Michael Barkway, CEO of LTE specialists Qasara, talks to Electronics Weekly about the main differentiators between 3G and 4G, whether next year will see 4G LTE deployment "take-off", and what is the significance of femtocells for LTE...
1. Can you describe Qasara's business in 2 sentences?
Qasara is a technology licensing and services company working in LTE. We started our business in April 2008 using the best talent from TTPCom, bringing across deep expertise in cellular technologies and experience of real mass product deployments.
2. Do you develop software stacks completely independently of the hardware platform or with specific architectures in mind?
The protocol stack comprises two parts - the Control Plane (protocol/management functions) and User Plane (user data). The challenge in the Control Plane is interoperability - here our experience and close participation in the ETSI 3GPP standard development has been critical. The User Plane requires the right hardware architecture - it has to run encryption, decryption, re-transmission of bad packets, segmentation, reassembly, all at 100Mbps in a power and cost efficient device. Qasara's engineers have solved these challenges and we are working closely with our customers on fully optimised designs.
|
The A - Z of Q5 interviews |
| A |
ARM chairman, Robin Saxby |
| B |
BSI manager, Simon Bircham |
| C |
CamSemi CEO, David Baillie |
| D |
Design LED, James Gourlay |
| E |
Ensilica, Kevin Edwards |
| F |
Future MD, Danny Miller |
| G |
GSPK Design CEO, P. Marsh |
| I |
Icera CEO, Stan Boland |
| J |
Jennic CEO, Jim Lindop |
| L |
Lumileds, Steve Landau |
| M |
Mentor CEO, Walden Rhines |
| N |
NI president, J. Truchard |
| O |
OLED-T CTO, P.K. Nathan |
| P |
ProVision CEO, David Sykes |
| Q |
QinetiQ, Stephen Lake |
| R |
Rambus CEO, Harold Hughes |
| S |
SETsquared, Simon Bond |
| T |
TI CEO, Rich Templeton |
| U |
University of Southampton |
| W |
Wolfson CEO, Dave Shrigley |
| X |
XMOS CEO, James Foster |
| Z |
Zetex CEO, Hans Rohrer |
|
The alpha and omega of electronics industry interviews |
3. What capabilities are the main differentiators for 4G compared to 3G?
Very simply: Speed, latency and cost. LTE is a flexible technology that can scale to increased data rates. In creating the LTE standard, 3GPP have made many improvements in the protocol and infrastructure to improve responsiveness, so the time from "Click" to "Connect" is much reduced. LTE's simplified infrastructure and global deployment will lead to cost savings for both operators and consumers.
4. Will next year be the "take-off" year for 4G LTE deployment?
2010 will see the first pre-commercial trials using test mobiles and (later in the year) early prototype products. It takes time to smooth out the interoperability and type-approval wrinkles but real progress is being made in the LTE industry right now. Early in 2011 is more realistic for the timing of the true "take-off" for LTE.
5. What is the significance of femtocells for LTE?
Femtocells are likely to form an important part of the roll-out of LTE later-on as additional capacity is required in dense urban areas. The home use mode is pretty uncertain since other technologies can deploy services in the home at much lower cost and greater simplicity. Consumers simply won't understand what this new box is for - coverage and capacity are rightly seen as the operators' problem.
See also: Q5 - Interviews with electronics industry leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman, Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on the UK electronics industry.