« Alltel Offers EVDO | Main | Nokia to Resell SK Teletech EVDO Phones »

March 30, 2005

Orange to Trial IPWireless

By Nancy Gohring

Orange said it has launched a trial of IPWireless gear in Lille, France: The trial is aimed at helping the operator determine how best to use its TDD frequency. Most UMTS operators in Europe received TDD spectrum in addition to the FDD used by their W-CDMA networks. Just recently the operators seem to be really investigating their options for how to best use the TDD band. They don’t actually have tons of options. Most of the European regulatory bodies require operators to only deploy technologies in the UMTS bands that are approved by the 3GPP, which is a group of standardization bodies. IPWireless’ technology is approved by 3GPP as part of the UMTS family of standards.

Even though IPWireless’ technology is a mobile solution, operators in Europe vary on whether they’ll deploy a mobile solution or introduce a fixed, DSL replacement. They may decide on a market-by-market basis. Some operators are dedicated to their HSDPA upgrades to enable mobile data applications, planning to use their TDD spectrum for a fixed broadband offering, especially in markets that don’t already have tons of competition for broadband services to the home. Others talk of a converged IPWireless/W-CDMA solution that may enable the higher speed connectivity in pockets. The Orange trial appears to be a mobile offering.

Flarion has also been targeting cellular operators in hopes of winning deployments of its broadband wireless technologies. But Flarion faces challenges in Europe in that it isn’t part of the 3GPP family. That means it has regulatory hurdles to scale before UMTS operators can deploy its technology.

Posted by nancyg at March 30, 2005 7:22 AM

Categories: TD-CDMA

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:

Comments