Management of Mobile Technology - Case Study Example

Management of Technology: Cellular Telephone Your Goes Here This article emphasizes on the development and applicationof mobile telephony, the patterns of the technological change, competition, discontinuities and innovation, technology forecasting, ranging from 1G to 4G. The objective is to understand the main drivers underpinning effective technology strategies, the effect on firm positioning, and the development of the internal firm capabilities. The topics addressed are the external factors driving innovation, the new market strategies and the profits from the innovation. To address these factors in technology management a case study of the mobile phone technology evolution in UK is presented. Management of Technology Introduction - Telephony as invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 was the first voice transmission on the physical wire connecting two devices. There was no number dialing and no ringing, just two people talking across the wire. Since then the technology invented by Bell has evolved to bring in voice dialing, e-mail and entertainment on the mobile phones. The need, resources, revenue, social and political influence, long-term goals are the driving forces for the requirement to manage and evolve the mobile phone technology. Technology Evolution – 0G – These were pre-cellular mobile phones, usually installed in the vehicles. E.g. Autoradiopuhelin launched in 1971 in Finland. 1G – These were the first generation cellular analog mobile phones. An AMP (Advanced Mobile Phone Systems) is the 1G FDMA based technology for cellular phones. It operates at 800 MHz cellular band. In this technology each cell-site could transmit in different frequency band allowing multiple cell sites to be close by with low/no interference, but the draw-back was the limited subscriber capacity. TACS (Total Access Communication System) is the European version of AMPS, and has now become obsolete. In UK 1G networks have been replaced with 2G & 3G networks. 2G – Second generation digital wireless networks, primarily for voice services, based on TDMA & CDMA technologies. The data services have been developed over basic 2G GSM networks as packet services (GPRS). 3G – Third generation high-data rate wireless digital technologies that support both packet and circuit switching (for data & voice respectively). The data rates supported by 3G technologies like W-CDMA (Wideband CDMA – 384kbps – 2Mbps, double the rates with HSDPA and HSUPA), CDMA2000 (144kbps – 3Mbps), TD-SCDMA and UMTS TDD (upto 3Mbps) are a significant difference from 2G technologies. The packet service EDGE (Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution) with data rates of 473.6kbps for 8 timeslots is considered to be 3G GSM service. 4G – Fourth generation wireless access technology to provide 100Mbps mobile and upto 1Gbps stationary rates, expected to be commercially deployed in 2010. Based on OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is a pure packet switching technology. 4G networks are currently being tested by the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo. It is expected to allow better usage of bandwidth resources and the use of multiple channels. The Technologies - FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) the radio spectrum is divided into carrier frequencies. Each user is allocated a different carrier frequency, thus limiting the number of users to the bandwidth division granularity. The frequency allocation is both fixed or on-demand. TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) is a shared medium technology where the frequency channel is divided into time-slots. A time-slot is dynamically allocated to a subscriber when the call is made & remains allocated to the subscriber for the duration of the call. Therefore limiting the number of subscribers to the total time-slot capacity of the system. CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) is a spread spectrum technology for digital cellular networks. The data is transmitted as streams of bits, and the channels are divided by the PN code (i.e. a deterministically generated pseudorandom code). Multiple subscriber data is multiplexed on a single frequency channel and therefore more number of subscribers can be supported. Fixed-Wireless WLL (Wireless Local Loop) – V5 set of protocols defined by ETSI for communication links between the Access Network and the Local Exchange. The Access Network than provides the wireless connection to the subscribers through the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) Technology. This allows for the mobility in the range of the CDMA transmitter only. GSM – Global System for Mobile Communications, the first specifications were frozen by ETSI in 1990 and the first commercial deployment was in 1991 in Radiolinja in Finland. GSM networks are divided in cells and mobile phone connects to the cell in its vicinity. GSM is TDM (Time Division Multiplex) based circuit-switch technology. Most GSM networks operate at 900MH or 1800MHz. Each 200 KHz channel is divided into eight 25 KHz channel and the wireless voice path is circuit switched from the caller to the called number. The modulation used in GSM is Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK) – based on the frequency shift keying (a stream of