Today, consumers and commercial enterprises share a growing need for borderless "communications on-the-go. We believe this need and its fulfillment will provide new opportunities, new lifestyle options and new modes of working, much of which will be enabled by the broadband wireless era.

Many wired and wireless broadband technologies, including 3G, 3.5G, WiFi and WiMAX, will co-exist in this era. Users will decide what technologies and services work best for them. It is unlikely that one or two technologies will satisfy the needs of all users and applications.

Much has happened since the different broadband access technologies and their related engineering standards have emerged. Networks delivering broadband access have proliferated and have standardized on IP. Users now expect to be ubiquitously connected at carrier-grade quality. Young users in particular are redefining consumer connectivity through always-on social networking and the creative application of peer-to-peer and multimedia technologies. Other users are coming to expect portability across networks and devices, so that their content remains up-to-date, wherever they are.

The concept of communications on-the-go is becoming a reality. And WiMAX is one of the primary technologies enabling everyone to stay connected and communicate anytime, anywhere. 

As stated earlier, the most capable wired and wireless broadband technologies will co-exist, each with a different role to play. For example, DSL and cable broadband have effectively served high-density, already heavily wired communities and businesses, meeting needs that are well-met by wired connections. Fixed wireless deployments such as WiFi and WiMAX widely complement fixed wired networks, providing high-speed, continuous, largely stationary access in situations when reach is limited or wired infrastructures are impractical. Although many communities have all options deployed and available, WiFi and WiMAX are the only practical alternatives in many remote and underserved markets. 

On the mobile front, mainstream GSM cellular technology is gradually giving way to multi-mode and multi-band technology encompassing WCDMA, EVDO-Nx, and mobile WiMAX. These technologies meet the need for full mobile access. The market is also seeing the emergence of software-defined radio technology as a way to address the multi-mode and multi-band requirements on the baseband side. 

We believe these trends for fixed, mobile and converged broadband access are irreversible. 

More and more new applications require the highest available bandwidth, and this often means that the access medium needs to change as the user environment changes. The most advanced functions will be enabled and fully supported when the user is able to access the highest bandwidth, and disabled or only available on a priority basis when lower bandwidth or contention is encountered. Fujitsu is working on some of these forefront applications, drawing upon our role and expertise in supporting both fixed wireless and 3G mobile networking, as well as our capabilities in electronic display technologies, audio-video multimedia player solutions and low-power process technologies. 

Next-Gen Mobile Apps

Let's look at a few upcoming mobile services utilizing high-speed wireless IP networks. 

User Video -- First, mobile phones are now being equipped with imaging functions equivalent to both a digital still camera and digital video camera for on-the-go imaging applications. Such phones are now feasible thanks to quality improvements in AV players, recorders and integrated cameras. The phones should be capable of record video and then transmitting it to a remote or home server through a high-speed wireless IP network, instead of storing them in package media. 

Soon, stored content will include date, time and place tag information embedded by the cell phone's GPS function. Users will then be able to easily find and play back the desired content by searching on key information like place or date.

When users access the server remotely, they will be able to download the private content to and from their cell phones or other mobile devices and play the material back anywhere. Again, depending on the bandwidth available via the fixed or mobile network, the functionality at any given time could vary. This application would have a major impact on users' abilities to store, forward and view multimedia content. The application could also change or eliminate the use of package media for always-connected users. A popular forerunner to this application is in operation via YouTube, but price/performance improvements in end devices and servers will place content management entirely under user control.

Electronic Paper -- A second potential service, electronic news distribution, goes well beyond today's online news services. Fujitsu has developed a thin-film display medium – not a tablet or small-screen display device, but a flexible display film with its own power-recharging capability. This highly portable display medium makes it possible for readers to retrieve a customized newspaper with hierarchical content. The application and the mobile networks that enable content downloading eliminate the need to parse and transcode content for small-screen display. This creates a more natural environment for migrating from traditional print media to electronic display. The application was developed for Japanese consumers who spend hours on jammed commuter trains with insufficient space to open and read newspapers, but it has clear utility for anyone who is mobile and wants an ultra-light, flexible display medium for dense text and graphics.

We expect this technology to be commercially available within the next three years. At that point, subscribers may use fixed wired or wireless connectivity when at home or in the office, and mobile WiMAX when in motion.

Content Broadcasting -- The third idea, content broadcasting, is a vision today, but not a far reach from what consumers already do with devices such as SlingBox.

With the support of the sophisticated audio-video players currently under development, users could record TV programs at home and transfer them to their handheld mobile devices, thus accessing their favorite programs anytime, anywhere. 

Of course, in order to play TV programs on a cell phone or other mobile devices, batteries need to last more than two hours. The spectrum of emerging AV multimedia solutions and low-power process technologies makes this possible. New processors lose less than half the power of the previous generation, keeping devices cooler, yielding more than 500 hours of battery life in standby mode and powering more and more functions in a single device. 

H.264/AVC compression will be mandatory in such devices. The higher the camera resolution, the more image-processing capability will be needed. And these new mobile AV and multimedia services require sufficient bandwidth over the IP network infrastructure. Again, this is where both fixed and mobile WiMAX can play a major role.

Although rarely visible to consumers, advanced semiconductor technology is one of the crucial enablers to making communications on-the-go a reality. The technologies for these applications are at the forefront of innovation: improving the reach, flexibility and quality of the broadband connection; enhancing the efficiency, power, functionality and resolution of multimedia applications; and contributing to technology standards that make these networks and devices more open, affordable and interoperable.

Eco-system Collaboration

In the mobile networking and convergence sectors, collaboration is a given. For example, the handset partner designs the physical device, determining its "look and feel," form factor, and application software design (such as GUI and HMI). The semiconductor partner handles the platform, including the basic software design, LSI design and reference hardware design. 

Indeed, deep sub-100 nanometer process technology is so complex, and time-to-market schedules are so compressed, it's essential that companies developing new ASICs, SoC, and ASSPs work closely with their foundry and fabrication partners to guarantee success. Today's 90nm and 65nm process technologies, together with wide-ranging application expertise, enable more functionality on a chip that uses extremely low power and low leakage current. 

In summary, we believe the most capable wired and wireless technologies, including WiMAX, 3G, 3.5G cellular and WiFi, will co-exist and that WiMAX, with its ability to transmit secure content (including data, voice and video) over longer distances and at higher throughput rates, is ideal for greenfield deployment. 

As a total solution provider, Fujitsu is working today to help build the future from the ground up, We are working to make "communications on-the-go" a reality, helping end users stay connected seamlessly – whether they are inside a building, on a train, in a car, or even on a plane. 

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