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Prospects for UMTS900: Status Review and Outlook


Description: 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?


Contents: TABLE OF CONTENTS:

About Analysys Mason vi

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 Síminn, 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 TABLES AND FIGURES:

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 UMTS9 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




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