Broadband Mobile Data Service Era is Com ing

Zhang Zhijiang

For China's telecom industry,2009 is destined to be an extraordinary year due to the approach of long-thirsted-for mobile 3G era,which w ill have significant im pact on current work and lifestyles.2009 w ill also be a year full of opportunities and challenges because the com ing 3G era w ill bring lim itless business opportunities and im pose more challenges on Chinese telecom operators.

The reshuffling of Chinese telecom markets has been brought to an end.The new China Unicom,China Mobile and China Telecom all focus their strategies on broadband mobile data services in order to achieve the objective of a smooth transform ing from voice services to data services.Technologically,various 3G technologies and their evolutions become great concerns of telecom operators;while in term s of services,the key for 3G system s is their data services.As a result,high speed broadband data services see an era of rapid development.

1 Development of Mobile Data Services

M odern mobile communications began in early 1920s.At that time,communication and electromagnetic wave transm ission experiments were done,and small-capacity p rivate mobile communication systems were developed on shortwave bands.Such system s worked at low frequencies w ith poor voice quality and could not be app lied in large-scale networking.At the end of 1970s,the United States w idely dep loyed the Advanced Mobile Phone System（AMPS）,which p romoted the research of cellular mobile communication technologies worldw ide.Consequently,the Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System（TCAS）and Nord ic Mobile Telephone（NMT）-450 were developed successively.These systems are analog Frequency Division Dup lex（FDD）systems and are called 1G system s.They have many lim itations in either technology or standard.For examp le,they can only deliver voice services,they cannot achieve g lobalroam ing and their capacities are lim ited.Therefore,they cannot meet the user demands for mobile data services.

To solve the lim itations of 1G systems,the 2G d igitalmobile communication system s,rep resented by GSM and CDMA,were developed in 1990s.Com pared w ith 1G system s,2G system s have many advantages,such as high spectrum efficiency,large system capacity and good encryp tion performance.They are mainly designed for delivering voice and low-speed data services.With continuous social and econom ic development and the im p rovement of living standard,the users'communication habits gradually changed,expec ting d iverse services to satisfy their living and entertainment requirements.Hence,the Biography

Zhang Zhijiang,PhD,is a senior engineer and the general manager of the Technical Department o f China Unicom.He had app lied for a dozen of patents,among which 10 patents have been granted domestically and internationally and 8 patents are stillunder granting.He has authored 12 technicalbooks,and pub lished 27 academ ic papers thatwere adop ted by internationalstandard ization organizations.Besides,he has been awarded severalp rizes and honorab le titles,including 17 nationalor p rovinc ia l Sc ience and Technology Advancement Awards,cand idate o f the“National Trans-Century Ta lents Pro ject”（2006）,Outstand ing Individualin Technical Innovation（2006,the Ministry of Inform ation Industry）and Guanghua Engineering Technology Award（2008）.Since 2005,he has enjoyed special government allowance.

Zhang Zhijiang developmentofmobile data services is ofutmost urgency.

The statistics and forecastofg lobal telecom operators'revenue structure show that the g row th of traditionalvoice services has slowed down.The operators have d iversified theirservices,among whichmobile data,entertainment,med ia and advertisements g row ata fasterspeed.

Meanwhile,themain sources of the operators'p rofits are changing too,from voice services to data services.The statistics of Average Revenue Per User（ARPU）in Europeanmobilemarketind icate the revenue ofvoice services does notinc rease although the traffic stillincreases.Moreover,the ARPU ofvoice services is decreasing.On the contrary,the ARPU ofmobile data services is steadily increasing.As a result,the percentage of the revenue ofdata services in the totalrevenue of telecom operators increases,while the percentage of trad itionalvoice services has decreased to services.Meanwhile,more and more Internet p roviders have entered themobile communication market recently and now cooperatew ith telecom operators.This w illno doub t furtherp ropelthe developmentofmobile data services.about50%.

The ultimate objectives of the evolution of mobile communication technologies are flat network architecture, high data rate, short service latency, and low construction and operation costs.

For futuremobile communication system s,one of its core servicesw illbe to accessmobile Internet.Earlymobile Internetwasmainly app lied in short messages and p rovided some simp le interaction services for the users.In the era of2.5G,such app lications as photos,Color Ring Back Tone（CRBT）and games give the usersmore choices.According ly,the businessmodelexpands to the fields ofadvertisements and games.Rich contents imp rove the interactivity ofapp lications,enab ling mobile Internet to be a portab le tooland a partof peop le's daily lives.Promoted by 3G technologies,mobile Internetmeets a new opportunity of development.New app lications have emerged one afteranother,for instance,mobile search engine,2D code,mailbox,instantmessenger,GPS and videos.These app lications b ring telecom operators more choices ofbusinessmodels.The w ide app lication ofmobile Internetmakes ita necessary toolin peop le's daily lives as wellas their lifestyle.

The g reatdevelopmentofmobile Internetw ill surely d rive the developmentofmobile data services.Telecom operators are now paying more and more attention to the developmentof b roadband mobile w ireless technologies when they construc t theirnetworks,whichwould undoubted ly urge the rapid developmentofmobile data

2 Evolution of W ireless Communication Technologies

The increasing demand of the users forw ireless data services,which require large bandw id th,pushes the developmentofmobile communication technologies as wellas the im p rovementof transm ission rates.The 3rd generationmobile telecommunication system s are developed and launched as a resultof this push.

