INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Broadband Wireless Systems

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The market for broadband communications is growing rapidly, and the potential applications and services are numerous and diverse. Several technologies are currently being developed to offer such services. Both wired and wireless system solutions aim to win a share of the market. The wired contenders include digital subscriber lines (xDSL), cable modems and others. The wireless contenders include satellite communications systems, stratospheric communications systems, and terrestrial communications systems, specifically, Multipoint Multichannel Distribution Service (MMDS) and Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS). While these systems do not all target identical market segments, the likely markets do overlap. The various broadband wireless access systems compete therefore more against high-speed wired solutions than against each other. Table III-1 from Allied Business Intelligence, Inc. presents a forecast of market share for various high-speed communication solutions [BWS1]. This forecast projects that wired technologies would command about 75 % of subscribers in the year 2003.

Broadband Subscribers by Technology, US Market, 2003

(source Allied Business Intelligence, Inc.)

ADSL 36 %

Cable Modem 26 %

ISDN 12 %

Satellite 12 %

LMDS 9 %

Others 5 %

A. Terrestrial Broadband Wireless Systems

A common way to classify broadband terrestrial, wireless fixed communications systems is to call systems using frequencies below 10 GHz MMDS systems and to call systems using frequencies above 10 GHz LMDS systems. The motivation for this classification is that the propagation characteristics are quite different at say 30 GHz than at 5 GHz. Equipment and components for frequencies under 10 GHz are mature, while equipment at higher frequencies is based on technology that still is relatively new and expensive. Systems at frequencies above 20 GHz are for fixed users. Systems below 10 GHz are also for fixed users, but may evolve to serve mobile users.

A.1 MMDS (Multipoint Multichannel Distribution Service)

MMDS is often referred to as wireless cable [BWS2]. In 1996, the FCC auctioned off licenses in the 2150-2162 MHz band and the 2500-2686 MHz band in 493 markets within the US. In September 1998 the FCC cleared the way for using the spectrum for two-way digital services [BWS3]. New rules also allow more freedom for various other uses within these bands. This new authorization will effectively enable voice, video, and data over wireless cable. However, the bandwidth allocated to the return link is modest (2686-2689.6 MHz). A number of operators are offering commercially high-speed Internet access, where the telephone line is used as return link. Many trials are underway for wireless two-way data, voice and video communication.

A.1.1 Technical Overview.

MMDS operators broadcast multiple TV channels or related services from an antenna located on a tower, tall building or mountain. The signals are received by microwave dishes typically about 40-50 cm in diameter, or perhaps larger in outlying areas. Information can be distributed within 25 or 30 km within line-of–sight from each main tower. A block down converter integrated into or mounted on an antenna mast translates the received signals into the band utilized by standard cable TV. A set-top converter identical in function to a standard cable TV channel selector is located near the TV receiver. Digital TV requires a set-top box for every television set. When Internet access is provided, the downstream data rate for individual subscribers can be up to 750 kbps.

The total data rate offered by a base station is on the order of 1 Gbps, depending on coding, modulation and roll-off factor. Sectorization will however increase this number. For instance, with a reuse factor of 18 (10 degree sectors), the cumulative downstream data rate for one base station is almost 20 Gbps [BWS4]. For upstream, the available bandwidth is much smaller, and a less complex modulation scheme is likely to be used to allow low power transmitters at the subscriber location. The data rate will therefore be much smaller, on the order of 6 Mbps, without sectorization [BWS5].

A.1.2 Prediction for the Future of MMDS

Some hard times have plagued the MMDS industry in recent years. For instance, in October 1998 Heartland Wireless Inc, America’s largest MMDS provider with approximately 165,000 subscribers, was delisted from the NASDAQ stock exchange. Heartland reportedly failed to meet minimum closing bid and net tangible asset requirements. Residential users constitute the main market for MMDS systems, even though MMDS is being offered to small and medium businesses. The main applications for MMDS include TV, either broadcasting or on demand, and Internet access. The competition from cable companies and telephony companies is hard, leading some people to question the market viability of MMDS technology. MMDS systems have however the advantage that they run at a relatively low frequency. The cost of microwave components at 5 GHz is relatively modest, permitting low-cost customer premise equipment (CPE) and components that are readily available today. Introducting cellularization and sectorization into MMDS will however add complexity and cost to the system. Another advantage of MMDS systems is easy deployment. An MMDS system can be deployed typically in from two to six months. Later this year some operators are planning to offer business Internet services over MMDS that compete directly with asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) services [BWA20]. For example, DataChron, which offers MMDS in Boston and New York, charges corporate customers $99/month for access by one workstation and $249/month for access by ten or more workstations. DataChron also offers home service for $49/month. MMDS coverage for wireless digital TV is also expanding somewhat, especially in the territory covered by BellSouth.

The Future of the Wireless Technology

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Wireless telephony systems are here to stay in a big way, unlike some other wireless technologies, which are on the drawing board and may never turn into viable commercial products and services. Investment in the wireless telephony industry is at $50.1 billion in capital investments and $20 billion in spectrum auction fees in the US. There are more than 60 million wireless subscribers in the US now, and the average monthly bill per user was at just below $40 in 1998. It is anticipated that there will be 170 million wireless users in the US by 2007; that’s more than 50% of the population.

The purpose of this subsection is to help identify a NIST role in this important area of information technology. Since the NIST role will be mainly in the terrestrial 3G systems, and it is an accepted fact that the ITU process will result in at least two standards (one for terrestrial and one for satellite systems), we concentrate on terrestrial 3G systems in the rest of this section. At the time of writing of this report, and within eleven months of the completion of the IMT-2000 standard, it is not clear at all whether a single, global standard for terrestrial wireless communication systems will emerge at the end of the ITU standardization effort. There are three major obstacles that have to be removed before there can be such a standard. The 16th Meeting of ITU-R TG8/1 in Brazil in March 1999 will determine how likely it is that these obstacles will be removed, and a single international terrestrial standard for 3G wireless systems developed by the end of 1999. Each of the major obstacles is discussed below.

