Tests of MetroPCS’s new VoLTE service found that 4G calls drained twice as much as regular CDMA ones. At the time, however, Spirent Global Director of Insights Amit Malhotra predicted that VoLTE’s power efficiency would improve as both VoLTE network and handset technology progressed. Fast-forward four months and Malhotra’s prognostication appears to be coming true.

Spirent recently performed a new batch of tests using Metro’s newest generation VoLTE handset, the LG Spirit 4G, and found that the current drain from a VoLTE call had dropped by 35 percent compared to LG’s first-generation VoLTE smartphone, the Connect. Improving power efficiency by 35 percent is a tremendous number when it comes to cellular battery life, which tends to measure progress in tiny increments. But there is still one big qualification to that good news: 2G is still a more power-efficient technology.

With its latest generation handset, LG improved the overall radio performance of the phone by using an integrated CDMA-LTE radio, rather than the dual chips used in the older Connect (it also beefed up the Spirit with a much larger 2150 mAh battery). That resulted in an 18 percent current drain improvement for CDMA calls in addition to the improved performance in VoLTE. Even with its efficiency boost, VoLTE still ate up far more juice than a CDMA call on either the new Spirit or the old Connect.

Spirent’s tests concluded that the LG Spirit would support 875 minutes of talk time in CDMA mode, but only 575 minutes when solely making 4G calls. The Spirit’s bigger battery (with 38 percent more capacity than the Connect) gives the device a big boost in single-charge lifespan, but that 300-minute differential is still huge.

The bottom line is that while VoLTE’s battery drain is improving it still has a ways to go before it can match the power efficiency of 2G. CDMA and GSM technologies went through more than a decade of optimization to reach their current efficiency levels.  Hopefully VoLTE can close that gap in a much shorter interval. The big improvements LG and MetroPCS demonstrated in a single generation of handsets is a good sign that it can.

Correction: This post was updated at 11:30 AM, Tuesday, to correct a percentage. Spirent measured a 35 percent power drain improvement in VoLTE calls between the two generation of LG devices, not 33 percent.

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Raco is one of the players supplying the backend connectivity for the internet of things, linking everything from agricultural harvesters to ice machines to the cellular networks. While it’s worked exclusively with T-Mobile in the past, the deals expand its scope both to CDMA technologies and Telefónica’s extensive networks across Europe and Latin America.

According to Raco President John Horn, the two new deals, combined with a similar tie-up with U.K. operator Everything Everywhere, allow Raco to go after the internet of things on an international scale. For instance, Raco could now serve shipping companies wanting to track their vehicles or containers as they cross borders, or appliance makers that want to avoid signing connectivity deals with a separate carrier in every new country.

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Airtel Africa, part of the India-based Bharti Airtel group, will deploy tens of thousands of carrier-grade access points in high-traffic areas throughout its pan-continental network, according to a source close to the deal who asked not to be named because details have not been officially released. Airtel has started building the network in Niger, but it plans to quickly expand it to the 16 other African countries in its footprint. Depending on how successful the rollout is and how much the network is used, Airtel could expand the project to encompass more than 100,000 nodes, our source said.

A Ruckus Wireless Wi-Fi hotspot/small cell

Ruckus Wireless will supply its indoor and outdoor high-capacity access points, while Alcatel-Lucent will supply its service and aggregation router and act as the system integrator on the project. We reached out to Airtel, Ruckus and Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent confirmed it is building a backbone data transport and backhaul network for Airtel, but a spokesman said the company would not comment on any Wi-Fi plans. Ruckus told us they had no comment, and we have not heard back from Airtel.

While Wi-Fi is being used in countries like the U.S. to supplement high-speed 3G and LTE networks, in Africa 3G connections are few and far between and 4G services are virtually nonexistent. According to Ericsson’s most recent Market Report, 85 percent of the subscribers in the Africa and Middle East regions are on 2G networks. Africa’s penetration of smartphones is low compared to more developed regions, but it’s expected to grow quickly as more vendors produce cheaper and cheaper Wi-Fi-equipped Android smartphones.

