4G network is just a trend that is not expected to grow in the future

On February 17, a pot of cold water poured into 4G. Chen Jinfei, an analyst with CICC, issued a short review on the same day. The title is "Wait until the family fixed-line broadband reaches 100M and then consider 4G development - 4G has no practical significance! 》

The analyst who had served as Secretary-General of the TD-SCDMA Forum did have a good feeling for the communications industry. Its conclusion is clear and clear: “4G has no fundamental support for the psychological impact of market investment, 4G (4G referred to by Chen) Mainly LTE) is just a rally."

Combining with CICC's report last month also written by Chen, "China's mobile data demand is taking off," the report believes that "LTE will lack substantive significance in the next 3-5 years." Its arguments are mainly on two levels, the first level. Considering that LTE's relative price/performance ratio relative to 3G is not enough, forcing the launch of LTE is not enough to drive demand; the second level is that LTE TDD is still different from the mainstream LTE FDD standard, and forcibly promoting LTE TDD is not enough to drive the scale.

Although I deeply believe the conclusion of Chen’s report, it is necessary to talk about these two arguments.

Who is the LTE competitor? Not 3G, but HSPA+. Unlike LTE, which is totally different from 3G, HSPA+ is an enhancement technology based on 3G. Before HSPA+ was generally classified as a 3G category, but under the strong demand of some operators, ITU put HSPA+ as the 4G standard last December. This incident not only reflects the changes in the real interest structure, but also breaks the “褒LTE, depreciation 3G” atmosphere that the global communications industry has deliberately created for several years.

In terms of technology, HSPA+ and LTE are at the same level. Both rely on high-order modulation and MIMO to increase the rate. In the case of the same bandwidth, the single-station spectrum efficiency of the two technologies is almost the same, PA+ is slightly worse, and both Each kind of technology has its own advantages and disadvantages. Under large-scale networking conditions, LTE faces even more serious problems of co-channel interference (this is similar to both TDD and FDD). At this point, PA+ is better than LTE; in terms of increasing the channel bandwidth to increase the rate (for example, hope Channels occupy more than 10 Mbits of bandwidth. LTE technology adapts very well. PA+ needs carrier aggregation that results in a certain rate loss. LTE is better than PA+. If large-scale networking is implemented in the 10M band, the performance of LTE over PA+ is generally similar.

However, in terms of cost, there is no significant difference between the PA+ and LTE technologies. LTE is a completely different system from any standard mobile system in the world currently used for large-scale commercial applications. Building an LTE network must mean huge investment expenditures, certain technical uncertainties, and a few years of network optimization maturity. PA+ is a network that is superimposed on the basis of the original 3G system. The construction of a PA+ network generally requires software upgrades and very short optimization times. The difference in upgrade cost is the reason why the equipment industry was keen to bolster LTE. If operators implement LTE on a large scale, huge capital expenditures will be formed. If operators choose PA+, equipment vendors will get up to the cost of software upgrades. If the LTE market has not been started on schedule, where are the major revenue increases for several major equipment vendors in the past two years, this issue has very great uncertainty.

Since the cost difference is so disparate, why do many operators also actively participate in the LTE rally and even become the protagonist? Since PA+ is derived from 3G networks, WCDAM, CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA have their own corresponding PA+ technologies, but just as WCDMA is the mainstream of 3G, WCDMA PA+ is also the mainstream of PA+, with the most mature products and the most The supply and the lowest price. In this way, for the original WCDMA operators, the evolution to PA+ is a very cost-effective path. With the advancement of some US operators, the move to 4G through PA+ upgrades will be the main theme of the network evolution of mainstream carriers in 2011.

The remaining ones who use non-WCDMA or even non-3G operators have no mature choice of PA+. They have to start LTE in advance. It is one of the two core issues faced by carriers that they should not fall behind in the evolution. (The other is "transformation"). At present, the "most reliable" operators in LTE are China Mobile, which operates GSM/TD-SCDMA; Verizon, which operates CDMA; Softbank, Willcom, which operates PHS. In the future, these relatively less "mainstream" operators will become the main force for continuing to advance LTE.

Then, there are many non-WCDMA operators in the world. With the support of these operators, can LTE be launched on a large scale? The reasons for this are as follows: First, current operators are generally short of money, operators cannot afford large-scale capital expenditures for LTE, and secondly, the higher the data service rate is, the lower the profitability is, and there is no urgent need to promote demand. There is no incentive to invest in upgrading the network. Third, LTE is still a risky technology. LTE's co-channel interference challenge is more serious than TD-SCDMA. LTE large-scale network needs several years to stabilize, and LTE-Advanced is also In the near future, several years later, it may face the evolution of LTE-Advanced again. Therefore, within two to three years, rational operators should not choose to launch a large-scale LTE development. LTE will be more oriented to pre-commercial trials and hotspot deployments, and operators will wait for the clarity of Advanced. Of course, individual operators may not be bad, but if it is forced to launch large-scale LTE in recent years, it is likely to be the turning point.

Then talk about the issue of LTE TDD.

The proximity of LTE and subsequent FDD and TDD technologies in Advanced is unprecedented. If we must use percentages to express the difference, 10% is too large. On the other hand, as the bandwidth occupied by wireless technology channels becomes wider and wider in the future, the attractiveness of TDD standards is increasing, such as land and FDD, which is twice as much as TDD, and FDD is like buying a big house, which is two bits. Regular customers prepare two rooms; TDD is like buying a small house, leaving only one room but arranging two regulars to stagger. In the future, as the frequency spectrum becomes more and more scarce, operators will need to purchase more and more spectrum, and the economics of the TDD model will become increasingly attractive. Therefore, in the future LTE-Advanced, TDD and FDD can become mainstream at the same time, and even beyond the mainstream of FDD in the future.

However, the precondition for TDD to become an international mainstream is that China needs a certain strategy. "Indigenous innovation" does not require shouting, shouting will not make others afraid, the white and black words of patents are there, and the core patent owner has nothing to do with the size of the shouting sound. The same as WTDCDMA, LTE TDD, Huawei, ZTE and Datang products can still be exported to the world, the interests of the dispute should be slamming; LTETDD do the same as TD-SCDMA, "Global cooperation is just a polite gimmick "The foreign operators only pay no money to the face. Just as Sweden or Finland did not always call WCDMA there to be independent innovation, WCDMA conquered the world; Qualcomm old people called CDMA to be independent innovation, and the world joined forces to conquer Qualcomm.

Finally sum up. First, in 2011 and in the next 1 to 2 years, HSPA+ is the mainstream of 4G. Global operators will become a trend toward 4G through PA+. Second, LTE will be more oriented to trials and trials, but LTE will lead operations. Business investment is extremely important for equipment vendors, and LTE is also very important for some operators. LTE's global momentum is still in full swing. Third, TDD has conditions to become mainstream, but the premise is to have a proper Chinese strategy. Fourth, in a large number of telecommunications analysis. In the case of a teacher and a cloudless person, Chen Yufei’s report went straight to the point and was bold and knowledgeable. It was just a matter of fact.