Prospects for UMTS900: Status Review and Outlook

Prospects for UMTS900: Status Review and Outlook published by Analysys Mason in April, 2009. This report price starts from US $ 2724.

Introduction

Abstract

“UMTS900 will play a major role in extending the reach of mobile broadband and Internet services, but is not the only evolution path for mobile operators.” Catherine Viola, Senior Analyst.

UMTS900 is attracting significant interest from mobile operators, primarily because of the coverage advantages inherent in deploying UMTS at 900MHz compared with 2100MHz. All other things being equal, the lower the frequency, the further a radio signal propagates, which means that UMTS900 offers a significant improvement over UMTS2100 for cell range and coverage. This translates into fewer sites and cost savings for both network build and opex, as well as faster network roll-out. These benefits enable operators to roll out 3G services to rural areas that might otherwise be uneconomical to serve using UMTS2100, or, for GSM-only operators, to reduce the costs of building a new 3G network. Other benefits include potential improvements in indoor coverage and better voice quality compared with GSM.

The ecosystem for UMTS900 is rapidly maturing. The technology is proven not just in field trials but also in a number of operational networks worldwide, and network equipment and crucially devices are in ready supply. However, the pace of implementation of UMTS900 has been held back, particularly in Europe, by delays in removing technology restrictions from the 900MHz band. While the regulatory situation is improving, any significant delays in liberalising 900MHz spectrum will make it increasingly likely that operators will opt for alternative solutions for rural coverage, or even introduce LTE rather than UMTS in 900MHz spectrum once refarming is permitted.

This report reviews the deployment status of UMTS900 worldwide and evaluates the potential role of UMTS900 in mobile network evolution for a range of operator types.

Prospects for UMTS900: status review and outlook answers your key questions:

• What are key benefits of UMTS900?
• What is the regulatory status of spectrum refarming worldwide?
• How mature is the UMTS900 device market?
• Which operators have deployed UMTS900, and why?
• Where does UMTS900 in an operator' s network evolution plans, and what are the alternatives?

Author

Catherine Viola (Senior Analyst) specialises in issues relating to wireless network evolution. She is a regular contributor to Analysys Mason' s Wireless Networks research programme, and her research interests include wireless network technologies, spectrum issues and network sharing. She joined Analysys Mason in 1996.

Table of Contents

0. Summary

1. Introduction

2. UMTS900 offers a wide range of benefits

• 2.1 Outdoor coverage advantages enable substantial cost savings
• 2.2 UMTS900 can improve indoor coverage
• 2.3 Coverage advantages are not the only benefits

3. Regulatory delays have postponed the benefits of UMTS900 in Europe

• 3.1 Europe
• 3.2 The rest of the world

4. Support for UMTS900 is rapidly becoming standard in devices

• 4.1 USB modems boost subscriber and revenue growth, but revenue per megabyte for smartphones is much higher
• 4.2 UMTS900 could support early GSM switch-off, but rapidly migrating subscribers from 2G to 3G handsets could be challenging

5. UMTS900 presents a number of implementation challenges

• 5.1 Interference between GSM900 and UMTS900 systems must be managed
• 5.2 Techniques for increasing GSM capacity may be needed
• 5.3 Antenna engineering is potentially costly
• 5.4 Inter-frequency and inter-system handover issues remain to be resolved

6. Rural coverage extension is the predominant deployment scenario

7. UMTS900 will be widely deployed, but is not the only evolution path

• 7.1 GSM-only operators
• 7.2 Combined 2G/3G operators
• 7.3 UMTS2100-only operators
• 7.4 New entrants

Actions

Annex A: Case studies

• A.1 Advanced Info Services (AIS), Thailand
• A.2 Digitel, Venezuela
• A.3 DNA Finland
• A.4 Elisa, Finland
• A.5 Elisa, Estonia
• A.6 Optus, Australia
• A.7 Siminn, Iceland
• A.8 TeliaSonera, Finland
• A.9 Vodafone Australia
• A.10 Vodafone New Zealand

Key to acronyms

Research from Analysys Mason

Consulting from Analysys Mason

List of Figures and Tables

• Table 0.1: UMTS900 deployments at March 2009
• Table 1.1: UMTS900 deployments at March 2009
• Figure 2.1: Proportion of wireless network downlink traffic that is generated indoors, 2008 - 2015
• Figure 3.1: The impact of delaying spectrum refarming
• Table 4.1: UMTS900-enabled devices announced as of March 2009
• Figure 4.1: Revenue per megabyte of wireless network traffic generated by different types of device, 2008 - 2015
• Figure 5.1: Sandwich frequency arrangement for deploying UMTS900 and GSM900
• Figure 5.2: Carrier separation for UMTS900 and GSM900 microcells and picocells
• Figure 5.3: Antenna configurations for GSM900/UMTS900 sites
• Table 5.1: Evaluation of antenna solutions for co-located GSM900 and UMTS900 sites
• Table 6.1: UMTS900 deployments at March 2009
• Figure 6.1: UMTS900 deployment scenarios
• Figure 7.1: Timeline of events influencing network evolution strategy
• Table 7.1: Selected options for developing network coverage and capacity
• Table 7.2: Selected options for introducing advanced mobile services for GSM-only operators
• Figure 7.2: Average downlink wireless network traffic per cellular customer, 2008 - 2015
• Table 7.3: Selected rural coverage options for 2G/3G operators
• Figure 7.3: Illustrative network evolution path for accelerated GSM switch-off
• Table 7.4: Selected rural coverage options for 3G-only operators
• Table A.5: Optus' s wireless broadband standard tariffs using UMTS900-compatible USB modems
• Table A.6: Vodafone New Zealand' s mobile data tariffs using UMTS900-compatible USB modems

Related Reports