Features
TEHCNOLOGY UPDATE
A TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
SUPER HIGH SPEED INTENET ACCESS IS NOW AVAILABLE USING A MOBILE PHONE.
On 12th February 2004 Vodafone Spain, together with Vodafone in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and UK, announced the launch of their first commercial 3G (UMTS) services.
What is 3G (UMTS)?
Only a couple of years ago, in this column, we set a competition to guess what the acronym ‘GSM’ stood for. Its amazing how fast technology changes, as since then, we have had 2.5G (GPRS) and now we are about to move onto 3G (UMTS).
3G (UMTS) stands for the Third Generation (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System). Are you any clearer? Basically, this new service ‘UMTS’ represents a revolution in terms of services and data speeds from today´s "second generation" GSM and GPRS mobile networks. The significance and size of this advance must not be underestimated. The advance from GSM to GPRS can only be described as an evolution.
In layman’s terms it provides, up to 10 times, faster connection speeds (384kbps), than the current mobile GPRS data communications (38.4kbps) and the old GSM data speed (9.6kbps).
With optimal transmission rates of 384kbps, this, completely new technology, will enable clients to access all their usual office and yacht applications such as e-mail, calendar, weather and Internet at up to ten times the speed of GPRS. Thus working remotely will be exactly the same as if in the office or home when connected by a physical ADSL wire. This is what is called VHE (Virtual Home Environment)! We’re not making it up, honestly. 3G (UMTS) will provide seamless access, with a common look and feel, to all services at home or in the office.
However what is more relevant to our clients is that when the yacht is in range of land and within a 3G footprint this speed of service will be available.
This fabulous data connection speed will allow further applications to be used such as Voice over IP, Moving images, Audio, Home Automation, Virtual Private Networking etc. Taking just one sample of these applications; Voice over IP is the ability to route calls over the Internet to provide a voice telephony service at local call rates to anywhere in the world.
When any new technology is introduced, different companies introduce different standards. For those as old as the author, you may remember VHS vs Betamax, on video recorders and today’s spring chickens will be aware of DTS vs Dolby in DVD audio standards. UMTS is effectively a 3G standard that is the evolutionary choice of GSM networks, and currently represents a customer base of more than 850 million end users in 195 countries, which represents over 70% of today’s digital wireless market. [source: GSM Association].
The largest Group operator Vodafone have chosen to support UMTS.
Vodafone roll-out and launch
In mid February Vodafone Spain announced the commercial launch of its first 3G services, with the availability of the Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS Datacard, Europe’s first high speed lap top data card.
Simultaneously Vodafone Group made the same announcement in Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.
The commercial launch of the Vodafone 3G/GPRS Datacard follows successful customer trials conducted across Europe with thousands of business customers, of which over 1,000 cards have been in pilot usage by corporate customers of Vodafone Spain since December 2003.
Vodafone Spain has been progressively rolling out its 3G network since August 2000 with a special emphasis on the 7 major Spanish cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Malaga, where it already offers 3G mobile coverage to complement that of GPRS.
With a total planned investment over the next five years of 2.88 billion Euros in Spain - an increasing proportion of which will be dedicated to 3G - Vodafone will continue to extend the service with the aim of providing 3G services with a level of coverage similar to that already offered over GPRS in all 23 major cities of Spain by the autumn.
Vodafone state that this quality of service will be extended to all provincial capitals before the end of this year. Within two years, 3G services will be available in all Spanish areas with a population of over 20,000 inhabitants.
The roll-out is similar for Vodafone in the other Med. bordering countries.
Early limited 3G Coverage issue.
Until the autumn the Vodafone 3G network will not be as extensive as the current GPRS network. To take care of this issue when a client is outside a 3G network, the Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS Datacard automatically switches to Vodafone’s GPRS network, which offers full coverage, meaning Vodafone customers will have continuous access to their normal office applications but at a reduced data speed.
Conclusions
Do not hold your breath, like any new technology; it will take a while for the service backbone to get established and for the service to run smoothly. We predict that by this time next year the service should be smooth.
Do not under estimate the significance of this advance. This is completely new technology; it is not an adaptation of an old system as GSM to GPRS was. We know a large number of our clients were impressed by GPRS, well the improvement here is radical.
A number of manufacturers have launched early handsets and data cards. They are different to existing equipment. Replacement will be required.
Our E3 Airtime division provides GSM, GPRS and 3G airtime contracts and communications equipment specifically tailored for the yachting market. We work in conjunction with Vodafone Spain and SFR in France. We also provide Inmarsat, Iridium and VSAT airtime solutions together with our E3 hosting service.
For further information contact: Tony Holland at E3 Airtime
or Erik Nieuwmeijer at E3 Systems.
Tel: +34 971 404208/400738 Fax: +34 971 404431
email: tony@e3s.com or erik@e3s.com