Summary of LTE Asia 2012 Highlights

1. LTE Asia 2012 Highlights
LTE Asia
18th-19th September 2012
www.alanquayle.com/blog
© 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

2. Outline Part 1
• LTE Data Points
o 96 Commercial LTE deployments mainly in the 1.8 and 2.8GHz bands
o APAC has 40% of LTE subscribers, likely to be the high growth region
o Drivers for LTE: Throughput, efficiency and low latency
o TD-LTE: 12 commercial deployments, 24 contracts and 53 Trials
o Streaming video dominates traffic on handheld devices, with YouTube being the top traffic generator at 27% of peak
traffic
• South Korea Data Explosion
o South Korea has seen OTT explode, Kakao Talk 51 mins of usage per day
o 20 times smartphone growth in 2 years (28M in June 2012, 53% penetration)
o 60 times mobile data growth to 37TB per month, 32% is from LTE devices
o LTE subs use 2.9GB per month compared to 3G sub on average use 1.2GB
o LTE subs reached 10M, 141% month growth
o Drive for LTE speed (37%) and latest device (31%)
o Challenge Jan 2010 and Jan 2012 ARPU fallen from $48-$35 while data use risen from 180MB to
992MB
o Focus beyond voice, messaging and data into VAS: virtual goods (Korean thing), ICT and cloud
services / solutions (focus on enterprise)
• HK CSL Migration to LTE
o 3G is congested, LTE is not
o Key is LTE devices available, unlike the early 3G days
o Migrating customers away from unlimited plans to family and shared plans that deliver value
o LTE sub uses 2-5 times the data of 3G subs
o CSFB works
o Average speed seen is 20 Mbps
o Using Software Defined Radio, Single vendor RAN, Self Organizing Networks
o Migration to LTE-A, small cells and WiFi where appropriate

3. Outline Part 2
• Starhub’s migration to LTE (they launched LTE at the event)
o 50% of voice traffic is still on 2G
o Using AMR to re-farm 2G spectrum to LTE
o Site access is critical – drive to software defined radio to avoid site visits
• NTT DoCoMo’s VoLTE Evolution
o 70% devices in portfolio are not LTE
o All smartphones support CSFB
o Drive to VoLTE is simply to switch off 3G voice (2G already off)
o BUT IMS has missing functionality / standards – migration from 3G to VoLTE is not easy – example of failing in
standards on basic issues
• Yes: Example of innovative converged 4G operator in an developing market that uses web principles for
service delivery
• Role of Mobile Identity in BYOD
o BYOD is as significant a trend if APAC as any other market
o 1 phone but 2 identities
o Provides a nice review of the approaches in managing BYOD
• LTE Quad-Play in Emerging Markets: TD-LTE case study
• Smartphone growth implications: Review of the signaling problem and mitigation strategies across 3G
and LTE. Highlights challenge current standards process in gap between specification and deployment.

4. LTE Data Points

5. LTE spectrum is a bit of a mess, there’s 41 bands in total which no one device can cover,
lack of a global frequency plan is one of the problems that killed WiMAX. Band issues
caused the problem we saw in Australia where its 4G iPad did not work on 4G. Likely
there will be a core set of frequencies that roam, e.g. 1.8 and 2.6 GHz. With 96
Commercial Deployments LTE makes much more sense in 2012 than in 2009.

6. APAC accounts for 40% of LTE subscribers, and is likely to be the fastest growing
region given the number of emerging market LTE deployments focused on
converged access (across fixed and mobile).

7. Things really get interesting with LTE-A and B, which are where the capacity
really starts to grow. In discussions at the show many operators with available
spectrum are looking at LTE-A and B rather than using WiFi or Super-WiFi. Note
HSPA/LTE spectral efficiency is only 20% difference.

8. TD-LTE (Time Division-Long Term Evolution) is gaining much interest in APAC,
most operators are putting this on their roadmap, its no longer a ‘China Mobile
special.’

9. Its Video – nearly 70% of it, with YouTube making up nearly half of that traffic. Smart cache, as discussed
on this weblog several years ago is now critical: http://www.alanquayle.com/blog/2011/11/video-over-
the-internet-the-di.html and http://www.alanquayle.com/blog/2010/07/mobile-broadband-backhauls-
the.html

12. Caching is only part of the solution, and it needs to be done on the wire, not at the
object level.

13. South Korea Case Study

14. OTT in South Korea has significantly impacted operators’ revenues

19. Device availability has been critical to this rapid take-off (especially compared to
3G back in 2000/2001)

20. Put simply people want the WiFi experience at home and in the office on the
move.

21. OTT has impacted Operator Revenues more than any other country

22. On view of the many on where new revenues will come from, common theme is ICT (Information
and Communications Technology) services and solutions targeting Enterprise customers.

23. South Korea and Japan are unique markets, while the open competitive environment of Hong
Kong provides a template for most markets.

36. Starhub launched LTE during the conference

38. Software Defined Radio and a Single RAN supplier are critical to costs of operations.

41. Circuit Switched Fall Back works and most operators are happy with it.

42. NTT’s drive to VoLTE is 3G voice switch off, but the time pressure is not intense, yet.

44. More examples of how standards fail to deliver in critical areas given the massive amount of time
and effort invested.

46. Innovative LTE operator in an emerging market.

49. Nice comparison of the BYOB options

55. TD-LTE deployment example in an emerging market – they simply to not have the copper in the
ground for DSL.

60. Nice summary of the signaling issues and mitigation strategies – good example of the lag between
standards spec and real-world deployment means many issues are not considered.