bits0/1 is generated and a time slice given for each bit). The signal is passed through the Gaussian low pass filter and then fed to the frequency modulator, to reduce the interference. GSM technology allows more mobility to the subscriber because of its cellular architecture. GPRS (2G) – The Global Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is the packet switching technology on the GSM networks based on the packet switching. The unused voice channels are used for multiplexing data packets to more than one user. The limitations due to TDMA based technology are low data rates. The throughput rate of upto 40kbps provides a dial-up modem like but mobile service. CdmaOne (2G) – The first CDMA cellular standards TIA/EIA IS-95 was published in July 1993. The revision IS-95A was first deployed in September 1995 by Hutchison (HK). The cdmaOne is a cellular CDMA technology. Unlike GSM, in CDMA many users share the time & frequency band there is no limit on the number of subscribers connected at the same time. Every Base station is synchronized with GPS (Global Positioning System). W-CDMA (3G) is a wide-band spread spectrum CDMA based technology. The current implementations of W-CDMA use paired (uplink & downlink) 5MHz spectrum. There are two implementations FOMA (Japan) and UMTS (Europe) greatly supported. UMTS supports 15 slots per radio frame. The W-CDMA (UMTS) specifications were finalized in 1999, the frequency band for FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) used is 1920MHz – 1980MHz and 2110MHz – 2170MHz. This technology can be overlaid on the existing 2G GSM networks. HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) is the booster for the W-CDMA technology as EDGE is for GSM, to double the air interface capacity. HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) is the data access protocol for the high speed upload (upto 5.76Mbps). Further in 3G series is Super 3G with data rates upto 100Mbps. CDMA2000 (3G) these are the standards specified by 3GPP2 and comprise of CDMA2000 1x, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO and CDMA2000 1xEV-DV radio interfaces. The CDMA2000 standards are deployed over 2G cdmaOne networks. EDGE (3G) – EDGE is the packet switch technology on GSM networks and uses 8-PSK modulation scheme for the signal encoding. This will offer 48kbps per GSM timeslot and maximum data rates of 384kbps for 3G services. The costly copper-wire mesh gave way to the fixed-wireless and the wireless mobile technology for the difficult terrains, scantily populated areas and cost-effective quick telephone deployment. The GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) EDGE, W-CDMA (Wideband - Code Division Multiple Access) and CDMA2000 (3G) are the competing wireless technologies today. Market Evolution – The evolution of the technology is directly related with the customer need. The demand and evolution of the wireless technologies have been based on the following factors: The analog cellular technology had limitations on the number of subscribers and supported voice services only. The 2G digital cellular technology addressed the issue of subscriber numbers and the mobile phone range. GSM is a TDMA based circuit-switched technology with the limit on the number of subscribers connected simultaneously. The increasing demand for more wireless connections has made CDMA technology based on BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) popular. Demand for converged voice and data services required higher data rates and security; these issues were addressed by introducing packet switching, GPRS on GSM networks. The data rate limitations on 2G networks are being addressed by packet & circuit switched W-CDMA or CDMA2000 networks. The development of W-CDMA technology is mostly driven by the use of the existing network infrastructure 2G GSM. The current 4G development is considering packet mode only and is addressing the issues like higher data rates, more connections and ease of deployment. With technology innovation, infrastructure up gradation and new marketing strategies are required. It is important to consider the financial aspects of technology deployment in terms of operator willingness to spend on the infrastructure and the customer needs to buy new compatible handsets. Case Study: 2G to 3G in UK – GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) has announced the EDGE evolution to increase current EDGE data rates by 2-3 times. This will bring improved spectrum efficiency in terms of higher data rates and voice capacity. The commercial solutions are expected in 2007 timeframe. Ericsson is partnering with operators to provide smooth transition of services from 2G networks to 3G networks. Since W-CDMA technology has evolved from GSM, the already enhanced GSM infrastructure for GPRS and EDGE will provide low cost, low risk migration to W-CDMA. The recent surveys predict that due to high data rates as compared to 2G, the 3G subscribers in UK are likely to use more video content services, ring-tone download and other data download services. The use of 3G services is being adopted by tech-savvy, as 2G services still continue to be earning more revenue. One of the reasons for slow 3G pickup is the high-price of the handsets. The 3G services that are expected to raise revenue and become popular by the end of this decade (2010) are: High speed internet access on 3G handsets. Sharing of audio/video content among the subscribers. DRM (Digital Rights Management) will enable distribution of commercial content services (e.g. video & music services, marketing). Search tools for mobile phones will become increasingly important. The theoretical download speed of the 3G technology is 2Mbps it is projected that the current usage of 64kbps will rise to the demand level of approximately upto 200kbps by the year 2008. The applications that are expected to become popular and raise the demand on the bandwidth are, e-commerce, live video streaming and multiplayer online games on the mobile handset. The factors that need to be addressed for increase in revenue: Increase the demand for the technology based services. E.g. innovation in services area like search tools and video conferencing. Reduce the cost of technology upgrade for both the operators and the consumer. (Low-cost handsets and low infrastructure investments). Handset technology innovation to increase the screen size while keeping the phone size & weight low, more memory & high battery life. Sony Ericsson the leading mobile phone handset provider promises the supply of the handsets compatible with the wireless technologies developed by Ericsson. New product development – New 4G Radio Access – ongoing research activity at UMTS with participation of operators like Ericsson, commercial deployment expected in 2013. EU 6th Framework Project – WINNER. MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) to support high data rates in limited spectrum. Adaptive antennas for coverage. Relaying/multihop to achieve good coverage for higher data rates. Handsets to support evolving innovative wireless technologies. Nokia is selling innovative designs for WCDMA compatible mobile phones. Some of the models are: Nokia 7600, Nokia N91 (coming soon), Nokia N90. Organizing and managing dynamic knowledge – With all these developments in the last more than 100 years, telephony has a large repository of technical and non-technical information. This information is maintained in the form of standards, regulations and rules by various standard bodies for different technologies in respective areas. Some of them are listed as: 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) a collaboration established for developing 3G specifications within the scope of the ITU’s IMT-2000 project based on GSM specifications. It is cooperation between ETSI (Europe), ARIB/TTC (Japan), CCSA (China), ATIS (North America) & TTA (South Korea). 3GPP2 (3rd Generation Partnership Project 2) a collaboration established for developing 3G specifications within the scope of the ITU’s IMT-2000 project based on 2G CDMA specifications. It is cooperation between ARIB/TTC (Japan), CCSA (China), TIA (North America) & TTA (South Korea). The role of these standard bodies is important to maintain the order in the research community, to avoid redundant efforts, resolve conflicts and protect the intellectual property. It is important to resolve the interoperability issues between the technologies to maintain the integrity of the network. Apart from the technical information, telephony requires the maintenance of one of the largest user database (possibly second only to the banking service). This information is maintained by the service providers, this is the money generated. Conclusion – To conclude the main drivers for the technology innovation and the management are: Customer requirement – new services, voice & data convergence, unified communication. Rather than maintaining multiple mobile gadgets (laptop, mobile phone, walkman, camera/camcorder), the customer wants a high-end instrument that meets all the basic requirements. Competition – The deployment of the latest technologies attracts new subscribers with the risk of initial slump. External factors – i.e. the social and political reasons. The competition among the governments to gain popularity and the social requirement of the country. The development of new technologies must consider the long-term maintenance & upgradeability of the current infrastructure. This is the force behind evolution of 4G technologies – extensibility of W-CDMA networks. There have to be strategic alliances between network operators, handset & infrastructure manufacturers to be able to make a timely launch of the new products. The current work on 3G is expected to be around for the next 10-15 years, while 4G is expected to be launched midway. References “GSA Announces Next GSM/EDGE steps to Enhance Service Continuity with EDGE evolution.” March 10, 2005 GSA. Retrieved March 16, 2005, from http://www.gsacom.com/news/gsa_174.php4?PHPSESSID=0853eb1bcb1940f6ec848a3f77a87877 Ramesh, R. “Long-term 3G evolution 4G radio access.” Ericsson. November 29, 2004. Minney, Jaimee. “Measurement firm reveals the findings of its first U.K. and German Benchmark Surveys.” Prism Venture Partners. February 7, 2006. http://www.prismventure.com/news/20060207-mmetrics.asp “BBC online review – module 2: Future UK Internet market trends.” March 16, 2004. Spectrum Strategy Consultants. Retrieved March 17, 2006, from http://www.culture.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/25115125-9AFB-471B-8FB0-E538146CEEAE/0/BBConlineAnnex115.pdf Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Read More