Great Future of Wireless Broadband (3) Scarce Resources
What will not change in the wireless world is the spectrum scarcity.
[+] Bandwidth that can be increased
In the wired world, when a telecom operator lays a cable into your home for broadband Internet access, it exclusively belongs to you and your bandwidth is guaranteed. If you are not content with the existing bandwidth, you can simply pay a little more to get it increased, so long as it is technically practical; or you can just apply for another line.
For the part of telecom operators, they receive all user data traffic into their servers, and switch or transmit them out. When the user number or the bandwidth of each user increases, they can deploy more equipment or increase the bandwidth to outside by laying more cables.
In the wired world, the shortage of bandwidth can always be solved with additional cables, if the operational costs of telecom operators are let alone. Both the bandwidth of end users and that of telecom operators can be expanded.
Wireless Internet has similar situations. The base stations deployed by telecom operators have user number and
bandwidth limits too. That is, the number of concurrent user cannot exceed a limit. The bandwidth of a base station is shared by all concurrent users at any specific point of time. Of course, the more people online, the slower the connecting speed for each one.
In other words, if users are always having trouble accessing the Internet, or are suffering from slow speed, it is time to increase the number of base stations. Let alone the issue of operating costs of telecom operators, they could always increase the bandwidth by deploying additional base stations.
[+] Bandwidth that cannot be increased
For wireless bands, however, there is a lethal vulnerability. Due to its inherent spectrum limit, the volume of data that a wireless band is capable of transmitting is always fixed. When an operator is allotted a wireless band for its services, the total capacity of its bandwidth is almost nailed down.
This is the spectrum scarcity. In other words, wireless operators must decide how to distribute the fixed bandwidth resources available. If there are too many users, the part allocated to each would be too small to satisfy his/her needs.
Technological advances might be able to solve part of the problem. For example, better wireless modulating technologies or compressing abilities might help to squeeze more data volumes into a wireless band, and therefore increase the total bandwidth of the operator. An example is the evolution of the technology from 2G to 3G, and then to the current 3.5G, and to 4G in the future.
Unlike the wired world, however, this increment is still limited. This is why the 3G wireless Internet monthly tariffs of
most mobile operators are very expensive. With so many people bidding for limited bandwidth resources, those who afford the high prices can get the service.
In addition, both 2G and 3G systems of most operators are intended for voice communication services. When a number of users are fighting for the bandwidth of a mobile base station, the operator will give voice service subscribers higher priority, in which case, Internet users might be unable to get connected. All these have rendered the prices and experience of the wireless Internet service less appealing.
[+] 3.5G is shining over the horizon.
Generally, there are two solutions to the above limits. One is to introduce new technologies, for example the upgrade from 2G to 4G as mentioned above to squeeze out more bandwidth for operators. The other is to provide separate routes for voice and Internet services to avoid the conflict for base station resources.
When will the monthly fees for the wireless Internet service drop down? Currently in Taiwan, the fee rates of most WCDMA 3G operators range between NTD750 to 850, while, in theory, the data rate is 384K.
Compared with ADSL, it is cheaper, but the speed is much slower, although it already has the "bandwidth sufficient for mobile services". Compared with WiFi, it also has its own advantages: signals are available everywhere and users don't have to search for hotspots. This explains the continued hot sale of 3G wireless network cards since their introduction.
As I explained in previous sections, the wireless Internet service should be able to substitute ADSL if it were ever to see a substantial increase in its user number. Currently, this is still beyond the ability of 3G. If there could be a wireless Internet service that can be used both at home and out on the road and has about the same data rate of
ADSL, isn't that great?
3.5G is here. The HSDPA-based wireless Internet model could offer a download data rate up to 14.4M in theory, and 3.6M in practice. It was first introduced in Taipei in October 2006 at the same monthly package fee rate as the 3G wireless Internet service.
[+] The cost for serving household users will increase drastically.
With this price and proven data rate, the service, which is capable of substituting ADSL, has attracted the eyeballs of many computer addicts and business people ever since it was introduced. Yet on the other hand, operators who have vowed to develop the WiFi service in Taipei are caught in a dilemma.
Currently, 3.5G wireless network cards are still a little bit too expensive—about NTD10,000. In the meantime, notebooks with built-in 3.5G chips are already available in the market, sold at about NTD 80,000. Price cuts can be expected so long as operators have the momentum for promoting the service.
For operators, however, this is a mixed feeling, as HSDPA has not fundamentally increased the number of concurrent
users. A 3.5G base station can still accommodate only 16 people online at the same time. When the situation of "substitution of ADSL" does occur, the base station will be short of resources.
In the case of the mobile voice service, a normal phone call will last for minutes and will not occupy the base station for long. However, for the wireless Internet service, it is a different case. A user could stay online overnight to download files. To address the needs of household users, the number of base stations will have to increase too.
Consequently, there could be implicit increases for monthly fee rates or restrictions to the bandwidth assigned to each user. The scarcity of resources will never change in the wireless world, unless there is a better technology to provide larger bandwidth. Will 4G be the new technology expected?
Internet/Telecom )
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