Our source tells us that Airtel is using Wi-Fi as a 3G/4G replacement, putting up dense clusters of access points in hotels, airports, shopping districts and heavily trafficked outdoor locations. It’s much more inexpensive to use Wi-Fi as a mobile data technology. Even though it can’t provide the coverage of a wide-area cellular network, Airtel can use it surgically, delivering capacity to areas where it will be used the most.

The deal is a big one for Ruckus, which recently went public, even though the rollout doesn’t yet approach the scope of its massive Wi-Fi contract with Japan’s KDDI. For Alcatel-Lucent, the deal is an opportunity to help build an alternate wireless network for one of Africa’s largest carriers using its core infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent has its own Wi-Fi product, but it’s meant to be deployed in conjunction with its own lightRadio 3G and 4G infrastructure. Airtel uses Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei for its cellular systems, but the deal could give Alcatel-Lucent a leg up when the next round of network construction begins.

Apart from Niger here are the other countries Airtel will launch Wi-Fi in: Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock user Anton Balazh

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GoSmart plans start at $30 a month, including unlimited talk and text. For $5 more a month, you can get unlimited Web access, but only on T-Mobile’s 2G GPRS and EDGE networks. For $45 a month, you can upgrade to the 3G HSPA network and get 5 GB of data, after which you’ll be throttled down to 2G speeds. It’s important to note T-Mo is specifically saying 3G here even though its marketing its HSPA+ network as 4G. The implication is that even GoSmart users on the $45 plan won’t get access to the full bandwidth available over its data networks.

GoSmart is offering only two devices without subsidies, a $50 Alcatel feature phone and a $100 ZTE Android 2.3 device, which is a pretty good bargain for a smartphone. GoSmart’s main go-to-market package appears to be a SIM kit that allows a customer to activate any GSM device they bring to the network. That strategy seems to replicate the SIM services that have proven so successful for Tracfone and other mobile virtual network operators.

But why is T-Mobile creating an entirely new brand for prepaid when it already sells a lot of contract-free plans under the official T-Mobile? The carrier is probably trying to create two distinct classes of prepaid of service so it can tailor its marketing for each. T-Mobile’s branded prepaid emphasizes T-Mobile HSPA+ data network, bigger and faster data plans and higher-end devices.

Meanwhile, GoSmart is clearly targeted at the more voice-centric budget user. Sprint follows the same approach, though its segmented its prepaid services into numerous brands, including Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile and Assurance Wireless.

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Sprint has already used the carrot to coax those customers over to its CDMA network. Now it’s trying the stick: Phone Scoop has confirmed Sprint will charge an additional $10 a month fee for all Nextel customers that keep using their iDEN phones past January.

As Sprint has started shutting down iDEN sites and offering incentives to customers to switch to CDMA phones, it’s managed to lure a lot of customers off of iDEN. But if it hopes to shut that network down completely by its stated sunset date in June, it needs to accelerate that exodus. We saw AT&T adopt a similar strategy in 2006 when it started shutting down its old time-division multiplex access (TDMA) networks. It charged customers a $5 a month fee for customers who kept using their old handsets.

iDEN is antiquated 2G technology, but it has one very appealing feature in the eyes of its loyal customers: its Direct Connect push-to-talk capabilities, a walkie-talkie service which has traditionally outshone all competing PTT services in the market. Sprint has replicated Direct Connect on its CDMA 2G and 3G networks, using an IP-based technology developed by Qualcomm. So far it has attracted 1 million customers to the new CDMA version.

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T-Mobile’s networks simply aren’t ready yet. The reason T-Mobile has been left off the iPhone bandwagon for so long is that its HSPA networks don’t support the PCS 3G bands the iPhone uses. T-Mobile is fixing that issue, moving its network down the electromagnetic spectrum as part of a nationwide overhaul.

T-Mobile, however, has officially completed that upgrade in only 15 cities. If the iPhone were to go live next week, the vast majority of T-Mobile’s customers who bought it would experience only 2G speeds. That’s to say nothing of the iPhone 5’s LTE capabilities, which T-Mobile won’t support until the second half of 2013. Considering the iPhone is first and foremost a mobile data device, I don’t think even Apple is willing to unleash it on a network that can perform only a fraction of the data functions it was designed for.

Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile (c) 2012 Pinar Ozger pinar@pinarozger.com

That said, T-Mobile is aggressively completing its network overhaul, and it has been inviting customers with unlocked iPhones to sign up for SIM-card service. Readers have reported receiving T-Mobile PCS HSPA+ signals all over the country, especially in big metro markets like New York City and Chicago. T-Mo CTO Neville Ray has promised a “material” portion of its footprint will be iPhone-ready by the end of the year.

Make no mistake: the iPhone is bound for T-Mobile. It’s just a question of technology and timing. But unless Ray can somehow complete his nationwide overhaul in the next few weeks, the timing just isn’t right. Logistically that seems impossible, even for network miracle-worker like Ray. In recent weeks, T-Mobile has even tried to distance itself from Apple, claiming the iPhone isn’t necessarily worth the sacrifices.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll hear something from Apple next week about a T-Mobile iPhone, maybe even a commitment to partner with T-Mobile sometime in the future. One of the new iPhone-ready markets T-Mobile announced last week was Apple’s hometown of Cupertino, Calif. You can’t argue with that symbolism. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on getting a magenta iPhone by Christmas.

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Metrico Wireless, a radio field testing company Spirent acquired in September, conducted voice trials on a commercial VoLTE-enabled network in two U.S. cities, comparing the power consumption of VoIP calls made over LTE against the power used by the same carrier’s CDMA systems. Spirent-Metrico didn’t name the carrier, but it’s not hard to guess.

MetroPCS is the only U.S. operator with a live VoLTE service and a commercially available handset. The 1540 milliamp hour (mAh)-battery on Metro’s sole VoLTE handset, the LG Connect 4G, also lines up with the battery capacity of the device Spirent tested.

The results of those tests should give carriers and consumers pause. The average power consumption for a 10-minute CDMA circuit-switched call was 680 milliwatts (mW) while the average consumption for a VoLTE call of the same duration was 1358 mW. That’s double the power drain. Spirent estimated that on a full charge, its test smartphone could support 502.6 minutes of talk time using CDMA only, but the same charge would only deliver 251.8 minutes of talk time using VoIP on the 4G network. And that’s with all other data communications turned off.

What it comes down to is that our old GSM and CDMA circuit-switched voice technologies — despite their limitations — have been optimized over the last two decadesto be energy efficient, Spirent Global Director of Insights Amit Malhotra told GigaOM in an email interview. It’s hard to replicate that kind of efficiency overnight in a generic data modem.

“The disadvantage in battery life of VoLTE compared to circuit-switched voice is driven by a few different factors,” Malhotra said. “One is the more strenuous exercise of the device, including conversion of voice to packet data, transmission and receipt over the data network, and reconversion back to voice. Another is the use of less power-efficient components such as data modems versus voice transceivers.”

If this proves to be typical for VoLTE handsets, it will be a big problem. The battery life of the first generation of LTE smartphones was atrocious, and handset vendors have tried to address the problem by slapping fat 3000+ mAh power cells onto their phones. Some carriers are already reluctant to embrace VoLTE since they can still squeeze plenty of life out of their 2G and 3G voice services. If VoLTE proves to be a battery killer, they will be even less inclined to move mobile voice into the IP age.

There is some good news in Spirent’s findings though. It found LTE performed better than CDMA when the phone is used to make simultaneous voice and data calls. When the phone was in 4G-only mode — i.e., using only the LTE network for both VoIP and data — it performed slightly more efficiently than when the 2G radio was used for voice while the 4G radio transmitted data, Spirent discovered. That makes sense since powering two radios simultaneously could take an enormous toll on battery life.

That would seem to indicate that if you tend to talk and consume data at the same time, then VoLTE is a more efficient technology. That’s true, but only to the tiniest degree. The study found that both in both scenarios the hyperactivity of the device drained tremendous amount of energy. Battery life estimates dropped below 120 minutes in both cases. No matter which radios you use, talking and surfing consumes a tremendous amount of power.

Malhotra, however, said LTE power efficiency is bound to improve as both data modem technology and network coverage gets better. Today’s LTE networks have limited footprints, forcing phones to continuously check for signals. Eventually the data modems in our handsets will be optimized for VoIP calling.

