The excitement at this year's Telecom World Congress is already causing some speakers to share more than they intended.
Talking about 3 UK's network-sharing deal with T-Mobile, Hutchison Europe managing director Christian Salbaing explained that the pair's HSPA network will be the "most expensive by 2009"... before quickly correcting himself - 3 and T-Mobile will have the most "extensive" high-speed network by that date!
"Expensive?! Possibly [that] as well," Salbaing joked.
Telecom World Congress 2008 is in full swing at London's Hotel Russell. For all the news from the event, log on to Total Telecom between now and Thursday.
Standards bodies gear up for 4G
The 4G cogs are starting to turn after the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) said today it will submit its plans for the further evolution of LTE for consideration within the ITU's "IMT-Advanced" project. The IEEE is also submitting the draft standard 802.16m, an evolution of WiMAX, while the CDMA camp will be represented by UMB technology (also known as cdma2000 EVDO Rev C.) All technologies will be based on OFDM and multiple antenna technology MIMO.
IMT-Advanced is the next stage of mobile services development after IMT-2000, which included all the 3G technologies such as cdma2000 and WCDMA. So in other words, it's "true" 4G. The ITU has called for technologies to be considered for inclusion under the IMT-Advanced umbrella, and has set some very tough targets, including limited mobility speeds of 1 Gbps and fully mobile speeds of 100 Mbps. The UN agency will start working on more detailed specifications in 2009.
The 3GPP said it will issue a new Technical Report containing all the requirements for LTE Advanced.
François Courau, chairman of the LTE-Advanced Workshop, said "improved spectral efficiency will be very high on the list of the benefits to be achieved through LTE-Advanced technologies".
But "paramount within LTE-Advanced will be improvements to existing performance parameters whilst at the same time reducing the cost of delivering these improved services to the end customer," he added.
IMT-Advanced is the next stage of mobile services development after IMT-2000, which included all the 3G technologies such as cdma2000 and WCDMA. So in other words, it's "true" 4G. The ITU has called for technologies to be considered for inclusion under the IMT-Advanced umbrella, and has set some very tough targets, including limited mobility speeds of 1 Gbps and fully mobile speeds of 100 Mbps. The UN agency will start working on more detailed specifications in 2009.
The 3GPP said it will issue a new Technical Report containing all the requirements for LTE Advanced.
François Courau, chairman of the LTE-Advanced Workshop, said "improved spectral efficiency will be very high on the list of the benefits to be achieved through LTE-Advanced technologies".
But "paramount within LTE-Advanced will be improvements to existing performance parameters whilst at the same time reducing the cost of delivering these improved services to the end customer," he added.
Verwaayen quits at BT
Ben Verwaayen has resigned from his post as CEO of BT Group, effective 31 May. The chief exec, who has been at the helm of BT for six years, will remain on the board of the U.K. incumbent until the end of June.
BT Retail chief executive Ian Livingston will replace Verwaayen at the top. Livingston, who joined BT as group finance director in 2002 and became Retail head three years later, has been described by analysts as a "safe pair of hands".
Verwaayen has yet to disclose what his next move will be. Watch this space...
BT Retail chief executive Ian Livingston will replace Verwaayen at the top. Livingston, who joined BT as group finance director in 2002 and became Retail head three years later, has been described by analysts as a "safe pair of hands".
Verwaayen has yet to disclose what his next move will be. Watch this space...
Microsoft polishes Windows
Microsoft Wednesday unveiled its cuddly accessible attempt at Windows Mobile, targeted towards the emerging 'prosumer' segment – a niche of users that likes smartphone features but not smartphone form factor.
Plenty of representatives were on hand to demonstrate the tweaked interface of Windows Mobile 6.1 at its London launch, but one thing they weren't keen to show off was how long it takes for the software to boot up.
OK, so a number of factors such as a handset's processor speed and memory can affect how quickly the operating system launches, some of which are no doubt beyond Microsoft's control.
However, when Total Telecom dipped into smartphone reviews for its Mobility supplement in September 2007, one of the issues we had with the Windows-powered devices was how long it took for them to boot up. On average it took a minute of staring at the screen before Windows had finished loading.
Surely there has been some improvement since then? But on Wednesday we were certainly left wondering, when one spokesperson after another declined to comment on speed. Hmmm...
Plenty of representatives were on hand to demonstrate the tweaked interface of Windows Mobile 6.1 at its London launch, but one thing they weren't keen to show off was how long it takes for the software to boot up.
OK, so a number of factors such as a handset's processor speed and memory can affect how quickly the operating system launches, some of which are no doubt beyond Microsoft's control.
However, when Total Telecom dipped into smartphone reviews for its Mobility supplement in September 2007, one of the issues we had with the Windows-powered devices was how long it took for them to boot up. On average it took a minute of staring at the screen before Windows had finished loading.
Surely there has been some improvement since then? But on Wednesday we were certainly left wondering, when one spokesperson after another declined to comment on speed. Hmmm...
Pat Russo on thin ice?
Pat Russo, CEO of Franco-U.S. telecoms equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent, will be the next big name in the telecoms industry to face the axe, according to the readers of Total Telecom.
The results of our latest poll are just in. We asked which telecoms exec would be next for the chop. It was clearly a subject close to our readers' hearts, as the poll attracted a deluge of responses. And with a significant 43% of the vote, Pat Russo came out on top... or at the bottom, depending which way you look at it.
It has been a tough ride for Russo, who has been at the helm of the beleaguered vendor since it became a merged entity in 2006. The intervening months have been characterised by poor results announcements, a string of profit warnings and a series of top management departures. Can Ms Russo hold on?
The rest of the vote was fairly evenly split, with Sprint Nextel's Dan Hesse and Greg Brown of Motorola taking 15% each, and Mike Zafirovski of Nortel Networks and Jerry Yang of Yahoo polling 11% and 9% respectively. Our readers have the greatest confidence in Ericsson's Carl-Henric Svanberg, with just 5% predicting he will be the next to go.
New poll: Who will buy Motorola's Mobile Devices business?
VOTE HERE
The results of our latest poll are just in. We asked which telecoms exec would be next for the chop. It was clearly a subject close to our readers' hearts, as the poll attracted a deluge of responses. And with a significant 43% of the vote, Pat Russo came out on top... or at the bottom, depending which way you look at it.
It has been a tough ride for Russo, who has been at the helm of the beleaguered vendor since it became a merged entity in 2006. The intervening months have been characterised by poor results announcements, a string of profit warnings and a series of top management departures. Can Ms Russo hold on?
The rest of the vote was fairly evenly split, with Sprint Nextel's Dan Hesse and Greg Brown of Motorola taking 15% each, and Mike Zafirovski of Nortel Networks and Jerry Yang of Yahoo polling 11% and 9% respectively. Our readers have the greatest confidence in Ericsson's Carl-Henric Svanberg, with just 5% predicting he will be the next to go.
New poll: Who will buy Motorola's Mobile Devices business?
VOTE HERE
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