Themost important feature of3G systems is their high bandw id ths and rates,which can g reatly imp rove userexperience inmultimed ia services and accelerate the com ing ofb roadband mobile data service era.Currently,there are threemain 3G modes:Wideband Code Division Multip le Access（WCDMA）,Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multip le Access（TD-SCDMA）and CDMA2000.Although thesemodes enab le w ireless data rates and frequency efficiency to increase considerab ly,they stillcannotsatisfy the expectations of the users fornextgeneration networks.As a result,3GPP continuously releases new standards.So far,the evolution targets of WCDMA and TD-SCDMA have been c lear,thatis Long Term Evolution（LTE）.The evolution targetof CDMA2000 p lanned by 3GPP2 is Ultra Mobile Broadband（UMB）.However,many CDMA operators around the world target theirnetworks for LTE.

The ultimate ob jectives of the evolution ofmobile communication technologies are flatnetwork architecture,high data rate,shortservice latency,and low construction and operation costs.LTEhas been selected as the evolution targetofall3G technologies.This inc lination to a unified radio interface im p lies that the standard dom inating the b roadband w ireless accessmarketis not determ ined by the technologies butby technology maturity and marketscale.

3 Four Key Issues to be Addressed

FormostChinesemobile users,2009 b rings hope.Three Chinesemobile operators are likely to introduce their3G services,and threemodes w ill com pete w ith each other in themarket.2009-2011 w illsee the numberofusers g row ata high speed and themarketstructure shape,and b roadband mobile data services w illdefinitely be a powerful weapon for the operators to contend forusers.But to develop mobile data services,there are stillmany common issues to be add ressed.

3.1 Services: Creating Differentiated Strengths Based on Industry Chain Cooperation

Unlike trad itionalvoice services,the developmentof mobile data services requires c lose cooperation of allp layers in the industry chain,inc lud ing Content Provides（CPs）,contentintegrators,term inal manufactures,and mobile operators.

Technically,the three 3G standards can p rovide sim ilar rates forapp lications,meeting the basic requirements of the users,so d ifferentiated services w illbecome an importantcom petitive edge.Ifa network cannotp rovide any innovative service that can give the users fresh and new experience,itw ill be non-com petitive nomatterhow wellit is constructed.Therefore,in the developmentof value-added services,telecom operators,Service Providers（SPs）and CPs should work together to introducemore colorfulmultimed ia services and offer the users betterquality services in the times of high-performance networks.To introduce such services,first,there should be rich and innovative services;second,there should be friend ly interfaces,allow ing the users to enjoy the services,otherw ise,the services cannotsurvive long;third,there should be enough resources and channels for new services to enter themarketquickly.

3.2 Term inals: Getting Involved in Term inal R&D to Promote Win-W in Cooperation

In develop ing mobile data services,the term inals'capabilities should be considered in addition to the capabilities ofnetwork devices because their im pacton the developmentofmobile data services cannotbe neg lected.In short,term inal manufacturers p lay an important role.Currently,d ifferentmobile data services require d ifferent term inals.Forexamp le,mobile TV,Video on Demand（VoD）and mobile games im pose higher requirements on term inalscreen,inc lud ing color range,size and resolution;whilemobilemusic services require bettersound system s of the handsets.Withoutsupportof term inals,themobile data services cannotachieve better development.Therefore,the term inalis a factor thatmay restric t the developmentofmobile data services.For the users,they w illconsidernotonly the term inals'functions,butalso their shapes and appearances.To p romote the developmentofdata services,the operators should paymore attention to the developmentof term inals,get involved in the research and design of term inals,and custom ize theirown term inals to attract targetusers.

3.3 Billing System: Developing Flexible Billing System to Support Differentiated Services

The billing system p lays a criticalrole in the healthy developmentofmobile data services.Unlike voice services,the billing ofmobile data services involves notonly communication duration,butalsomany new parameters,such as period and location.The d iversification ofparameters leads to amore comp licated billing system.Moreover,the billing system should support themarketcom petition strategies of the operators,for instance,differentiated services.Accord ing ly,mobile data services require the follow ing features of the billing system:charging in realtime in order to p rovide p repaid userswith value-added services,being highly flexib le so as to facilitate themaking of various charging strategies,and supporting interconnection w ith partners'networks to enab le roam ing among d ifferentnetworks.In short,a good billing system can effectively p romote the developmentofdata services;otherw ise,itw ill restrain the development.

3.4 User Experience: Continuously Creating New Services and New Business Models

Forend users,they seldom care about the technology issues.What they really concern about themostare new services that the telecom operators are ab le to p rovide,new experience from these new services and related charging policies.All these concerns are challenges for the operators,forcing them to continuously innovate upon existing services and business models.In the com ing 3G era,the operators have to take fulladvantage of the opportunity broughtbymobile Internet forb roadband mobile data services and have to find new service grow th points in order to survive in the inc reasing ly intensive com petition.

To promote the development of data services,the operators should pay more attention to the development of term inals, get involved in the research and design of term inals, and custom ize their own term inals to attract target users.

4 Conclusion

In the com ing b roadband mobile w ireless data era,mobile operators still take the core position,but they have to work c losely w ith network equipment manufacturers,term inalmanufacturers,CPs,and third-party solution p roviders.Only doing so,they can p lay the lead ing partofw ireless services and emb race the＂sp ring＂ofdata services.