Product category: Communications ICs (Wireless)
News Release from: Broadcom Corp
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 16 February 2007
M-stream technology completes
live network trials
Broadcom's M-Stream software, which helps boost cellular network capacity, has successfully completed live network trials in North America
Broadcom says that its M-Stream technology has successfully completed live network trials in North America. Testing in Baltimore and Seattle demonstrated that commercial cellular handsets equipped with Broadcom M-Stream technology exhibited significant improvements in voice quality, improving Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) ratings by 0.5 in areas of low signal and interference, and increased network capacity without additional modifications or cost to the network itself.
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 16 February 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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Phones equipped with M-Stream technology provide substantial advantages to network operators by improving coverage indoors and in areas with low signal strength and interference.
M-Stream technology also enables operators to operate GSM networks more efficiently over a wider cell area, significantly increasing network capacity.
'Broadcom's M-Stream technology demonstrates an improved call experience on 2G and 3G cellular networks and these live field trials are a strong validation of the technology in a real world environment', says Ketan Kamdar, Vice President, Strategic Planning and Network Operators at Broadcom.
'The capacity improvements are invaluable to operators managing network transitions from 2G to 3G as well as in countries where consumer demand for cellular service is far outstripping demand that can be served with currently allocated spectrum'.
M-Stream technology is available today on all Broadcom cellular baseband devices, providing global benefits across both 2G (GSM) and 3G (WCDMA) phones.
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Broadcom is also licensing M-Stream technology to infrastructure OEMs.
When growth in the number of cellular handset users outpaces the growth in network capacity, carriers typically convert their cellular service to lower bit-rate operations, to support more users per basestation.
Unfortunately this often causes users to suffer noticeable degradation in voice quality.
In addition, a low bit-rate class of service results in a higher number of dropped calls, which negatively affects customer satisfaction.
Cellular carriers will benefit from technologies that enable enhanced capacity and improved call quality, which are important requirements to avoid service cancellations or costly customer support.
Broadcom's cellular baseband processors, enabled with M-Stream technology, enable networks to support nearly twice as many calls with improved quality using existing cellular network infrastructure.
M-Stream technology is a software-based technology that does not add additional hardware to either the cellular baseband processor or handset.
Broadcom M-Stream technology dynamically employs advanced error-correction algorithms to the incoming voice streams and reconstructs lost information to restore reception quality.
It also typically provides a 2 to 3dB signal/noise improvement in GSM networks, over a very wide range of channel conditions that includes weak and fading signals, and in areas where radio interference is present.
These enhancements provide a direct benefit to consumers by improving call quality while enabling carriers to increase the number of callers who can be supported on existing networks.
On 3G-UMTS networks, operators can gain up to 20% more network capacity by deploying handsets enabled with M-Stream technology.
The technology can also be implemented on a network infrastructure to improve uplink quality for all legacy handsets.
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