1. Manufacturers’ Interest: An IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) conflict between Qualcomm and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has been in the news for the past several months. Qualcomm is the major force behind TIA’s cdma2000 proposal, and ETSI is the sponsor of the W-CDMA proposal backed by all the European countries. They are both based on wideband CDMA technology, where Ericsson and Qualcomm each have a number of patents. Although the best technical solution would need both sets of patents, it appears that the two camps are trying to find ways around each other's IPR. This would not result in the best technical solution. In summary, each manufacturer’s interest is to influence the development of the IMT-2000 standard so that it is based on as much IPR from that manufacturer as possible. Naturally, this leads to a conflict of interest.

2. Operators’ Interest: Each major operator providing cellular service has invested hundreds of million dollars in its present network and infrastructure. Each would like to see an IMT-2000 standard that is backward compatible to the secondgeneration (2G) technology they presently use. By backward compatible, we mean a system where an operator can use its existing network infrastructure as much as possible and where 2G and 3G systems can co-exist in a dual-mode handset (mobile terminal).

One can have a dual-mode phone that would support GSM and UTRA (this is what GSM operators, ETSI and the European countries wish to have), a dual-mode phone that would support IS-95 and cdma2000 (this is what IS-95 operators and Qualcomm wish to have), or a dual-phone that would support 2G TDMA technology (such as IS-136) and UWC- 136 (this is what an operator like Bell South likes to see happen). If a single standard is adopted, then many operators would have to spend a lot of money to change their systems, and this may just be too much for many of them to bear. Dual-mode phones are needed, because there will be a transition period where systems based on both 2G and 3G technologies will be operational. Of course, one can also think of multi-mode phones supporting more than two systems, but that would even further increase the price of the phones.

3. Spectrum Availability: One important promise of IMT-2000 is global roaming, and this requires availability of a single, sizable frequency band in all countries around the world. This is a major challenge, because spectrum allocations in different countries are different, and it is difficult to free up some frequency band that has already been allocated for other usage. For example, in the US, the FCC has auctioned some parts of the frequency spectrum. It is not possible to force the license holders to make their part of the spectrum available for IMT-2000 systems. The only remaining options are two. Would the license holders be willing to voluntarily use the spectrum for IMT-2000 systems? Would the license holders be willing to sell their licenses to service providers that wish to offer IMT-2000 services?

3rd Generation Wireless Systems

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3rd Generation Wireless Systems

The IMT-2000 standard for third-generation wireless systems is presently under development by the ITU-R Task Group 8/1 (R stands for radio). The ITU plans to complete this task by the end of 1999, hence the name IMT-2000 standard [3GW21,3GW8].

The IMT-2000 standard will offer users transmission rates up to 2 Mbits/sec, global roaming and interoperability, and a much wider array of wireless services. These should be contrasted with the second-generation wireless systems, which provide mainly voice service, some limited data communication capability (e.g., e-mail), and lack of interoperability due to the use of different systems and standards around the world. The transmission rate for second-generation systems is on the order of only tens of kilobits per second. Third-generation systems have the potential to offer users high data rate services such as web browsing (usually involving web pages with multimedia content) and even applications such as video teleconferencing. In the interim, and until systems based on the IMT-2000 standard are deployed some time between 2002 and 2006, the GSM operators plan to offer an enhanced version of the GSM system, called the EDGE system, with service rates up to 384 Kbps. EDGE employs a more spectrally efficient modulation scheme than GSM, as well as some other advanced techniques, but it is not as radical a departure from GSM as are the proposed third-generation systems. Some call EDGE a 2.5-generation system.

The deadline for submission of proposals for the air interface of the IMT-2000 system to the ITU was June 30, 1998. By that date fifteen RTT (Radio Transmission Technologies) proposals had been submitted, ten on terrestrial systems and five on satellite systems. A sixth satellite system, the Iridium system, was submitted to ITU after the expiration of the June 30 deadline. The Iridium proposal was accepted by ITU, and this brought the total number of RTT proposals under consideration to sixteen. These proposals were developed by national and regional standardization bodies and industry consortia in a handful of countries around the world. Between June 30 and September 30, 1998, these sixteen proposals were evaluated by ten evaluation bodies around the world. Not all evaluation groups evaluated all the sixteen proposals. As a matter of fact, all the evaluations and comparisons were based on the self-evaluations of the proposals made by the proposers themselves. No evaluation body had the time or resources to implement and simulate the different systems and carry out a more in-depth and unbiased evaluation of the proposals.

The period between September 30, 1998 and March 31, 1999 has been designated by the ITU as the time during which harmonization of different proposals is to take place, and a single set of key characteristics for the IMT-2000 standard is to emerge.

The following nine months until the end of this millennium have been reserved for further developing and refining the IMT-2000 standard until it is fully developed. During the year 2000, some field testing of the IMT-2000 standard is supposed to take place. Japan has the most ambitious goal of fully deploying an IMT- 2000 system in 2001. Europe and the US are not expected to deploy such systems until about 2005. In the remainder of this section, we present an overview of the terrestrial and satellite RTT proposals, go over various inhibitors to success, and describe and motivate NIST work plans and strategy as far as the IMT-2000 and future standards for wireless communication systems are concerned.

1. IMT-2000 Terrestrial Proposals: Ten RTT (radio transmission technology) terrestrial proposals were submitted to ITU, four from the US, two from Europe, two from Korea, and one each from Japan and China. Only the following four RTT proposals are the major contenders for the IMT-2000 standard: the cdma2000 and the UWC-136 RTT proposals from the US, the W-CDMA (or UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA)) from Europe, and the W-CDMA RTT proposal from Japan. The UWC- 136 RTT proposal, which is an extension of the IS-136 standard, is the only TDMAbased proposal among the four. The other three are all based on wide-band CDMA. In fact, the UTRA and the W-CDMA proposals are so similar that with most likelihood they will merge into a single proposal, a very strong force for the US proposals to contend with. Therefore, the term W-CDMA will be used to denote this joint effort underway by the 3G Partnership Program (3GPP) Consortium. In the interest of brevity, the other six RTT proposals submitted to the ITU will not be discussed, except to mention in passing that the remaining two RTT proposals from the US have merged into a single RTT proposal called the Wideband Packet CDMA (WP-CDMA) system, which is much closer to the W-CDMA system than to the cdma2000 system.
All these cellular systems use 5MHz channels within each cell. The channel bandwidth is strongly (but not entirely) dependent on a parameter called the chip rate in a direct-sequence CDMA (DS-CDMA) system. A major difference between the cdma2000 and the W-CDMA systems is that the former uses a chip rate of 3.6864MHz and the latter uses a chip rate of 4.096MHz. The chip rate chosen for cdma2000 is three times that used in the IS-95 system, and this was done for the purpose of backward compatibility with IS-95. In case of W-CDMA, the chip rate was chosen so that it would be backward compatible with GSM and the system in use in Japan. Of course, there are many other differences between the two systems, but perhaps none as divisive as the choice of chip rate. All three systems, and all other systems proposed to ITU for that matter, offer users a variety of transmission rates up to 2Mbits/sec. In fact, all sixteen RTT proposals (including the six satellite RTT proposals) meet all the ITU requirements for the IMT- 2000 standard. Whether a single standard will emerge from the ITU standardization effort depends on a number of factors, some of which are not technical. For example, the chip rate difference is due to the strong desire of the cellular system operators (service providers) to protect their investment in second-generation systems. Each operator would like to ensure that the IMT-2000 standard is, to the maximum extent possible, backward compatible with its second-generation system. Of course, it is not possible to keep everybody happy, because, together with the desire for having a system capable of offering worldwide roaming, that would mean expensive base stations and mobile user handsets as well as possibly an inefficient use of the frequency spectrum. This, and some other obstacles in way of having a single IMT-2000 standard for the whole world, is addressed later in this section.

2. IMT-2000 Satellite Proposals: A key difference between a terrestrial wireless system and a satellite wireless system [3GW22] is that it is simpler to provide global coverage with the latter. So, global roaming is a major selling point for the satellite systems. The drawbacks are the price of the service, the delay in communicating back and forth with a satellite in the earth orbit, and perhaps the reduced overall system capacity. It is very expensive to launch satellites to put base stations in the orbit. The satellite phones are also substantially more expensive than their terrestrial counterparts. The price difference depends on how high the satellite is in the orbit. The round trip delay of communicating with the satellite can lower the quality of service in real-time applications such as voice conversations and video teleconferencing. The reduction in capacity is due to the fact that a down-link satellite beam will cover a large geographic area on the earth. That makes frequency reuse difficult. Therefore, despite the huge investment of a number of companies in developing and deploying satellite systems for commercial cellular phone users, it is not expected that such systems would have nearly as large a market penetration as the terrestrial systems. It is sufficient to mention that users are expected to be charged anywhere from $3 to $6 per minute for phone calls made on a satellite mobile phone, and this is about ten times more expensive than the rate on terrestrial cellular systems. Therefore, mobile satellite phones will be attractive to users needing telecommunication capability and network connectivity in remote areas of the world or places that do not even have wireline phone service. This means that the market will require a class of customers for which price is not an issue or will require penetration into developing countries that do not have phone service. The percentage of the population in such countries that can afford using a satellite mobile phone and the extent of usage remains to be seen.

There is no strong reason that the six satellite RTT proposals should harmonize and merge into a single standard. Since they offer global coverage, it is perfectly OK for them to coexist as long as they can share the available frequency band. Given the high price of launching satellites and maintaining these systems, this is going to be a field for a small number of large players. From a business point of view, it may turn out that only one or two systems survive. For the satellite system operators, the ITU standardization process is like a seal of approval that may increase their chances of grabbing a larger share of the market. This seal of approval is not as crucial for them as it is for terrestrial wireless system operators.

1st & 2nd Generation Wireless Systems

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1st Generation Wireless Systems

The commercial use of mobile phones started in the US when AT&T developed the AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) system in late 1970’s [3GW9, 3GW1]. AMPS went into service first in Chicago area in 1983. The AMPS system is an analog communication system, which uses frequency modulation (FM) to transmit speech and frequency shift keying (FSK) to transmit important network control information in digital form [3GW10]. The AMPS system was designed primarily for carrying two-way voice conversations. Surprisingly, AMPS remains in use almost sixteen years after its introduction into the market. In fact, AMPS still enjoys 11% share of the cellular communications market in the US. Other analog mobile systems were introduced in Europe and Japan a few years earlier than AMPS was deployed in the US [3GW11]. However, unlike in the US, where AMPS was the only system introduced, European countries developed several incompatible systems. Lack of interoperability soon proved to be a major problem for many European users who regularly traveled to other countries within Europe for business and pleasure. The number of cellular users and the geographic coverage of the system increased steadily, but modestly, in the US.

