Multimedia messaging services that let users send and receive pictures, music and animation are now being offered by most major operators, and early indications are encouraging. The availability of low-cost, data-capable terminals will likely accelerate data-service growth as well. Bolstered by this success, operators are experimenting with broadband wireless services that promise to give mobile users the same type of experience they currently enjoy in the home or corporate environment. Video streaming, two-way gaming and other feature-rich services await us.

While the movement toward data services is clearly discernible, it is not a market-dominating force. Cellular operators today receive a disproportionate amount of revenue from voice services, complicating their network planning operations. While they must ensure that their networks will be able to handle accelerated demand for more-sophisticated data services, at the same time the networks have to be optimized for voice traffic.

This has led them, their equipment vendors and key semiconductor solution providers to explore more-flexible paradigms in cellular network deployment and management. Items such as remote radio units, widespread fiber-based transport, processing server farms, tower-mounted power amplifiers and software-defined radio are all under investigation, as are efficiency-enhancing algorithms such as power amplifier linearization, adaptive antenna arrays and interference cancellation.

Tandhoni (Tan) Rao manages chip set marketing and systems architecture at Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas).