3G Handset and Network Design

CHAPTER 11

Spectral Allocation—Impact on Network Hardware Design

In Parts I and II of the book we covered handset hardware and handset software form factor. We said handset hardware and software has a direct impact on offered traffic, which in turn has an impact on network topology. The SIM/USIM in the subscriber's handset describes a user's right of access to delivery and memory bandwidth, for example, priority over other users. Handset hardware dictates image and audio bandwidth and data rate on the uplink (CMOS imaging, audio encoding). Similarly, handset hardware dictates image and audio bandwidth and data rate on the downlink (speaker/headset quality and display/display driver bandwidth).

In this part of the book we discuss how network hardware has to adapt. We have defined that there is a need to deliver additional bandwidth (bandwidth quantity), but we also have to deliver bandwidth quality. We have defined bandwidth quality as the ability to preserve product value—the product being the rich media components captured from the subscriber (uplink value).

Searching for Quality Metrics in an Asynchronous Universe

Delay and delay variability and packet loss are important quality metrics, particularly if we need to deliver consistent end-to-end application performance. The change in handset hardware and software has increased application bandwidth—the need to simultaneously encode multiple per-user traffic streams, any one of which can be highly variable in terms of data rate ...