A Year That Was In Wireless

( 1 Nov 2007 )

By Stephen Las Marias, Editor


2007 has been a very exciting, development and hype-filled year for the wireless design industry. Amid trials and deployments, royalty, patents and spectrum issues, the year that was has set the stage for the "next-generation" technologies that are expected to emerge next year. Below are some of the major highlights that have happened in the past 12 months, which I think will dictate or will give light as to what to see in the wireless industry in the coming year.

ULTRA LOW POWER BLUETOOTH
Early in June, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group has merged with Wibree, the Nokia developed ultra low power wireless technology. This technology merger has opened up a new segment of short-range wireless connectivity—the ultra low power (ULP) Bluetooth—targeted at devices that have low battery capacity but can be easily integrated with Bluetooth technology. In my interview with Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO of Nordic Semiconductor—one of the first companies to join the Wibree specification group—he said that ULP Bluetooth's attributes will ensure widespread adoption in many new applications where Bluetooth wireless technology is not practical to use due to its power consumption and expense. These segments include sports and wellness, healthcare, watches, PC peripherals, home entertainment and portable media players.

Actually, there are already a lot of ultra low power wireless devices available in particular the wellness and healthcare segment. I, for one, have a Suunto t3 watch-based heart rate monitor, which includes a heart rate belt—providing me with real-time information on the aerobic benefit of my workout. An integrated Nordic Semiconductor nRF2401A transceiver are located at both ends of the system—in the watch and the heart rate belt which also features an error-free ANT transmission technology. This provides me with real-time heart rate and calories burned, workout logging, and feedback of my "Training Effect". Speaking of ultra low power, one of the main points in this system is that it can run for 1 year on just a single, regular CR2032 3V lithium coin cell battery.

Bluetooth, one of the strongest and massively backed brands in wireless, is the most widely adopted short range wireless technology. By leveraging Bluetooth technology's high consumer awareness, the Bluetooth SIG's large membership and proven development and qualification programs, the ultra low power solution will be integrated faster and at a lower cost to the industry and consumers. ABI Research predicts that by 2012, the Wibree market—now ULP Bluetooth—will reach $432 million. At present, the integration of the low power technology to the Bluetooth specification has already started and the first version of specification is anticipated on the first half of 2008.

Nordic Semiconductor, for instance, will be releasing stand alone ULP Bluetooth solutions in the second half of next year. According to Thomas Embla Bonnerud, Product Manager of Nordic Semiconductor, one of the main features of these products will be ultra low power consumption of 12µA.

ULTRA LOW COST HANDSETS
According to market research firm ABI Research, more than 80% of the new mobile phone subscribers will be from emerging markets—within the Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe—where there is increasing demand for ultra low cost handsets, and where cellular penetrations are mostly less than 50%.

Kevin Sung of Texas Instruments said that China and India have the most potential of all emerging economies for their favorable economic growth rates and rapid accumulation of wealth in the middle classes. India, in particular, has registered 149.5 million mobile phone-service subscribers in 2006, up from 85 million in 2005, according to iSuppli Corp. With an average of more than 6 million monthly mobile subscriber additions, iSuppli forecasts India's wireless service subscriber base to reach 484 million by 2011—making it the second largest market for mobile handsets worldwide after China. ABI Research reported that India will be the biggest market for ultra-low cost handsets, growing from a little over 9 million in 2006 to more than 116 million handsets in 2011.

Addressing the ultra low cost handset market is very important for handset manufacturers, semiconductor vendors and mobile operators if they are to gain market share and maintain stable revenues in the long run. ABI Research projects that by 2011, the global market for sub-$20 ultra low cost handsets will be more than 300 million units—accounting for 25 percent of the handsets shipped.

I consider the segment interesting not only because of the market statistics, but because of the challenges this will present to mobile phone manufacturers, chip suppliers, and service providers. Sung said that while low-cost and ultra low cost handsets have become the trends for the mobile industry in emerging markets, the middle class of these regions are now demanding for the same value-added features—as are experienced by those in more industrialized countries—for their low-cost handsets.

Entry-level users in places like China, India and Latin America now desire the same value-added applications available in today's more mature wireless markets. This is now the challenge to industry players targeting the low cost handset segment: enabling feature-rich functionalities in lower price points.

WIMAX'S MOMENTUM
Worldwide, mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) has been gathering speed in terms of trials and initial network deployments. Major semiconductor and network equipment makers are full speed ahead in providing solutions for this emerging sector, while operators enthusiasm are rising sharply, according to ABI Research. The firm forecasts substantial numbers of WiMAX subscribers worldwide—more than 95 million using CPE devices by 2012, and almost 200 million using mobile devices, with some overlap between the two groups.

Truly, all the hype last year has set the stage for all industry players to collaborate, set up new companies focusing on this segment, and develop a variety of device types beyond the traditional handsets and laptops, including UMPCs, mobile Internet devices, and other consumer electronics products. For instance, NextWave Broadband is cooperating with Huawei to conduct interoperability testing; and SR Telecom and Wavesat are collaborating on WiMAX solutions.

Intel, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks are testing interoperability across Intel's forthcoming WiMAX silicon for laptops and mobile Internet devices, Nokia WiMAX devices and Nokia Siemens Networks WiMAX infrastructure equipment to ensure that mobile WiMAX wireless products work well together and with other products globally.

In Japan, companies are merging to obtain a license that will enable them to develop and operate a wireless broadband network based on mobile WiMAX technology.

All these developments are surely driving the mobile wireless industry into a state of major change, according to ABI Research, as mobile operators decide which IP-OFDMA path they will take for their 4G networks. And although there are no official definitions yet for the wireless 4G technology, mobile WiMAX already has positioned itself against the potential giant that LTE is expected to become.


You can reach Stephen Las Marias at stephen.lasmarias@rbi-asia.com.