.6 billion GSM, WCDMA-HSPA subscriptions (Q1 09)
· The BRIC countries –- Brazil, Russia, India, and China together account for over 1.25 billion GSM Subscriptions (Q1 09)
· China and India have a combined total of 907.3 million GSM subs (Q1 09)
· India is estimated to have passed 300 million GSM subs during May 2009
· Western Europe has 576 million GSM, WCDMA-HSPA subscriptions (Q1 09)
· The Western Hemisphere exceeds 554 million GSM, WCDMA-HSPA subscriptions (Q1 09)
· MEA has 541 million GSM subscribers (Q1 09)
· GSA estimates that there are approaching 2 billion GSM, WCDMA and HSPA subscriptions in commercial HSPA-enabled networks worldwide.

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.