“These issues will be mitigated over time, especially as components continue to become more power efficient, and devices do not need to switch between different modes of voice call processing,” Malhotra said.

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First spotted by FierceWireless, the deal gives customers signing up for its $80 unlimited-talk-and-text smartphone plans 2 GB of data to consume each month rather than just the standard 1 GB. The major catch is that data must come off its 3G network — no LTE phones allowed. After years of ceding prepaid to its competitors has Verizon finally seen the light of contract-free mobility? If it has, then Verizon is attacking prepaid in a strange way. Even with the limited time promotion, its prepaid plans are by far the most expensive in the market – you can get the same plan anywhere from $20 to $30 a month less at a slew of other carriers (and in many cases access to much faster data networks).

What Verizon likely sees here is an opportunity to find a second life for its 3G CDMA EV-DO networks. Now that Apple has found LTE religion, almost the entirety of Verizon’s smartphone portfolio sports a 4G radio, which means its data traffic will quickly migrate off its old 3G networks. Big Red still needs those EV-DO networks as back up in areas where its 4G service is unavailable, but those areas are quickly becoming few and far between. Verizon plans to have LTE in every place it offers 3G by the end of 2013, and thanks to its LTE in Rural America program it will have 4G in places it’s never before built a CDMA network.

Verizon’s LTE network (yellow) will eventually grow to encompass its 3G network (red).

So in just year or two Verizon will have a largely empty 3G network. Eventually it will shutter those CDMA systems, replacing them with 4G technologies, but that could take the remainder of the decade if not longer. Verizon needs those CDMA networks for its legacy voice services, and its planned launch of an IP-based voice-over-LTE service is still on the drawing board. In short, that 3G data network is going nowhere so it behooves Verizon to find ways of filling it.

That may be why Verizon is getting the prepaid bug after so many years of ignoring the market. Prepaid isn’t just for the budget-minded or credit-challenged anymore, and say what you will about Verizon’s pricing and data plans, but it consistently scores high marks from consumers for customer service, reliability and quality of service.

Verizon may be thinking there’s room in the market for a “premium” prepaid operator and that it’s just the carrier to fill that niche. It just so happens to have a rapidly emptying 3G network to serve those customers. Sprint got the same idea when it started relegating WiMAX to its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile prepaid customers, reserving its new LTE network for those on its contracts.

Still, premium subscribers will expect a premium service. Sub-megabit 3G connections just won’t cut it, especially if T-Mobile or Sprint is offering far faster network connections for far cheaper prices. Verizon will need to drop prices a lot more if it hopes to make any kind of dent in the sans-contract market. But if it reserves its 3G network for prepaid users – along with contract customers using “dumbphones” – then it can afford to slash plan costs. The networks investment is already sunk, and that spectrum will be tied up for years to come. Any money it can make off of 3G is just gravy.

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With seemingly endless applications that range from mere entertainment (say, streaming video to the backseat of your car) to matters of life and death (like the ability for doctors to remotely monitor blood glucose levels), M2M technology is already rapidly changing the way that we live for the better. The M2M revolution is threatened, however, by two crucial and already pressing challenges: unnecessary complexity and the impending sunset of 2G wireless.

The rise of M2M is revolutionizing the way countless industries work. From shipping companies that now track high-dollar assets from country to country, to auto dealers that use GPS tracking and automated collection technology to assess customer loans. From doctors and caregivers who can monitor elderly patients from a distance to know if they need assistance instantly, to bagged ice machine vendors who are alerted when supply is low.

M2M is also a key enabler of Big Data, as an unprecedented amount of information is being collected from automated sensors already—from inside cars, in traffic light cameras, in new automated parking meters, in energy meters and so on. In fact, a whopping 2.14 billion M2M devices will have the ability to “talk to each other” by 2021—up from an estimated 100.4 million M2M device connections in 2011, according to the research firm Analysys Mason Limited. That represents an astounding compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36 percent across 10 years. And through it all, M2M is creating greater operational efficiencies, more productivity and fewer costs and headaches for companies across all industries.

