ARM Community: CTIA 2010: 1GHz ARM SmartPhones and Beyond Part 2 - ARM Community

This is part 2 of my CTIA blog looking at the network challenges, and the unexpected gadgets of CTIA 2010. Part 1 covered the best Smartphones, Android from 2G to 4G, multimedia capabilities in phones and screen sizes.

It’s All About The Network
At CTIA there was a lot of talk of how the “data crunch” is going to be addressed over the coming years and how the rollout of Wimax and LTE will help address this issue. Technical note in defense of AT&T; their HSPA+ network will have the spectral efficiency almost equal to LTE. However before you think the data capacity challenge is solved, here are some interesting data points from the Femtocell forum:

• Increased spectrum will give a 2x increase in data capacity
• LTE/Wimax will give you 3-5x increase in data capacity.

Combined these two improvements will give a 10x increase in data capacity over the next four years, which sounds rather good. However Cisco are forecasting that the worldwide mobile data traffic is going to grow from about 0.2 Exabytes per month in 2010 to 3.6 Exabytes per month in 2014 (1Exabyte = 1,000,000 Terabytes) so in 4 years we have an 18x increase in data usage. So this major data capacity gap can only be addressed by network topology, e.g. more cell sites.


Given the challenges of installing new cell towers (cost, zoning issues, available sites etc) femtocells are a very viable solution. QUALCOMM were showing a 1GHz Snapdragon based custom SoC for femtocells, so in the next few years when you buy that 1GHz+ ARM Smartphone the must have accessory will be the 1GHz ARM femtocell.

Mobile Responsibility
I must give a special mention to LG for their efforts at CTIA to push mobile responsibility on their booth. The first part was a text and driving simulator, rather than just putting a rather bland “don’t text and drive” poster they actually had a simulator to demonstrate how texting effects your driving.


It was interesting that Taser (yes the 10,000volt Taser) were offering an anti texting product, which sounded very painful, but in fact was just a GPS based big brother product that would control the features of the phone.

LG was also promoting phone recycling with a nice section devoted to this on their booth, of course if you are like me you just keep your old phones in your desk draw.


Expect the Unexpected or Think the Unthinkable?
At CTIA or other mobile shows is always fun to see Smartphones and other gadgets that you cannot just predict or even conceive.


First of all a special mention for the “Man of the show” which goes to the DoCoMo intern. This poor guy had to stand stock still just moving his eyeballs to demonstrate the eye-controlled earphones which sound oxymoronic to me.


In the product that you will not be buying soon, there was the first touch screen watchphone if you are really interested in one there is a review at PCMAG. Watchphones are always shown at mobile shows, but I have yet to see one in the wild, even Karl our Cortex-A8 product manager who owns a PDA watch has not bought a watchphone.


It seems that AT&T may have become a bit sensitive about their coverage and are now offering a combined satellite/3G phone in a form factor that actually was very svelte given that it is a satellite phone.


Of course given that 80% of the world’s population has mobile coverage I’m sure that the market will be limited, but if you are off to explore for oil then it is the phone for you.

One gadget that exceeded my expectations was the Motorola wearable WinCE ARM based computer which used in eye projection and voice recognition. My expectation was that the in eye projection would be blurry vision, and the voice recognition would have major problem with the intense background noise, and my accent. Instead it all worked great, the voice recognition worked incredibly well, and the screen was very usable. Expect to see this being used out in the field soon.


My personal favorites of the show were two products that are perfect for those who want to save some money.

First for those who cannot afford $216,000 for the latest greatest Vertu handset, but still want to achieve that level of taste that normally only rapidly gained great wealth can achieve, then there were some iPhone cases for you at CTIA.


If you are like me then you are a Bluetooth addict, who keeps buying new headsets to achieve the ultimate in voice quality then your quest is over, a headset that sounds as good as your phone.


Looking at it I could save even more money and make my own out of a wire coat hanger; you will see me wearing it at Google I/O.

What were your favorite things at CTIA?

James Bruce, Mobile Marketing, ARM, is based in Silicon Valley. James is without doubt a gadget guy who is continuously looking at the latest devices and services on them. Working for ARM allows James to see what technology will be on your mobile device in 3 to 5 years time. This view of the future combined with being based in Silicon Valley and having worked on mobile for the last 9 years allows James to have a unique view of mobile technology. At the moment James is deciding which Cortex-A8 phone he will buy this year, and which dual core Cortex-A9 phone he will buy next year.

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