Need for speed: What telcos mean when they say 4G, LTE-A or VoLTE

Need for speed: What telcos mean when they say 4G, LTE-A or VoLTE
Telcos trying to outdo each other with their announcements of faster networks is a welcome move
Call drops notwithstanding, it’s a given that no internet user would ever grudge the efforts of a telecom services provider trying to provide a faster network. Hence, telcos trying to outdo each other with their announcements of faster networks is a welcome move.
On 31 August, Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest telecommunications services provider, said it has “deployed 4G Advanced technology (carrier aggregation across TD LTE and LTE FDD) in Mumbai”. This, Airtel claims, will result in a “superior 4G experience for Airtel customers through considerably faster data speeds and better coverage, indoors and outdoors”.
Telcos thrive on acronyms that most users little understand or even care about. Nevertheless, TDD LTE (also known as TD LTE) stands for Time Division Duplexing-Long Term Evolution. FDD LTE stands for Frequency-Division Duplexing LTE.
Both TDD and FDD differ in the way they treat data. Duplexing means a phone can transmit and receive simultaneously. TDD means the “receive” and “transmit” channels divide the time between them on the same frequency band. This means you can have more bandwidth available for either downloading or uploading.
FDD, on the other hand, uses a slightly different frequency for uploading and downloading. This does result in less possible interference and, hence, better reception. However, there are too many variables to decide which standard scores more when talking about faster downloads.
Airtel, on its part, launched its 4G services in Mumbai in May 2015 on the 2300 Mhz band using the TD LTE standard and recently added capacity on the 1800 Mhz band using FD LTE. Under carrier aggregation deployment, the capacities of TD LTE (2300 MHz spectrum band) and FD LTE (1800 MHz spectrum band) have been combined to enable better spectrum utilisation and efficiency. Carrier aggregation is used in LTE-Advanced in a bid to increase the bandwidth.
Vodafone India Ltd, meanwhile, is encouraging subscribers to “upgrade to Vodafone SuperNet 4G now to get faster speeds and a superior browsing experience”. The telco claims that its proprietary “SuperNet...not only boosts your upload and download speeds but also minimises your buffering time even while streaming HD videos”.
While no telco will state it openly, the clear driver for these announcements is the imminent launch of the Voice over LTE (VoLTE) commercial services by the telecom unit of Reliance Industries Ltd, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, which is set to make the going tougher for existing operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular Ltd. The mobile price wars, as reported in Mint on 30 August are another indication of the anticipated battle for cornering data users.
Also Read: Reliance Jio versus the rest: Round 4
Meanwhile, though, what does one make of Airtel’s “4G Advanced” technology, Vodafone’s “SuperNet” or RJio’s VoLTE for that matter?
The telecom world has seen a new mobile generation roughly every 10 years since the first 1G system was introduced in 1981. The first 2G system started to roll out in 1992, while the first 3G system first appeared in 2001. The 3G network is several times faster than the 2G one.
Almost all telcos claim they can provide speeds up to 21.1 Mbps on their 3G networks but real download speeds invariably fall when shared among users. Besides, most telcos have a so-called fair usage policy wherein speed drops after reaching a specified download limit.
In theory at least, 4G (which is a marketing term for LTE) should have data speeds capable of reaching 100-150 megabits per second while on the move, and 1GB per second when stationary. LTE Advanced (LTE-A) is supposed to be at least 3 times faster than standard 4G LTE speeds. Ericsson Inc. and Telstra Corp. Ltd, Australia’s largest telco, achieved a 1Gbps speed result over its LTE-A network in November 2015 “using a LTE-Advanced (five) Carrier Aggregation”.
VoLTE, as the name suggests, allows users to make voice calls over LTE. You may compare this to how you make voice calls over an instant messaging tool like WhatsApp.
Airtel claims its customers with mobile devices that support 4G Advanced will be able to enjoy 4G data speeds of over 100 Mbps—in effect, all those users with high-end smartphones.
In February, Airtel deployed India’s first carrier aggregation in Kerala and the network achieved 4G data speeds of up to 135 Mbps on commercially available mobile devices, the company said in its 31 August press release. This deployment (along with the Mumbai one) is a part of Airtel’s Project Leap, under which the telco plans to invest Rs.60,000 crore over the next three years to “meet the growing demand of voice and high speed data services in India and deliver the best network experience to its customers”.
In a 28 June report, Transparency Market Research (TMR) estimated the global LTE market to touch $610.71 billion by 2019 (it was $10.47 billion in 2012). Technology-wise, the market has been categorized into LTE Advanced (LTE-A), TD-LTE and LTE FDD. In 2012, the LTE-FDD segment led the overall market with a share of 56.8%, according to the TMR report. However, TMR predicts that the LTE Advanced segment will register the fastest growth in coming years.
So where does 5G fit in?
The buzz on fifth-generation, or 5G, technology is getting stronger. The speed of 5G is much faster than 4G—20 gigabits per second, fast enough to download HD movies in a span of seconds—and is expected to be the driver for trends such as the internet of things and initiatives such as smart cities and Digital India.
However, 5G networks are not expected to roll out until 2020 and the International Telecommunication Union is still working on 5G standards.

Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE),
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani’s speech at the company’s 42nd annual general meeting in Mumbai was sharply focused on the performance of his telecom unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (R-Jio).
The speech got a lot of traction online and resulted in the share prices of other telecom services providers (telcos) being beaten up even though R-Jio is yet to launch commercial services.
Ambani announced that R-Jio will offer mobile phone data at rates as low as Rs.50 per GB, signalling a price war in the world’s fastest-growing telecom market, he also underscored, among other things, that voice calls on R-Jio’s network will always be free.
R-Jio is primarily banking on Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE), which is essentially voice over internet protocol or IP-based LTE network. LTE is referred to as 4G.
Similar to how the internet works, VoLTE relies on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network, resulting in voice services being delivered as data flows. VoLTE as a technology makes sense as telcos are losing revenue from voice calls and SMS.
The question, of course, is whether VoLTE will help R-Jio gain ground and meet its target of 100 million subscribers in its first year of launch?
To begin with, R-Jio has spectrum to provide 4G LTE services in the following bands: 2300 MHz, 1800 MHz and 850 MHz (through a spectrum sharing partnership with Reliance Communications Ltd.). The company has to offer voice services using VoLTE technology on the same spectrum, or partner with an existing player to offer voice services on the Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) option.
CSFB is a technology whereby voice and SMS services are delivered to LTE devices through the use of GSM or another circuit-switched network. CSFB is needed because the all-IP LTE network cannot support circuit-switched calls.
To be sure, VoLTE is catching on globally, and also being integrated with voice over Wi-Fi, similar to what Ambani announced during the AGM. However, the catch as of now is that VoLTE remains an unproven technology in India. Besides, R-Jio’s announcement has trigged a price war with other major telcos like Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd, and Idea Cellular Ltd.
Where does VoLTE stand in the scheme of things?
Ever since Singapore Telecommunications Ltd introduced the world’s first commercial “full-featured” VoLTE service in May 2014, the VoLTE ecosystem has been evolving. In July, 2015, SEATEL Cambodia announced the world’s first commercial 100% VoLTE service without 2G/3G in Cambodia. Three months later, Telstra said it had started enabling VoLTE across its network.
The buzz on fifth-generation, or 5G, technology is getting stronger. Moreover, the speed of 5G is much faster than 4G—20 gigabits per second, fast enough to download HD movies in a span of seconds but 5G networks are not expected to roll out until 2020 and the International Telecommunication Union is still working on 5G standard.
Meanwhile, 4G LTE is already picking up. In a 28 June report, Transparency Market Research (TMR) estimated the global LTE market to touch $610.71 billion by 2019 (it was $10.47 billion in 2012).
Technology-wise, the market has been categorized into LTE Advanced (LTE-A), TD-LTE and LTE FDD. In 2012, the LTE-FDD segment led the overall market with a share of 56.8%, according to the TMR report. However, TMR predicts that the LTE Advanced segment will register the fastest growth in coming years.
There were 111 operators investing in VoLTE in 52 countries (deployments, trials, studies) and 30 operators commercially launched VoLTE-HD voice in 21 countries, as of 13 October, 2015, according to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA).
The countries where VoLTE has been launched include Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the UK and US.
A 30 June report by Allied Market Research titled, “World Voice LTE (VoLTE) Market” projects that the world VoLTE market is likely to generate revenue of $34.8 billion by 2022. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the largest VoLTE market during the forecast period on account of the early roll out of VoLTE and VoLTE-enabled devices by the operators in the developed countries in the region.
Mobile operators around the world are progressively heading towards VoLTE owing to the increasing investments in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), the report said.
Among the different VoLTE technologies, CSFB constitutes the highest market share owing to its wide acceptance globally, as the end-goal solution for offering voice services over LTE. Although, the technology requires specific modifications in the hardware infrastructure and utilizes multiple data transition elements, it remains the utmost cost-effective solution for voice provision in LTE, according to the report.

