On Friday, I had a chance to tour Ericsson’s Ottawa facility, housing their CDMA and LTE research and development labs.
The Ottawa labs are responsible for a sizable global mandate for the networking equipment giant, evidence of Ericsson’s continuing confidence in its Canadian operations. We were able to see how researchers in Ottawa collaborate with their counterparts in Stockholm, ‘following the sun’ to extend the work day.
The tour provided more than just a view of wireless development at play, which would have been impressive in its own right. There were demonstrations of some of the applications that are driving the insatiable demand for spectrum (a subject that will be explored at The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit).
Among the interesting demonstrations was the ability to show the variations in quality of different bit rates of encoded high definition video. Many people don’t have equipment (or eyes) that can easily differentiate between 2 and 4 Mbps encoding, perhaps helping Atop Broadband’s plans for over the top IPTV that we wrote about a few weeks ago. Although, Ericsson had a flat panel screen that upon close examination showed that my Super Bowl party might be slightly enhanced by up to 8 Mbps, if you want to count the hairs on the forearm of the wide receiver.
As we looked at LTE data rates, one of the reporters asked what speeds end users would receive, as more smartphones are in the field contesting for that capacity.
It started me thinking about what kinds of applications might actually need more than about 4Mbps in throughput. Certainly, a computer that is downloading very large files in the background while watching a video in the foreground has the ability to consume whatever throughput is available.
But in terms of real-time throughput requirements, 4 Mbps delivers high quality video and any concurrent voice or messaging is almost trivial incremental demand. If we want users to be able to access streaming HD video, then average throughput of 4Mbps should suffice. Keep in mind that the flow of a streaming video is dependent on more than just the final connection. The source and the long haul network are susceptible to hiccups along the way as well. As a result, most applications use ‘buffering’ techniques that allow for variations in network delivery.
Ericsson also spoke of tests of boomer cell sites in Australia, that permitted ultra-high speed mobile data connectivity up to 200 kms from a tower, under ‘very ideal’ topographic conditions.
Coincidentally, the tour took place on the opposite side of the river as the CRTC wound up its hearings examining, among other issues, universal access to broadband connectivity. I’m sure there is a message in there as the CRTC looks at setting aspirational targets for Canada’s broadband infrastructure and whether to mandate a new service obligation on carriers.
It appears that competition is being aided by continually evolving technologies.