2nd Generation Wireless Systems

In the 1980’s the Europeans recognized the need for a second generation of cellular systems based on digital modulation and transmission schemes, which promised a more efficient use of the available frequency spectrum. This translates into increased total communication capacity and hence the capability to offer cellular service to a larger number of users per unit area. To avoid the interoperability problems encountered with the first-generation systems, the European countries agreed to jointly develop a common system for the entire continent. The result was the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), which was first commercially deployed in 1991 [3GW12, 3GW2]. GSM uses many features made possible by adoption of digital technology, such as digital voice compression and encryption. GSM also introduced many innovations in network level architectures and services. The multiple access mechanism in GSM is Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), where each user in a cell transmits and receives information in time slots allocated to that user. The multiple access mechanism in the first-generation systems is Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), where each user is allocated two bands or channels in the frequency spectrum, one for transmitting information and one for receiving it. GSM was a major success for Europe by all accounts, allowing users to roam all over the continent and yet be able to use their mobile phones. The success of GSM spread throughout the world.

GSM now has the largest share of the market in the world with 64% of the user population using it [3GW2]. This was followed by the development of the digital cellular IS-54 standard [3GW13] in the US, which incorporated several important GSM network control innovations [3GW10].

The Japanese digital cellular standard, referred to as Pacific Digital Cellular (PDC), was designed soon after IS-54 was published [3GW14]. However, the Japanese soon found themselves with a system incompatible with AMPS, GSM, and IS-54. This system never found market acceptance outside of Japan.

During the almost ten-year development period of GSM in Europe, the Americans were reasonably satisfied with AMPS and there was no dire need for developing a new generation of mobile phones. This gradually changed when the number of users increased to a point where the AMPS system was no longer capable of providing the needed capacity. Of course, one can increase the capacity to a certain extent by making the cells smaller and having a larger frequency reuse. This was only a temporary solution and it soon became clear that a second-generation system had to be developed. This was the beginning of a lively, fierce, and often controversial debate on the access mode for the new system. A digital transmission technology called spread spectrum communications, developed for the US military more than 40 years ago [3GW15], was at the center of these discussions [3GW3]. In a spread spectrum system, a user spreads its transmitted signal over a frequency band much wider than the actual symbol bandwidth. This makes the signal look like noise, making eavesdropping difficult. The intended receiver, having knowledge of the spreading code or the frequency-hopping pattern used, is able to demodulate the signal. The privacy and security of spread spectrum communications makes it suitable for military communications.

As far as mercial use is concerned, spread spectrum is used with a multiple access scheme called Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) [3GW15, 3GW16], where each transmitting user spreads its signal over the entire available spectrum using its individual code. This turns out to be a very flexible and efficient use of the frequency spectrum, where the users can come and go any time into the system and only slightly change the "noise level" as far as the other users are concerned. In addition, the spread spectrum system very naturally exploits the fact that speech consists of almost 40% silence, where there is nothing to be transmitted. This statistical multiplexing gain translates into increased capacity for the system. A TDMA system can also take advantage of this large silence content in speech signals. So, the big debate in the US was about which system would offer a larger overall capacity for the available frequency bandwidth. Qualcomm, which first commercialized spread spectrum systems, claimed through various analyses that CDMA systems offered much higher capacity than TDMA systems. In the opposing camp, Ericsson and some other companies consistently rejected Qualcomm’s claim. The main difficulty was that TDMA and CDMA systems are complicated, and it is difficult to settle the capacity question in a decisive manner. This discussion raged in the US for a few years, leading to the introduction of the TDMAbased IS-54 and CDMA-based IS-95 [3GW17, 3GW5] standards in the US in 1992 and 1993, respectively. IS-136, a revised version of IS-54 with a digital control channel specification, was published in 1994 [3GW4], followed by IS-136A in 1996 [3GW18]. These second-generation systems were introduced in the US later than the GSM system’s introduction in Europe. In addition, the US market was fragmented into three parts, these two second-generation digital systems and the analog, first-generation AMPS system. In a sense, the situation in the US for second-generation systems is like what Europeans experienced at the time of first-generation systems: a multitude of systems and the resultant interoperability problems. This worked to GSM’s advantage and remarkable success with 140 million GSM users worldwide now. IS-136 and IS-95 have about 93 million and 12 million users, respectively.

Yet another family of second-generation wireless systems is that of Personal Communication Networks (PCNs) or Personal Communication Services (PCS). The objective of PCS or PCNs is to provide ubiquitous wireless communications coverage, enabling users to access telephone networks for different types of communication needs, without regard for the location of the user or the location of the information being accessed [3GW11]. It is clear that this definition has much overlap with that for mobile phones. In fact, according to [3GW10], PCS presently means different things to different people! In the US, the FCC issued PCS licenses in the 900 MHz band for “narrowband services” and near 1900 MHz band for “wideband services” in 1995, 1996, and 1997 without placing any restrictions on the air interface and system architecture to be used or nature of services to be offered. PCS license holders began offering services in 1995. The industry, which not surprisingly includes the largest cellular companies in the US, and the standards organizations, has adopted seven technical approaches to wideband PCS. Suffice it to say that the distinctions between cellular systems and PCS will most likely disappear as third-generation wireless systems are developed and deployed.

The need for wireless data communication services has been recognized for many years. Today there is 4% data and 96% voice traffic in wireless systems. The volume for data traffic, however, is expected to rise sharply due to the use of the Internet and the worldwide web. By 2005, some industry sources predict that there will be 70% data and only 30% voice traffic. Furthermore, the number of wireless phone users has been sharply increasing over the past few years and this trend is expected to continue for at least the next decade. Some industry sources expect that there will be more wireless phones in the world than wired phones by 2003. The number of wireless users is expected to hit 800 million by 2003. These drivers have made it more important than ever to use the precious available frequency band as efficiently as possible. From a capacity point of view, it is now generally accepted that the CDMA system is more efficient than the TDMA system, although the gap between the two is not nearly as wide as Qualcomm had originally claimed. While flexibility and ease of engineering may partly explain the higher relative use of TDMA systems, CDMA systems are becoming increasingly refined. Progress has also been made in the development of other signal

processing techniques and concepts for use in tomorrow's wireless systems. These include smart antennas and diversity techniques, better receivers, and hand over and power control algorithms with higher performance. Therefore, the search for thirdgeneration wireless systems began a few years ago under the guise of Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunication System (FPLMTS) [3GW6] by the International

Telecommunications Union. The name was later changed to International Mobile Telecommunication System 2000 (IMT-2000) in 1995 [3GW19, 3GW20]. The European efforts in this area started as the RACE (Research and Development of Advanced Communication Technologies) research program for development of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) [3GW19, 3GW20, 3GW7].

