Product and Service Opportunities from Short-Range Wireless Technologies: WLAN,

Product and Service Opportunities from Short-Range Wireless Technologies: WLAN, Bluetooth, UWB and NFC

Product Type: Market Research Report
Published by: Analysys Mason
Published: March 2005
Product Code: R51-176

Description

Several new short-range wireless technologies are now vying for widespread incorporation into mobile phones. For users, these could enhance existing applications and enable a variety of new applications, such as faster data downloading and uploading, cheap voice over IP, secure electronic transactions and ease-of-use benefits. For mobile and other operators, they present a variety of revenue opportunities and threats, as well as creating product opportunities for component and equipment vendors.

This report assesses the capabilities, potential applications and revenue opportunities of the new short-range wireless technologies, including enhanced WLAN (IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.11n), Bluetooth 2.0, Near Field Communication (NFC) and Ultra WideBand (UWB). The report identifies the actions that operators and equipment vendors must take to steer their developments and benefit from the winning technologies.

Product and Service Opportunities from Short-Range Wireless Technologies: WLAN, Bluetooth, UWB and NFC answers your key questions:

What will these developments really deliver in terms of capabilities, performance and applications enabled?
What benefits could they provide for mobile users?
What service opportunities and threats could they create for mobile operators and other players such as fixed operators?
Which technologies are likely to see ubiquitous deployment in mobile handsets, and when?
What actions need to be taken by mobile operators and mobile device manufacturers to maximise opportunities and minimise threats?

Table of Contents

0 Summary

1 New short-range wireless technologies in mobile phones could have significant implications

1.1 New short-range technologies could be widely deployed in mobile devices

1.2 The impact on mobile operators will be a function of demand, business model and ease of implementation

2 Enhanced IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards could become the preferred choice for mobile handsets

2.1 IEEE 802.11a, b and g have been widely deployed, but limitations constrain their usefulness in mobile devices

2.2 IEEE 802.11n uses advanced MIMO technology to increase data rate and range, enhancing existing WLAN applications

2.3 IEEE 802.11e will improve support of VoIP, but fragmented adoption could slow take-up

2.4 The combination of IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.11n could make WLAN an attractive alternative for voice telephony

2.5 IEEE 802.11 enhancements could support many UWB applications, potentially displacing UWB from mobile handsets

3 Bluetooth and UWB do little to enhance operators’ service opportunities

3.1 Bluetooth has been extensively deployed in mobile handsets, but offers limited service opportunities

3.2 Bluetooth 2.0 provides useful, albeit limited, capability enhancements, but will not create new service opportunities

3.3 UWB offers much higher throughputs than Bluetooth, but is suffering delays and could cause interference with 3G

3.4 A narrow set of applications and devices, without service revenue opportunities, will limit economies of scale for UWB

4 NFC enables compelling new applications for mobile phones

4.1 NFC offers a simple and intuitive way for users to instigate communications and applications between electronic devices

4.2 NFC has applications in many consumer devices, but could have the greatest potential if implemented in mobile phones

4.3 NFC could lead to a range of new revenue opportunities for mobile operators

4.4 Implementation of NFC in the wider environment will be the key to its success

Actions

Figures and tables

Figure 1.1 Characteristics of short-range wireless technologies, in terms of throughput, range and power consumption

Table 2.1 Effective application throughput comparison of IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g

Figure 2.1 Relationship between WLAN throughput and range/receiver sensitivity for IEEE 802.11 standards

Table 2.2 Competing technologies for the IEEE 802.11n standard

Figure 2.2 Data rates achieved by MIMO-OFDM at 25dB signal-to-noise ratio

Figure 2.3 Signal-to-noise ratio required to achieve 140Mbit/s throughput with MIMO-OFDM

Table 3.1 Range and power output for Bluetooth power classes

Table 3.2 Examples of Bluetooth devices

Table 3.3 Comparison of typical uploading/downloading times for applications with Bluetooth and UWB

Figure 3.1 Range and throughput performance of UWB (OFDM-UWB) for four typical channel models

Table 3.4 Competing technologies for UWB standard

Table 3.5 Commercial suitability of UWB for different applications

Table 4.1 Features of NFC technology

Table 4.2 Examples of consumer applications enabled by NFC

Table 5.1 Evaluation of short-range wireless technologies that could be integrated into mobile devices in the next five years

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