Foundational pact

Foundational pact
India-US military logistics agreement was long in the making. Its final version affirms critical importance of public debate.
It has been 12 years in the making, but it has finally seen the light of day. The military logistics agreement, called the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), was signed between India and the US on Monday in Washington, in the presence of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter. The agreement, the defence ministry has explained, “establishes basic terms, conditions, and procedures for reciprocal provision of Logistic Support, Supplies, and Services between the armed forces of India and the United States”. But that is not the full story. This mutual support is neither automatic nor all-encompassing. It can be used by either side exclusively during authorised port visits, joint exercises, joint training, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts.
Logistics support for any other cooperative effort will only be provided on a case by-case basis with prior mutual consent of the two countries.
It is because of these changes that the pact is called LEMOA. The usual military logistics agreement signed by the US with other countries is called the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA). It has a standard draft text, which the Americans expected the Indians to sign on. In the UPA regime, India wasn’t keen to sign the pact. But even when the BJP government came to power in Delhi, the defence ministry negotiated hard over its text. The modified LSA text is called the LEMOA. That concerns of being seen as too close a US military ally are still at the top of the mind of the government, is reflected in the statement on the signing of the LEMOA issued by the defence ministry which asserts that “the Agreement does not create any obligations on either Party to carry out any joint activity. It does not provide for the establishment of any bases or basing arrangements.” It is easy to be critical of Delhi for the long time taken in signing on the dotted line, but the final text which takes care of India’s concerns is testimony to a vibrant polity and its ability to safeguard the country’s interests.When discussions to sign the logistics pact started in 2004, it was one of the four “foundational pacts” the US wanted India to sign. The others are the End User Verification Agreement — which the two countries have already signed — a Communications Interoperability & Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and the Basic Exchange & Cooperation Agreement on geo-spatial services (BECA). At the press conference in Washington, Parrikar refused to commit on the two pending pacts. He reminded American journalists that inking of the LEMOA itself has taken 12 years, and he would first put out its details in the public domain for discussion. CISMOA and BECA are even more complex agreements, and it would be prudent to have a public debate before they are signed. That is one lesson from LEMOA that must not be lost sight of.

Public policy requirements of the 21st century demand a bureaucracy less generalist

Day of the specialist
Public policy requirements of the 21st century demand a bureaucracy less generalist
In 1921, a Harvard medical school professor, Lawrence Henderson, wrote that medicine had crossed a “great divide” because “for the first time in human history a random patient with a random disease consulting a doctor at random stands a better than 50/50 chance of benefiting from the encounter”. In other words, knowledge, complexity and evidence in medicine had advanced to a point where it was better to be treated by physicians than to run in fear of them. India stands at a similar “great divide”: Generalists are more dangerous than specialists and the rising standards of human capital in public policy areas — education, healthcare, public finance, urbanisation — means we must stop equating bureaucrats with technocrats.
The most complex decision for any entrepreneur — social or business — is choosing between generalists and specialists because, as the American politician Mario Cuomo said, “You campaign in poetry but govern in prose”. Any effective organisation needs both; too much poetry, you get nothing done. Too much prose and you do nothing great. India’s current policy problems are very different from the nation-building challenge the country faced after Independence — job creation is an execution problem — and therefore equating bureaucrats with technocrats is wrong. The reasons are as follows: Politics is closer to poetry than to prose. The bureaucrat’s job is closer to writing prose than composing poetry; mostly implementing policy. But one needs to know a subject well enough to give inputs and also make them as simple as possible. Additionally, our binding constraint has shifted from the sins of commission (what the government does wrong) to the sins of omission (what the government does not do). This means outcomes need building coalitions, creating specialised knowledge, less hierarchy, more collaboration, domain networks and flatter professional structures.
Civil servants are often better-educated and more articulate than ministers; so they are able to talk about any area. But familiarity is different from mastery. The most interesting recent books about adult learning — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow, Carol Dweck’s Mindset, Angela Duckworkth’s Grit, and Anders Ericsson’s Peak — suggest that mastery requires time. Isaiah Berlin once said “A fox knows many things but a hedgehog knows one important thing”. Better policy outcomes need hedgehogs; general practitioners don’t conduct heart surgeries.India’s private sector has substantially raised its stakes in human capital, technology and innovation since 1991. Of course, comparing private sector execution to government performance is unfair because private sector goals are finite unlike the multiple and often contradictory goals of the government. But the capacity of the state does lag in certain respects and fixing it doesn’t need more cooks, but a different recipe. Political economist Charles Lindblom once described markets as similar to fingers (nimble and dexterous) and governments as akin to thumbs (powerful because of their capacity to exercise authority but lacking subtlety and flexibility). Countries should not have all fingers or all thumbs. Civil service reform is not a demand for a smaller state; it is needed to improve state capacity and effectiveness.
Of course, technocratic intervention alone is not enough to fix the government’s deficits. This is not a case for eliminating the generalist civil service but radically reforming it; ending the monopoly (25 per cent of top bureaucratic positions should be lateral entries), introducing specialisation (generalist civil servants must specialise after 10 years of field experience and have longer tenures), weeding out people (replicating the colonel threshold of the army for early retirement if not shortlisted for promotion), sharper performance management (it is mathematically impossible for 95 per cent to be outstanding. The across-the-board pay increases are unfair), ending ageism (we need to give top jobs to people when they are 45 rather than 58 years old), giving the top roles to functional services (for example, adopting the police commissioner system nationally), de-layering (eliminating additional and special secretaries) and rationalising (cutting the number of Central ministries to 25).
India and China are on opposite sides of this great divide. China’s geographic core has been governed, almost non-stop, by a rationalist bureaucracy since the late sixth century. But China is banging against the limits of what Daniel Bell admiringly describes as a “political meritocracy” in The China Model. The Chinese state’s sole focus on improving material conditions by “filling their stomachs and emptying their minds” is running out of steam as an increasingly affluent middle class recognises that they don’t live in an economy but a society and need more generalists (elected politicians and impartial judges). India, in contrast, has enough politicians but needs technocrats. In his book, China’s Economy, Arthur Kroeber suggests that, in public, Chinese officials like to describe reforms as “crossing the river by feeling for the stones” but in private they admit it’s more like “walking a tightrope over a bottomless pit with the rope behind you on fire”. A tightrope, raging fire, and bottomless pit are apt metaphors for urgency of reforms in India. The expiry date for generalist senior bureaucrats is past because they were never — and have only rarely become — technocrats.

ISRO’s supersonic combustion ramjet engine

The test launch of ISRO’s supersonic combustion ramjet engine — or scramjet for short — is a tiny but very important step which will give the Indian aerospace industry a competitive edge in the future. Conventional rockets carry fuel and liquid oxygen, which make up about three quarters of launch weight. A large proportion of that is liquid oxygen. If the engine breathed atmosphere oxygen instead of carrying lox, the payload capacity of the vehicle would increase dramatically. Besides, while conventional rocket stages are consumables, jettisoned after use to burn up on re-entry, air-breathing engines can be designed to be reusable, gliding or parachuting back to earth when expended.

Traditionally the province of government programmes to secure strategic advantage and national prestige, space is turning into a business, a competitive space. The Indian space programme has earned the world’s admiration on precisely this count, encashing imagination and technical ingenuity to slash costs and increase competitiveness in the launch vehicle market. Reusable vehicles with big payloads will cut launch costs and widen margins. In defence, the next generation of cruise missiles is likely to be powered by scramjets that reach hypersonic speeds. However, civil aviation could commercialise air-breathing rocket engine technology even earlier than the space industry. It has a greater incentive and a bigger market. Intercontinental flights which use scramjets to reach hypersonic speeds at the edge of space would cut travel time by a factor in the range of a fifth to an eighth. Long-haul international flights would take no longer than domestic flights do now.
India is now one of only four countries to work on scramjets. ISRO has gained early mover advantage in a technology that is expected to be deployed rapidly in several sectors of aerospace. In terms of strategic and business advantage, the benefits will be enormous.

Saurashtra Narmada Irrigation (SAUNI) Project

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi today unveiled a plaque to launch the Saurashtra Narmada Irrigation (SAUNI) Project at Sanosara in Gujarat.
The Prime Minister visited the AJI-3 dam site, and witnessed the release of water from the gates of the dam.
Addressing a large gathering on the occasion, the Prime Minister recalled that even as Chief Minister of Gujarat, it had always been his firm belief that water was most important for the farmer. He said that the water table in the State had begun to rise. Check dams have also been built in large numbers, he added.