Introduction Wireless Communication Systems

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I. Introduction

In the 1960’s voice communication was carried to end subscribers almost exclusively on copper wires running from central office switches to homes and businesses, and television was broadcast to homes almost exclusively through the air modulated on electromagnetic waves. By the late 1980’s, industry pundits began to observe that the situation was reversing itself. Increasingly, voice communication was carried to end subscribers through the air modulated on electromagnetic waves, while television was broadcast to homes on copper coaxial cables (soon to be followed by fiber optic cables). Now, as the 21st century approaches, the situation appears decidedly more complex. Cellular telephony continues to expand at a rapid rate; however, numerous plans exist for igh-speed wireless backbones carried across networks of earth-orbiting satellites, both geostationary and on-stationary, as well as networks of aircraft and balloons. In addition, several companies are devising plans to deploy broadband wireless distribution systems in order to compete with cable and copper twisted pairs for delivering high bandwidth data and television signals to businesses and homes. Further a variety of embedded and portable devices are beginning to appear, carrying built-in picocellular wireless communication transceivers. Two things appear clear. First, during the 21st century, wireless information technology will play a large role in the life of the country’s citizens and in the country’s economy. Second, the wireless technology landscape is so vast and complex that any organization seeking to enter the fray must take careful stock of the opportunities ahead. This white paper, on wireless information technology for the 21st century, aims to inform the trategic decision-making process within the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The paper surveys the vast landscape of wireless information technology. In doing so, the paper attempts: (1) to identify market inhibitors facing various wireless technologies, (2) to make projections about the likely road ahead, and (3) to seek opportunities for the ITL particularly, and NIST more generally, to contribute to the removal of market inhibitors for key wireless technologies.

At the end, this white paper makes some recommendations on actions that the ITL and NIST should take to address the technological needs of the nascent wireless information technology industry. These needs include sharing the risk of development for key technical innovations and infrastructure standards, and providing the measurement science needed to inform industry decision-making when choosing among competing technical approaches to solve the difficult engineering problems inhibiting the successful deployment of wireless information technology.

II. Wireless Communications Systems

The market for wireless cellular telephony services has grown dramatically over the past 15 years, as wireless technology supporting such services has developed through two generations. At present, the wireless telephony industry is poised to develop and deploy a third generation of wireless systems that will increase spectral efficiency for voice users and offer flexible multimedia data services. The subsections that follow outline the progress of wireless telephony across all three generations, concentrating on the technical, economics, and standards battles raging with respect to the third-generation systems, which have yet to be deployed. The future of wireless communications

technology is considered in order to identify opportunities for NIST to help the industry realize its technical and economic promise. The section closes with a consideration of opportunities for NIST to influence the future course of wireless communications, which will surely be a growth industry in the 21st century.

Information Technology and Globalization

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Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been implicated in the structuring and restructuring of human social relations since the days of cave paintings and fire signals. The development of the electrical telegraph and the telephone in the late 1800s marked a qualitative shift in the scope and power of ICTs, however. The new electrical communication systems brought disparate regions and peoples into an unprecedented, increasingly synchronous global network of information, trade, finance, and culture. In the 20th century, the emerging global telecommunication infrastructure was extended and its uses expanded by the development of radio transmission, satellite communications, and terrestrial broadband networks. More recently, digital encoding, storage, and transmission have allowed for data compression and the convergence of multiple formats into a common digital stream, further accelerating the speed and volume of global information and communication flows. At the same time, the diffusion of inexpensive personal computers, the development of the graphical user interface, and the establishment of common data exchange protocols have given users around the world direct access to an increasing mass of data, text, and multimedia documents-as well as the power to create and distribute such documents themselves.

The integration and interdependence of global media and information systems have created new challenges and new opportunities.
Globalization has facilitated positive forms of cross-cultural exchange, creating, for many, an unprecedented historical opportunity to learn about and benefit from the cultural diversity of the human species, but it has also smoothed the progress of cultural domination, threatening regional and national cultural self-determination and increasing the risk of global cultural homogenization and commercialization. It has greased the wheels of transnational investment, production, and trade in both goods and services, opening new markets and permitting new levels of economic productivity and efficiency, but the expansion and integration of the global economy has also deepened economic inequalities, both internationally and within nations. The development of the Internet and the diffusion of the personal computer have broadened access to information, giving rise to visions of the democratization of knowledge, education, and economic opportunity on a global scale. But the new technologies require new literacies, access to high-quality equipment, and a reliable, high-speed network connection. These remain sharply stratified, strongly determined by access to older technologies such as the telephone and to older forms of literacy such as typing and English. Because the ability to participate in the new networks depends on cultural competencies and forms of access associated with the old networks, the development of new global information and communication technologies may actually exacerbate educational and economic inequalities.

The global integration of ICT networks has not come about automatically; it has been forged through the institutional and ideological work of governments, corporations, industry associations, and professional organizations. The complex regional and global regimes that have developed as a result of this struggle define the ethical and social principles, the legal and technical frameworks, and the procedures for conflict resolution that shape global network infrastructure and use today. While broad areas of agreement and cooperation have emerged, these international regimes have also been the site of ongoing conflicts over such issues as intellectual property protection, system architecture and standards, policies of network ownership and control, formulas for international account settlements, and the role of ICTs in socioeconomic development and cultural identity.

