World-leading R&D outfit Cambridge Consultants was exhibiting in the UK Pavilion area at Mobile World Congress 2010 and UK Technology LIVE caught up with Monty Barlow, one of the organisation’s reps at the show, to find out more about the latest mobile tech developments and innovations coming out of the group’s ground-breaking mobile tech research.
“Cambridge Consultants is about a 300 person strong firm offering research and development and technology development for mobile companies, generally with a very innovative and high tech element to it,” Barlow explained.
“I’m part of the wireless division, which is here at the show with a number of demonstrations of some of the new technologies we are developing – everything from cutting edge mathematics for long-term evolution to miniature GSM femtocells for markets like Africa.”
“In the white space we are looking at things like the cognitive radio area – so looking at how things like gaps between TV transmissions can be used to improve the experience with other consumer equipment.”
Femtocells offer a potential number of benefits to consumers and to mobile operators alike, as Barlow explains: “In some places it is the only way you are going to get capacity – where, for example, you either have a very high density of people in countries such as India or even in some European cities, where the macro network, as it has grown up, isn’t really suited any more to how people now use voice and use data.
This is because those macro networks that we all currently rely on for our mobile voice calls and data connections “grew up in an era where the model was the road warrior, the person who had a car-phone and could drive out to make a call from anywhere. Nowadays, 95 per cent of phone calls are made inside a building.
“So shouting miles away desperately to a base station in the distance, shouting over all the other handsets operating near you – and that same base station shouting back to you – and trying to give even coverage where it is needed is a bit like turning up the street lighting so that you can read in bed!
“What you should have is dense coverage exactly where you need it. And the aim, potentially, is to offer consumers a femtocell alongside their ADSL broadband modem, so that they would be able to get high quality and cheap data in the home. And if you walked outside while you were making a phone call you would be automatically handed over to the macro network,” Barlow continued.
“So this could then drive up usage – more and more bits, more and more users – so there is something in it for everyone, right from the users through to the mobile operators. Many see it as an inevitability and Cambridge Consultants are just very interested in helping to develop the technology to make that happen.”
So what does the Cambridge Consultant rep think of Mobile World Congress 2010?
“ We’ve had decent footfall on our stand and it helps us speak directly to our target audience. Plus it is great for a lot of the British companies to be clustered here together in the UK Pavilion.”
Tags: Cambridge Consultants, Cambridge Consultants at MWC 2010, Cambridge Consultants femtocells, Femtocells mobile operators
