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Mobile Broadband

03.11.2009 | Author: MobileGuru | Posted in Mobile Phones

Fixed broadband offered by traditional providers such as BT and NTL are restricted in the areas where they are available. In term of large towns and cities the data rates offered are reasonably good but when it comes to rural areas and small towns what is offered by the traditional broadband providers is somewhat limited and in some cases non-existence. The main reason behind this limited rollout is the high costs and difficulties in deploying broadband capabilities to these areas.

The technologies currently offered by the mobile network operators can provide a solution to this limitation. They are currently offering downlink data rates up to 3.6Mbps and in some cases 7.2Mbps to large towns and cities. In the small towns and rural areas the data rates available are lower and usually between 1.2Mbps and 384kbps. However remote areas may still have only very limited data rates. Again this comes down to costs against commercial benefits.

The answer lies in minimising the costs of rolling out high data rate solutions to remote areas where the population count is very low. Technically there are various solutions such as Multi-operator Radio Access Network (MORAN) and Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN). Each has their advantages and disadvantages but essentially involves operators deploying joint network and sharing the costs.

MORAN
In the UK T-Mobile and Hutchison 3G (3) are currently combining their networks using MORAN solution from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). They are the first companies in the UK to use this technology. MORAN solution allows the sharing of antenna system, base station and radio network controllers while having separate core networks. This technology can support up to four carriers (Four network operators) in a single base station thus allowing the possibility to rollout in remote areas at a substantially reduced costs.

MOCN
MOCN is a 3GPP solution for RAN sharing which allows operators to share their spectrum and core network. As opposed to MORAN solution, where multiple carriers are required to support different operators, this allows RAN sharing with a single carrier. MOCN is currently offered as a solution by NSN but has not gained much interest from the network operators. Sharing spectrum and core network is expected to provide significant cost savings compared to the MORAN solution. In the rural areas this may be the technology that offers high speed broadband capabilities as a commercially viable solution.

The focus for all network operators now is in getting revenue from their large investment in 3G technologies. Hence it may take a while before we see mobile broadband in areas such as the Highlands of Scotland.

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