The Prime Minister noted how the situation had changed even in Kutch, where even our jawans did not get enough water at one point of time.
The Prime Minister said he still remembered the time when he had first met lawmakers from Saurashtra, and discussed the SAUNI Project. He said this is an initiative that should make every Gujarati proud.
Shri Narendra Modi also emphasized on the need for water conservation, and spoke about the various initiatives taken by the Union Government for the welfare of the farmers, such as crop insurance.

India and the United States Sign the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)

India and the United States Sign the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)
India and the United States have signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement (LEMOA) in Washington DC, USA on 29 August 2016.
LEMOA is a facilitating agreement that establishes basic terms, conditions, and procedures for reciprocal provision of Logistic Support, Supplies, and Services between the armed forces of India and the United States.

Logistic Support, Supplies, and Services include food, water, billeting, transportation, petroleum, oils, lubricants, clothing, communication services, medical services, storage services, training services, spare parts and components, repair and maintenance services, calibration services, and port services.
Reciprocal logistic support would be used exclusively during authorized port visits, joint exercises, joint training, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts.
Logistics support for any other cooperative efforts shall only be provided on a case-by-case basis through prior mutual consent of the Parties, consistent with their respective laws, regulations and policies.
Provision of Logistic Support, Supplies, and Services from one Party to the other would be in return for either cash payment or the reciprocal provision of Logistic Support, Supplies, and Services.
The Agreement does not create any obligations on either Party to carry out any joint activity. It does not provide for the establishment of any bases or basing arrangements.
The Agreement will significantly enhance the operational capacity of the Indian Armed Forces, including in their response to humanitarian crises or disaster relief.

 

ISRO successfully test-fires scramjet engine

The Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), a sounding rocket (research rocket) with a solid booster carrying advanced scramjet engines, was successfully flight-tested from the launch pad of the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre, also known as Sriharikota Range (SHAR), at Sriharikota on Sunday.

This first experimental mission of Indian Space Research Organisation is aimed at the realisation of an Air Breathing Propulsion System which uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen from the atmosphere air as the oxidiser.

The mission had a smooth countdown of 12 hours as the ATV with scramjet engines weighing 3277 kg lifted off at 6 a.m. ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar and SHAR director P. Kunhikrishnan along with a host of space scientists were present at Sriharikota on the occasion.

The ATV vehicle, which touched down in the Bay of Bengal approximately 320 km from Sriharikota after a flight of 300 seconds, was successfully tracked during its flight from the ground stations at Sriharikota. With this, the ISRO had successfully demonstrated its capabilities in critical technologies like ignition of air breathing engines at supersonic speed, air intake mechanism and fuel injection systems.

Technological challenges handled by ISRO scientists during the development of the scramjet engine include the design and development of hypersonic engine air intake, the supersonic combustor, proper thermal management and ground testing of the engines.

With this, India became the fourth country to demonstrate the flight testing of a scramjet engines. This mission is a milestone for ISRO’s future space transportation system.

The scientists said that all the important flight events such as the burn out of booster rocket stage and functioning of scramjet engines for 5 seconds followed by burn out of the second stage took place exactly as planned.

10 things to know about ISRO's scramjet engine launch

1	India successfully tests its own scramjet engine in flight on board an Advanced Technology Vehicle rocket.
2	Two scramjet engines were tested during the flight from Sriharikota.
3	India is the fourth country to demonstrate the flight testing of scramjet engine.
4	Scramjet engines in flight is an important milestone in ISRO’s endeavour towards its future space transportation system.
5	The scramjet engine is used only during the atmospheric phase of the rocket’s flight.
6	Scramjet engines will help bringing down launch cost by reducing the amount of oxidiser to be carried along with the fuel.
7	Scramjet engines designed by ISRO uses hydrogen as fuel and the oxygen from the atmospheric air as the oxidiser.
8	The test-flight is maiden short duration experimental test of ISRO’s scramjet engine with a hypersonic flight at Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound).
9	Two scramjet engines were “hugging” the rocket on its sides and when the rocket reaches a height of 11 km the scramjet engines would start breathing air.
10	The ATV rocket weighed 3,277 kg during lift-off.