3G. Wireless Communication Solutions

Internet telephony over mobile phones is on the way but don’t expect many commercial offerings until operators have made a key network technology enhancement, probably toward the end of 2007 or later in most parts of the world, according to a senior executive with Lucent Technologies.

The problem with providing VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service over mobile handsets today is the uplink, which is too slow to support quality voice calls. To increase uplink speeds, operators of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks, which dominate Europe and many parts of Asia and Latin America, will need to upgrade their networks with HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) technology.

How that timing fits into VOIP-over-mobile plans of Skype Technologies and the Hutchison 3 Group (Hutchison 3G) is unclear. At the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona last month, the two companies announced a partnership to provide the world’s first commercial VOIP service for mobile phones. Though Hutchison operates an IP-based network, it has not rolled out HUSPA.

Read more VoIP Go Mobile

Airvana plans to enter the inflight wireless broadband market. Working with industry leaders such as Verizon Airfone Inc, Airvana’s technology provides vast benefits over competing technologies.

The customized IP-based EVDO Rev. A radio base station has unique RF filtering capabilities to ensure that no interference is caused to systems operating in adjacent radio bands. Airvana’s Rev. A technology also includes a 3-4x increase in uplink speeds, and support for VoIP, broadcast and multicast services.

Verizon Airfone, first to use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology in an airborne system, has been demonstrating the system to commercial airlines by conducting flight tests since September 2004 that have achieved ground-to-air data speeds of 2.4 Mbps (megabits per second).

Upon receipt of a license from the FCC, Verizon Airfone plans to upgrade its existing North American ground network to enable this broadband capability and Airvana looks to play an integral role in that network expansion.

Read more IP-based EVDO Inflight Wireless Broadband