Wireless telecommunications used to be about voice, today it is more about data than voice. By the end of the year 2000, for the first time in history the number of data messages sent has exceeded the number of voice calls made in data-enabled public cellular systems. Wireless data services have emerged as a catalyst for new mobile computer-centric applications and have grown exponentially. Contrary to the early analog wireless voice services that enjoyed a quick and successful public acceptance in North America, the market penetration of its digital wireless counterpart has been slow and painful due to a splintered deployment of too many incompatible technologies, and has been shrouded in mystery.
The objectives of this research project are to shed light onto the current state of personal digital wireless data communications, both by investigating the evolution of its technologies and by field tests with the latest end user devices and public services. This combination helps to develop an awareness of today's public wireless services and applications, that is needed to make an informed decision on the use of wireless telecommunications by business and public alike. The focus is mainly on data services in New Brunswick and Canada, with an overview of the scenarios in the United States and overseas.
A complete inventory of public wireless WAN telecommunications technologies is presented first, from the early 1st generation analog technologies, such as AMPS, which are currently being decommissioned worldwide in favor of 2nd generation digital technologies, such as TDMA, GSM and CDMA. Emphasis is placed on recent data extensions, such as SMS, CSD, PSD and GPRS, leading to 2.5th generation wireless technologies as we have seen them emerge over the past 2 years. At this time GSM/GPRS is the dominant technology in the world with a 72% market penetration. An overview is given of the migration paths to 3rd generation wireless network infrastructures, that will take place over the next 5 years. This will eventually lead to a seamless integration of many types of wireless networks and accommodate mobile data and voice devices alike. In addition to public wireless systems, an overview is presented of wireless computer networks of the WLAN and WPAN type. While the WLANs have become a mature commodity, WPANs are just entering the market place and are still in their infancy. The incorporation of WLANs as lower tiers of public cellular networks offer their operators an interesting possibility to deliver more capacity and higher data rates to end users without depleting the capacity of the cellular systems.
In order to appreciate todays evolution of wireless telecommunications to next-generation systems, a review of the historical development is presented. Whereas Europe has learned its lesson from the failure of its early mix of multi-standard country-specific analog systems as a public commodity, and deployed a uniform single-standard GSM public telecommunications infrastructure, North America repeated the early mistakes of the European telecommunications bodies. After an unprecedented success of its early single-standard analog system AMPS, North America still suffers from the splintered deployment of up to 7 incompatible digital network standards, particularly in Canada where the generally low population density cannot support this mix of technologies. Poor area coverage, isolated subscriber pools, no inter-network roaming, and a late adoption of digital data services caused the wireless telecommunications industry to fall behind the rest of the world. A quick and drastic reversal of this policy is needed, combined with a competition by services rather than by technology and closer co-operation between network operators, to bring sustainability back into this industry and afford subscribers an adequate geographic coverage, better digital data services and roaming across the continent and worldwide.
The United States lead Canada in the fragmentation of the digital wireless sector by licensing and deploying too many digital wireless network standards. However, starting in 2000, a collapse of this jungle of technologies became evident, leaving two major technologies, CDMA and GSM, offered by the major network operators. In addition, co-operation agreements between the three GSM operators continent-wide created a powerful lobby group and lead the way to better geographic coverage, unrestricted roaming and access for subscribers to their home services anywhere and anytime.
A survey of public wireless networks and services in New Brunswick revealed a patchwork of data offerings over multiple and incompatible networks with different subscriber plans. NBTel Mobility's offers different types of data services over three independent networks, CDMA, CDPD and Ardis. Similarly, Rogers AT&T offers separate data services over TDMA and Mobitex. Until early 2002, no provider has offered a single network solution for all data service needs. Rogers AT&T has introduced the global standard GSM/GPRS into New Brunswick during the 1st Quarter of 2002. This is currently the only network that has the potential to offer the elusive single-network/single end user device solution with cost-effective data transport mechanisms at acceptable data rates for all data activities, including voice. NBTel Mobility is planning to offer similar services by a move to the 2.5th generation CDMA2000 network by 2003.
End user devices are the means for a subscriber to participate in wireless telecommunication services. An overview of end user devices of the phone-centric type (e.g. cellular phones) and computer-centric type (e.g. PDAs) is given, along with their capabilities and limitations. Today we see a consolidation of legacy end user devices, such as phones and PDAs, into Smart devices, that seamlessly integrate data and voice communications into a single handheld device, particularly suitable for the business person on the move. Just recently released, there is still much room for improvement and an opportunity for both hardware and software developers to contribute integrated hardware and user-friendly client software solutions.
A set of wireless telecommunications field test were conducted over a 6 month period in New Brunswick and the Maritime Provinces. This hands-on investigation focused on the availability, usability and quality of network services including achievable data rates, the usability of end user devices and the content of network services. It was found that CDMA and TDMA based CSD services provide superior availability and usability, despite their need for dial-up. It was found that PSD services, such as CDPD, do not have the same desirable availability and desirable capacity, however offer lways-on connectivity as preferred for many long-term interactive data services. The measurement of effective data rates revealed unexpectedly to disappointingly low rates from 3.5 kbps to 10 kbps, much below the advertised maximum rates of 9.6 kbps to 19.2 kbps. The geographic coverage in major cities and along highways, both in New Brunswick and its neighboring Maritime provinces was found adequate, however rural areas receive poor to nonexistent digital coverage.
A cost analysis based on a North American cost model was performed to highlight the cost incurred for both end user devices and operating cost, for typical data-borne business activities such as PIM synchronization, data base interrogation and web browsing. It is shown that CSD with its as-connected charge basis is cost-effective only for low-volume streaming data applications, whereas PSD with its as-used charge basis under various subscriber plans is cost-effective for a wide range of interactive data activities. A cost-optimizing strategy is presented with guidelines for the selection of the best subscriber plan. The existing practice of charging public wireless data services by a long-term package subscription (end user device and fee plan) is an inheritance of archaic Telco services of the past, creating an immobile pool of subscribers, poor selection of end user devices, a stagnant upgradability path to new technologies and a barrier for subscribers to benefit from competition among network service providers. This marketing approach needs to be changed to an open pricing policy, separated by services and end user devices, with flexible data-oriented and voice/data-combined fee structures. End user devices need to be available on the open market for unrestricted upgradeability to the latest technology as needed by business. The implementation of better user-administered charging systems, such as with GSMs SIM card account, is required to render wireless data services more cost-effective to occasional users.
The services and applications offered through the wireless networks Content servers and portals were evaluated for their usefulness and value. A wide range of useful data services and applications are available today, such as SMS, WAP browsing, just-in time information services, location-dependent services and PIM synchronization, which are regarded as Killer applications worldwide. However, the late arrival of adequate public data-enabled wireless networks and data-oriented user fee structures in North America has delayed the public acceptance of these mobile services and applications. By the end of 2000 the penetration of mobile data users was 23% in Europe and 7% in North America. The unawareness of these services has also placed the provision of adequately formatted web pages for mobile end user devices, such as PDAs, on a low priority. While web services are plenty in English, only a few sporadic web sites were found in French. Both wireless network operators and web service/application providers need to expend further efforts into the creation and marketing of suitably formatted web sites, in both official languages, in order to tap into this almost untouched market for the business and private person on the move. A readily accessible range of just-in-time, location-dependent and entertainment features will be crucial to the success of mobile data services in the future.