All of these growth predictions fail to account for the crucial challenges mentioned above, however, which could become a costly and time-consuming wrench in the works for companies if they aren’t addressed. Some estimates suggest it could slash the forecast for 2.14 billion M2M devices in half—or even worse.

Complexity is a profit killer

Right now, large enterprise M2M projects still often take up to three years to complete, and typically require at least a $25 million investment, according to the research firm Maravedis-Rethink. It’s a big reason that M2M adoption for many businesses is still in a semi-holding pattern, with few committed to building it into their business plans.

That can’t continue if we’re really going to see M2M solutions make their way into improving our everyday lives, helping businesses improve bottom lines and allowing decision makers to make more informed decisions. There is no doubt that the benefits await, but there will be some wrinkles to iron out along the way.

M2M solutions must be made to be easier to deploy. We’re talking days or weeks here – even hours. Not years. Solution providers need the ability to get thousands of M2M devices up and running at once, crucially, using existing, standardized technology. They need the ability to customize rate plans and to see in real-time how their customers are actually using their applications. This is possible. More to the point, enterprises that get their M2M applications up and running quickly are seeing amazing returns. No longer do enterprises have to sit on the sidelines and wait as the process unrolls while they continue running their business with the same deficiencies that their solution is intended to improve. Typically, there is up to a 40 percent return on their investment in the first year alone.

But every time there’s a problem with that M2M application or the enterprise IT department has to focus on something like making the wireless connection work, that ROI is reduced. And at some point, if deploying an M2M application distracts from a company’s core business rather than enhancing it, then the ROI is no longer worth the effort.

Sunsetting 2G could slow some M2M applications

Unfortunately, simplicity isn’t the only thing holding back the growth of M2M right now. In fact, the very future of some M2M applications is being challenged, thanks to the mobile industry’s migration to 3G and 4G networks. In the process many are simply shutting down their existing 2G networks, stranding customers who have M2M applications that rely on them. I recently heard of a small boutique in the Midwest that relies on a 2G network to process credit-card payments. Without notice, its 2G cellular service was shut off and suddenly the shop’s point of sale device was non-functional, leaving a vulnerable small business scrambling to find options.

Complicating matters is that many M2M applications simply don’t use enough data to justify updating or transitioning them to wider pipes and the more costly devices associated with 3G and 4G networks. So, while in many cases it may be an option to upgrade to a significantly more expensive 3G or 4G compatible device, the low levels of data consumption required by these applications would not come close to justifying it, and so unnecessarily put a hit on a businesses ROI.

These shifts force customers to be very strategic in how they plan their M2M strategy. As some carriers are forced to move away from 2G networks because of spectrum constraints or other long-term strategies, there are other carriers that remain committed to supporting their 2G networks.

The bottom line is that for M2M to reach its full potential, application providers need easy-to-implement M2M solutions. And they also need some assurance that their M2M solutions will still be supported in the future as networks continue to evolve. If you give enterprises and potential M2M application developers these two things, M2M will reach its full potential.

And we’ll continue to see a revolution in the way business gets done.

John Horn is president of RACO Wireless.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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All of this is happening because T-Mobile is in the midst of a spectrum re-farm exercise: Switching its HSPA+ service away from the relatively unique 1700 MHz bands and over to 1900 MHz; the same frequency used by AT&T devices for HSPA+. T-Mobile is doing so in order to free up the 1700 MHz spectrum for its LTE network. While that network is some time off in the future — watch for it next year — the immediate benefit is for people wanting to use AT&T devices on T-Mobile’s network to save some money on their monthly service bill.

But this isn’t all about saving money if you’re an AT&T customer with an iPhone or some other HSPA+ device. According to T-Mobile CTO, Neville Ray, there’s a speed bonus.

In a blog post, Ray notes that “Our internal tests of unlocked iPhone 4S devices running over 4G (HSPA+) on our 1900 network recorded on average 70% faster download speeds than iPhone 4S devices on AT&T’s network.” Obviously if you have an LTE device, this scenario doesn’t apply, but it appears that in these particular testing areas, T-Mobile likely has support for 42 Mbps HSPA+ while AT&T doesn’t yet.

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