In the past, the interplay of these conflicting priorities, as well as differences in the resources and interests of wealthier nations and those of poorer ones, have caused significant struggle within the international ICT regimes. Because media and telecommunications systems are significant sites for the production and circulation of culture, national governments in most of the world (outside the U.S.) have sought to control them directly via strongly nationalist rules for content, ownership, and use, or through outright government ownership. (In the U.S., they have been controlled less directly, via policies of private monopolistic or oligopolistic ownership and for-profit commercial financing.) At the same time, information and communication technologies, networks, and services represent a large and growing sector of the "new economy," as well as an increasingly vital secondary input for many other industries. National governments in poorer regions of the world are often unable to provide adequate investment in ICT infrastructure, so they are compelled to permit private (often foreign) investment in the sector and to bring their national technical standards and legal regimes into line with regional and international norms.

Conflicts are not new in the arena of international information and communication policy. However, three important shifts have occurred in recent years. First, arguments and policy proposals based on the social and ethical implications of ICTs (for example, on concerns for national development and cultural identity formation) have been displaced substantially, though not entirely, by a trade-based framework in which ICT products, services, and infrastructures are seen as commodities or as economic inputs for other economic sectors. Second, in a related development, the principal venues of international ICT policymaking have shifted, from internationally inclusive and more highly politicized regimes such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)to more economically-oriented regimes such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) anand more technical, standards-based regimes such as the International Organization of Standardization(ISO) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a key regime for international regulation and standards in the telecommunications sector, has remained an important policymaking body, but its work has followed the broader shift and has become increasingly technical. And third, there is a marked shift from comprehensive, international regimes like the United Nations to regional associations and alliances based on economic power, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the European Union (EU), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), and the Group of Eight (G8).

Many issues remain unsettled, and the future shape of the global information and communication infrastructure remains largely undetermined, despite vigorous efforts by the dominant corporate, governmental, and inter-governmental players to secure a commercial, open-market model. And while the proponents of a more democratic and diverse New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) have lost ground significantly in the wake of the changes discussed above, new venues and voices are emerging in the form of global non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that take advantage of the new global network itself to connect disparate constituencies, share information and resources, and organize globally. This resource guide offers links to the principle policymaking organizations, corporate entities, and research programs shaping the new global infrastructure, and to the inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations seeking to influence the policymakers on a range of issues.

Information Technology and Social Development

2010-11-04T00:30:00.001-06:00

For the first time in history the entire planet is capitalist. Even the few remaining command economies are surviving or developing through their linkages to global, capitalist markets. Yet this is a brand of capitalism that is at the same time very old and fundamentally new. It is old because it appeals to relentless competition in the pursuit of profit, and because individual satisfaction (deferred or immediate) is its driving engine. But it is fundamentally new because it is tooled by new information and communication technologies that are at the root of new productivity sources, new organizational forms, and the construction of a global economy.

In the following paper, presented at the UNRISD conference on Information Technologies and Social Development (Geneva, June 1998), Manuel Castells examines the profile of this new world, centred around multinational corporations, global financial markets and a highly concentrated system of technological research and development. He stresses the extreme flexibility of the system, which allows it to link up everything that is valuable according to dominant values and interests, while disconnecting everything that is not valuable, or becomes devalued. This simultaneous capacity to include and exclude people, territories and activities is based upon a capacity to network.
A network is simply a set of interconnected nodes.
It may have a hierarchy, but it has no centre. Relationships between nodes are asymmetrical, but they are all necessary for the functioning of the network—for the circulation of money, information, technology, images, goods, services, or people throughout the network. The most critical distinction in this organizational logic
is not stability, but inclusion or exclusion. Networks change relentlessly: they move along, form and re-form, in endless variation. Those who remain inside have the opportunity to share and, over time, to increase their chances. Those who drop out, or become switched off, will see their chances vanish.
In other words, networks—all networks—ultimately come out ahead by restructuring, whether they change their composition, their membership, or even their tasks. The problem is that people, and territories, whose livelihood and fate depend on their positioning in these networks,cannot adapt so easily. In a downgraded region, capital disinvests, software engineers migrate, tourists find another fashionable spot, and global media close down. Networks adapt, bypass the area (or some people), and re-form elsewhere, or with someone else. But the human matter on which the network was living cannot so easily mutate. It becomes trapped, or devalued, or wasted. And this leads to social underdevelopment, precisely at the threshold of the potentially most promising era of human fulfilment.

It is urgently necessary to reverse the downward spiral of exclusion and to use information and communication technologies to empower humankind. The reintegration of social development and economic growth in the information age will require massive technological upgrading of countries, firms and households around the world—a strategy of the highest interest for everyone, including business. It will take a dramatic investment in overhauling the educational system everywhere. It will require the establishment of a worldwide network of science and technology, in which the most advanced universities will be willing to share knowledge and expertise for the common good. It must aim at reversing, slowly but surely, the marginalization of entire countries, or cities or neighbourhoods, so that the human potential that is currently being wasted can be reinvested.

Volunteer in Information Technology

2010-08-01T01:15:00.000-06:00

IT education in Nepal is no more newly born child. It is now at the stage of slating maturity. Although IT education industry in Nepal is just worth corer, but the scene is changing breathlessly. As per our observations, IT education industry should grow exponentially. The reason is very simple our present IT literacy rate is below 5%. As the use of IT applications is penetrating without friction the IT literacy rate is all-set to zoom. IT training institutes can here play a significant role promoting IT towards and further imparting world - class IT education to the people.

