Speed Rush

LTE Project NRW writes mobile communications history

Southern Westphalia’s Nordhelle is at the centre of arguably the most important mobile communications development in North Rhine-Westphalia. Since September 2009, a pilot project for long term evolution signals (LTE) has been running from the West German Broadcasting (WDR) tower located there. These signals enable transmission speeds of 300 Mbit per second, and more, to mobile phones. High-resolution videos, multiplayer online games, automotive navigation systems – this technology practically suspends the limits of mobile internet.

The objective of the pilot project of Vodafone, WDR and the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (LfM), with the support of the State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia, is to establish the volume of data that can be transmitted in a stable manner over a certain period of time, without disrupting other transmission such as DVB-T. The project uses the so-called »digital dividends«, that is, the frequencies that have become free through the changeover to digital television.

Traffic jams on the mobile data highway

Deutsche Telekom introduced LTE back in September 2008: A small bus shuttled back and forth across a bridge over the Rhine between the Bonn headquarters and T-Mobile headquarters on the other side, while the fast data transmission ran in a vehicle. After auctioning the mobile communications frequencies for LTE, regional areas should also be provided with full broadband internet coverage. The EU has also made a financial contribution to the funding: From 2010, it shall provide an additional 18 million euros for the ultra high speed mobile internet system.
This investment is urgently required. The sales of smartphones will increase by 47 % in Germany in 2010, to 8.2 million units. iPhones, data flat rates from mobile communications providers, and web 2.0 applications lead to genuine »traffic jams« on the mobile data highway. The volume of wirelessly transmitted data actually quadrupled in 2009, to 40 million gigabytes. Deutsche Telekom responded to this by expanding the UMTS networks to 42 Mbit/s with HSPA+- technology. Vodafone, too, is now taking this path, but in the long term this won’t be enough. »The next generation of technology will make entirely new applications possible on mobile devices,« explains Günther Ottendorfer, Technology Director at Deutsche Telekom.

T-Mobile presented an impressive LTE demonstration at the Mobile World Congress 2010: The exhibition stand in Barcelona, the Bonn headquarters and a car in Innsbruck were all connected together, and exchanged videos and data at 70 Mbit/s.
At the same time, the Willich device manufacturer LG Electronics presented a prototype of a wireless LTE USB modem with a download speed of 100 Mbit/s. And the Dusseldorf technology company Ericsson even presented a download at 1Gbit/s, a speed that exceeds even that of conventional fixed line connections. LTE thereby revealed itself as a high speed connection which puts the standard DSL connection in the shade. And it may be worthwhile not only for mobile devices, but also for home computing. These transmission speeds aren’t just helping mobile television to a renaissance, they are also revolutionising navigation systems.

New devices and applications

The decisive technical advantage of LTE lies in the fact that the standard relies completely on the IP protocol. Even speech is transmitted as VoIP, which allows short reaction times to be guaranteed. The industry wants to quickly agree on a standard for voice transmission. For this purpose, companies including Ericsson, Huawei, LG Electronics, T-Mobile and ZTE have founded the »VoLGA Forum« (Voice over LTE via Generic Access). For LTE, the mobile communications providers will have to invest billions in the expansion of the networks. At the same time, T-Mobile and Vodafone are already announcing LTE flat rates. The only problem is that due to the broad acceptance of flat rates, the revenue of the network providers is stagnating. Generous flat rate offers could therefore soon be a thing of the past.