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RELESS TECHNOLOGHNOLOGY LTE TAKES TO THE DRIVING SEAT LTE TAKES TO THE DRIVING SEAT Stefa St fanoM Stefano Moioli, Director ProductroductManage DirectorPro nagem nt Cel ular u-blox ex u-blox exploreshowLTow LTE is living up to i s nam gementCellular, explores how LTEi vinguptoitsname


no need of the high bandwidth capability LTE offers, they will continue to be required to operate into the future, past the likely ‘sell-by’ date of current cellular technologies such as GSM, CDMA and UMTS. Thismeans that they will need th e promise of continuity fromthe backbone they rely, so as to keep operating .


ensure that they can technology on which


LT AND IO LTE AND IOT


Thesemachine tomachine (M2M) devices, which include smartmeters, asset tracking systems and alarmpanels, are typical of the growing category of devices that form part of the Internet of Things (IoT) which is widely expected to represent the future of computing. LTE is one of the strands that will help to enable this technology. For themain part, these IoT devices are static rather thanmobile devices. Realising that there is a growing


ands up, those of you who thought the LTE (Long TermEvolution) wireless communications standard was only applicable in the telephony environment. While it’s true that’s where it began its life, increasingly it’s finding key applications in areas far removed fromthatmarketplace, as technology early adopters display an apparently insatiable appetite for data. Uppermost among those application areas is automotive, where users want to employ high volumes of data while


H


they’re out and about. Consider streaming video while on themove in a fast car. That’s asking a lot of a te chnology.


INVESINVESTMEN AND REVENUE MENT AND REV ENUE


LTE service figures themselves speak volumes for the popularity of the


technology. A report by SNS Research in 2015 estimated that LTE service revenues would be in the region of US$170 billion in 2015 and will grow at a CAGR


(compound annual growth rate) of 30% each year to 2020.


Figures fromReportsnReports inMay last year put global LTE service revenue at some $500million by 2018 up from$78 billion in 2013 and showing a CAGR of 46%over this five year period. Ovumhas released figures showing that the total number of subscriptions to LTE services topped 1 billion in the final quarter of 2015, with China accounting for by far the largest proportion of these.


, 24 SEP EMBER 2016 24 SEPTEMBER 2016 || ELEC RO ELECTRONICS CS not backw


Given that the LTE wireless interface is kwards-compatible with 2G and 3G


architectures, realisation of those revenues obviouslymeans that serv


rvice providers will


have to invest heavily in infrastructure. Some players are not even attempting migration, but going straight for the new technology and infrastructure. In Pakistan, following a (very brief) period of trials, Warid Telecombegan rolling out its LTE network in December 2014,moving directly from2G to LTE technology, so with no fallback to 3G technologies. This is in direct contrast to the approach taken by earlier entrants to themarketplace, such as AT&T a nd Verizon in the US , whose networks offer direct fallback to 3G technologies, w here LTE coverage falters .


BIFURCATION OF HE MARKE BIFURCATION OF THE MARKET


In a sense, Warid’s boldmove highlights a split that is becoming evident in the LTE market as the technology rolls out and develops. Certainlymany early adopters are keen to develop new service offerings as well as wanting – or demonstrating the ability – to use vast quantities of data However the picture is complicated by the growing existence and emergence of devices that have only a limited need to transmit small quantities of data intermittently.


. ,


These are devices that would operate happily over existing 2G and 3G


infrastructures. However, while they have Figure 1:


Figure 1: LT


LTE is one of the strands hat will help to enable he future of IoT devices


TE is one of the strands tthat will help to enable tthe future of IoT devices


requirement for LTE to support low speed, machine optimised devices, themost recent releases of the standard - 12 and 13 – specify support for lower power devices in the shape of CategoryMor MTC: LTE for Machine Type Communications. The extension of the LTE standard enable s these devices to share the spectrumand operate alongside the higher speed higher power ones for which the standard was originally developed.


For themoment, Category 1 (Cat. 1) chipsets, with amaximumthroughput of 10Mbit/s, are available and can be used on current LTE implementations with no need for a systemupgrade.


They are filling the gap until the LTE backbones are upgraded to cater for Cat. 0 devices, with amaximumdownlink speed of 1Mbit/s and the ability to support Power SaveMode (PSM). This allows devices to go into sleepmode for hours or weeks at a time, come to life, be ‘pinged’ for data – and then sleep again until their next ‘wake’ time is up.


Support for IoT devices will then really come into its own. Remotely connected devices will be able to operate for up to ten years fromone AA size battery,making this a highly cost-ef fective solution fo r companies needing tomonitor locations on an occasional basis. This is where the volume in themarketplace will be seen.


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