We are offering internships in Information Technology sector. Depending upon your academic career or professional experience, we can have internship program in following area:

· Database Administration
· Network/System Administration and Troubleshooting
· System Analysis Design
· Quality Control and Assurance
· Project Management
· Application Development and others

Information Technology Policy In Nepal

2010-07-28T23:20:00.003-06:00

Vision "To place Nepal on the global map of information technology within the next five years."
Background
The world's least developed countries including Nepal have availed themselves of the opportunity to rapidly develop education, health, agriculture, tourism, trade and various other sectors using information technology (IT). The extensive application of this technology will engender economic consolidation, development of democratic norms and values, proportional distribution of economic resources and enhancement of public awareness, thereby raising living standards and eventually contribute significantly to poverty alleviation. It is the information technology, which will turn out to be a strong infrastructure for mitigating Nepal's geographical adversities. In the coming years, globally, there will be a significant difference in the economic conditions of the countries developed in the field of information technology and of the countries lagging behind in this field. The persistence of such disparities may not be congenial even for the developed countries. In this context, there is a greater possibility that the international community will extend its support to developing countries in the promotion of information technology. Such assistance will certainly play a vital role in the national development of a least developed country like Nepal. Hence, it has become essential to formulate a policy at the earliest for developing information technology with a view to boosting up national economy. ObjectivesThe information technology policy shall be formulated to achieve the following objectives:
• To make information technology accessible to the general public and increase employment through this means,
• To build a knowledge-based society, and
• To establish knowledge-based industries.
StrategiesThe following information technology strategies shall be adopted to accomplish the above mentioned objectives
through rapid development and extension of information technology in a fair and competitive manner.
• The government shall act as a promoter, facilitator and regulator.
• High priority shall be accorded to research, development and extension of information technology with participation of private sectors.
• Competent manpower shall be developed with the participation of both the public and the private sectors for the sustainable development and extension of information technology.
• Domestic and foreign investment shall be encouraged for the development of information technology and the related infrastructures.
• Nepal shall be placed on the global map of information technology.
• E-commerce shall be promoted with legal provisions.
• Information technology shall be used to assist e-governance.
• Information technology shall be applied for rural development.
• Information technology industry shall be promoted.
• Speedy and qualitative service shall be made available at a reasonable cost by creating a healthy and competitive atmosphere among information technology service providers.
• Computer education shall be incorporated in academic curriculum starting from the school level.
• Professional efficiency shall be enhanced through the use of information technology.
• Information technology network shall be extended to rural areas.
• Nepal shall be placed on the international market through information technology.
• Export of services related to information technology (software and hardware) shall be increased to 10 billion rupees within the next five years.
Information Technology PolicyThe following policies shall be followed up for the implementation of the aforesaid strategies:
• To declare information technology sector a priority sector,
• To adopt one window system for the development of information technology,
• To prioritise research and development in the field of information technology,
• To create an atmosphere conducive to attracting investment in the private sector, keeping in view the private sector's role in the development of information technology,
• To provide Internet facilities gradually to all Village Development Committees of the country,
• To assist educational institutions and encourage domestic and foreign training to fullfil the requirement of
appropriate manpower at various levels pertaining to information technology,
• To computerise the system in all government offices and build their websites for the flow of information,
• To encourage the use of computers in private sectors,
• To develop physical and virtual information technology parks at various places with private sector's participation in the development of information technology,
• To use information technology to promote e-commerce, e-ducation, e-health among others, and to transfer technology to rural areas.
• To establish a National Information Technology Centre,
• To establish a fund at the national level by mobilising resources from Government of Nepal, donor agencies
and private sectors so as to promote research and development of information technology and other related activities,
• To establish a venture capital fund with joint participation of public and private sectors,
• To include computer education in the curriculum starting from the school level and broaden its scope,
• To establish Nepal in the global market through the use of information technology,
• To enact necessary laws for providing legal sanctions to the use of information technology,
• To use information technology gradually in all government activities and provide legal sanctions to them.
Action Plan:The following action plan shall be adopted to implement the national information technology policy and fulfill its objectives:
• Participation of private sectors in infrastructure development: There may be up to cent percent foreign investment in areas such as information technology park, research
and development, technology transfer and human resource development.
• Infrastructure development: The following arrangements shall be made for development of infrastructure related to information technology
a. An info-super highway and north-south info-highway shall be built taking into account the rapidity
of information flow, changes introduced through information flow and the gradual development of multimedia service. Nepal shall be linked with other parts of the world through a broadband
information network.
b. An IT park shall be established at Banepa in Kabhrepalanchok District. Such IT Parks shall be
established also elsewhere as required with private sector's participation.
c. Any company interested in establishing an industry within the park shall be levied only 1% customs duty in importing IT related equipments for the next five years.
d. Internet nodes shall be established in all development regions by fiscal year 2058/059 (2001/2002)
and in district headquarters by fiscal year 2060/61 (2003/2004) with participation of the private sector in order to make Internet facility available throughout the Kingdom. In making telephone contact with such nodes, the telephone charge shall be levied on par with local calls; and telephone contact with a nearby node within the development region shall be deemed to be a local call, so long as the node in that district is not established. The use of the Internet shall be
gradually extended to rural areas as well. The charge for telephone calls to be used for the Internet shall be gradually reduced.
e. Telecommunications and electricity services shall be provided to the entrepreneurs involved in information technology sector as per their need.
• Human Resource Development:The following measures shall be adopted to develop skilled manpower:
a. Necessary facilities shall be provided to the universities in the country and graduate and postgraduate- level classes of international standard shall be offered in computer science and
computer engineering subjects.
b. A long-term programme with a slogan "Computer education to all by 2010 A.D." shall be
formulated and computer education shall be offered as an optional subject in some public
secondary schools from the coming academic year and shall be made a compulsory subject in phases.
c. IT shall be used to improve the quality of education.
d. Private sector shall be encouraged to prepare middle-level manpower required for the information technology sector. Assistance shall be provided to the private sector to set up institutions for education, research and development in the field of information technology in each development region.
e. Computer knowledge shall gradually be made compulsory to all newly-recruited teachers so as to introduce computer education in schools; and computer education shall also be provided to all inservice teachers in phases using various means including distant education.
f. Emphasis shall be given to provide computer education from the school level. Internet facility shall be made available free of cost to universities and public schools for four hours a day within the next five years to provide computer education in a systematic way.
g. Government of Nepal shall provide scholarships to public and private sector technologists for higher study in information technology.
h. Necessary scholarships shall be provided to poor and meritorious students from remote areas to pursue higher studies in information technology.
• Dissemination of Information Technology:
The following measures shall be followed up for the extensive dissemination of information technology:
a. Educational institutions and hospitals in the areas where telecommunication and electricity services are already available shall be encouraged to use IT enabled services. Even in places where electricity service is not available, the development of information technology through solar power system shall be encouraged.
b. Distant learning system shall be introduced through the Internet and Intranet apart from radio and television. Networking systems like school-net, research-net, commerce-net and multilingual computing shall be developed.
c. A three-year programme shall be formulated and launched to extend the use of computer in
government offices. All ministries, departments and offices shall be linked to the Internet; and other agencies shall also be encouraged to be linked through the Internet.
d. Websites for all ministries, departments and district offices shall be created within one year.
Necessary legal provisions shall be made to reduce the use of papers by using information
technology in all kinds of government activities in a phased manner.
e. An action plan shall be devised and introduced to include computer education as a subject for the examination of a specified rank and make it obligatory for the applicants taking a written
examination during recruitment. Provisions shall also be made for prescribing basic computer
training as a requirement for the promotion of employees.
f. Content shall be prepared to enhance Nepali materials on the Internet to preserve Nepali arts and culture as well as to develop rural areas.
g. A public awareness-enhancing campaign on the utility of information technology shall be launched extensively through the electronic media.
h. Provision shall be made for an information officer in each ministry in a phased manner.
i. In view of the present development of information technology, provisions shall be made to open voice-mail to talk point-to-point for one?s own business without a link to the public switched telephone network.
• Promotion of E-commerce, etc.:E-business, tele-medicine, tele-processing, distant learning, and the like shall be promoted as follows:
i. Necessary arrangements shall be made to encourage e-commerce.
ii. Necessary legal infrastructure shall be created for the promotion of tele-medicine, distant learning, tele-processing and e-commerce.
iii. Intellectual property right shall be protected through the formulation of necessary laws in relation to the devlopment of information technology.
iv. Provisions shall be made for the export of software and IT?enabled services through IT in the following ways:
a. The person or organisation concerned shall submit certified copies of the documents on
agreements relating to export to the Nepal Rastra Bank.
b. Invoice or bill of exportation made under the agreements referred to in clause (a) shall be
submitted to the Nepal Rastra Bank.
c. The Bank shall validate foreign currency earned on the basis of such documents.
• Facilities:The following facilities shall be provided for the development of information technology sector:
. One percent (1%) customs duty shall be levied on hardware, software and all kinds of computer
spare parts imported by training institutions related to information technology, albeit on the
recommendation of the National Information Technology Centre on the basis of services rendered and the achievements of such institutions.
a. As software development and services based on software are operated twenty-four hours, such services shall be declared essential services to guarantee regular production by employees working in the companies related to such services, and arrangements shall be made accordingly.
b. A venture capital fund shall be established by utilising capital market with the joint investment of His Majesty?s Government and private sector. His Majesty?s Government shall make an investment of 100 million rupees initially for such a fund.
c. Domestic preference shall be given in accordance with the prevailing law on computers, spareparts and software produced within the country.
d. Software may be directly depreciated for the purposes of income tax, whereas equipment relating to information technology may be allowed an accelerated depreciation in two years.
e. In case an investment has been made in foreign currency either as a loan or share capital required to build and operate infrastructure, the investor shall be allowed to repatriate the principal amount and interest of the loan and dividends in accordance with the prevailing laws.
f. The foreign currency earned from exporting information technology software and services shall be granted facilities on par with facilities provided to other export-oriented industries earning foreign currency.
g. An information technology development fund shall be established to create public awareness about information technology, assist rural networking, develop information technology with market management, generate required manpower for this sector and make social services easily accessible where such technology is used. Arrangements shall be made for financial contributions towards this fund from His Majesty?s Government, private sector, donor agencies and others. The National Information Technology Centre (NITC) shall operate this fund. A feasibility study shall be carried out to mobilise additional financial resources by establishing information technology bond.
h. Export of software shall be subjected to an additional service charge of 0.5 % for the information technology fund, in addition to customs duties. The amount obtained from that charge shall be deposited in the fund referred to in clause 6.6.8.
i. As Nepali nationals working abroad can play an important role in technology transfer and market promotion in this sector, they shall be encouraged to invest their foreign currency earnings in this sector.
Institutional ProvisionsThe National Information Technology Development Council, consisting of the following members, shall be constituted under the chairmanship of the Rt. Honourable Prime Minister.
a. Rt. Honourable Prime Minister Chairman
b. Honourable Minister, Ministry of Science and Technology Vice-chairman
c. Honourable Minister, Ministry of Information and Communications Member
d. Honourable Vice-chairman, National Planning Commission Member
e. Honourable Member, National Planning Commission (Information Technology Sector) Member
f. Secretary, Ministry of Finance Member
g. Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Member
h. Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources Member
i. Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology Member
j. Secretary, Ministry of Education and Sports Member
k. Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communications Member
l. Computer specialist representatives, University/ RONAST (three persons) Members
m. Chairman, Computer Association of Nepal Member
n. President, Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries Member