Batteries Not Included

No one wants to be the kid who unwraps a mega-morphing talking toy, only to find out that Mom and Dad forgot to get batteries for it. So, amid all the anticipation for 3G, has the industry forgotten to think about how to plug it in?

Third-generation wireless is a utopia. The vision of 3G includes better voice quality, near-perfect reliability, warp-speed data rates and multimedia applications. With all that comes more customers, increased usage and higher ARPUs.

Indeed, if you build it, people will come. If you don't build it right, though, carriers could end up with a product that's no talk and no action.

Building it right means thinking about far more than the services that will give 3G its kick. Power is one fundamental, but often neglected, area that carriers must address.

"Power is sometimes mundane to (carriers)," said Samuel Norman, Delta sales manager, major accounts. "They want to walk in and see the green light in the corner. Given that, power is just kind of `oh well, the lights were on when I got here, so I must have power.'"

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. With the advanced applications and increased usage that 3G touts, reliability will become a paramount concern. The anger subscribers feel now when their calls are dropped will pale in comparison to their rage should a data transmission get dropped.

Given all this, perhaps it should come as no surprise that 3G will need more power.

"The 3G standard typically calls for a 48V powering scheme," said Sharon Sugarek, Lucent senior manager of product marketing.

That's no sweat for most of the world's wireless carriers, as they already run on 48V. North American carriers, however, use 24V power almost exclusively. The idea of adding batteries and upgrading the amount of voltage is less than thrilling.

"Well, it wouldn't be fun," quipped Jay Quinlan, U.S. Cellular director of technology development. "Depending on quantity and what kind of value you are getting, it could be $10,000 to $20,000 to replace the power plant."

As talk of moving to 48V power spreads through the industry, the extent of that challenge gradually will be understood.

"There is a lot of talk in the industry of going to 48V," said Don Law, Delta senior sales manager. "If that happens, then that would be quite an infrastructure change. I'm not sure that anyone has defined which direction it is going to take."

Batteries, though, are just batteries. Although footprint requirements are a concern, what really matters is how many you have and the juice they deliver.

New-Generation Choices Lucent plans on 48V becoming the global standard, but it won't be an overwhelming shift. A company-conducted study predicts that approximately 70% of the global wireless industry will use 48V power within five to 10 years, compared to approximately 60% today.

Law identified a similar time frame for 48V to become wireless' power level of choice, and also said that the 24V systems would not go away any time soon.

"The 24V stuff will be around for the next 20 years, there is no doubt about that," he said. "It's just like everyone predicted that analog channels were going to go away (with the introduction of digital). You'd be surprised how many times you are actually operating on analog."

Whether 48V is the global standard or not, Sugarek is confident that American wireless carriers will not be forced to upgrade from 24V.

"I can't help but imagine that Lucent is going to provide what the U.S. carriers need," she said. "If they want to stay on a 24V standard, I suspect that Lucent is going to find a way to provide them cell-site equipment that does that."

Going with the majority, however, may save American carriers money. Ideally, 3G will create a global wireless standard that will allow consumers to use their wireless phones, whether they are in Seattle or Beijing. Equipment costs might go down given the volume of 48V production, Sugarek said.

It's certainly fair to assume that 3G will require more power, Quinlan said.

"In 27 years, I have never seen my power requirements go down, even though the stuff claims to be more power efficient," he said. "Some vendors are just known to suck more power than others. Who you are using will probably determine what your power needs are going to be at each particular site."

True, an across-the-board upgrade to 48V may not be necessary. How carriers intend to deploy 3G networks will be the critical factor. It may come down to a site-by-site decision, Sugarek said.

"The carrier is going to have to look at the age and functionality of each site and decide what makes the most sense for each," she said.

Carriers that plan to do card-level swap-outs to upgrade for 3G can run 48V off 24V power systems without even knowing it.

"If you have a 24V plant and you want to convert it to 48V, one of the ways you can do that is by using dc-to-dc converters," said Sugarek.

By using converters to get to 48V, carriers can keep their existing equipment. Dc-to-dc converters would be useful for newer cell sites, as carriers cannot afford to waste the time and investment that went into establishing them. Converters also may be the best option in rural areas, where the carrier isn't likely to experience overwhelming growth.

Carriers that go into 3G with an overlay solution would have 48V power built in, Sugarek said.

"When you do the overlay, you are not trying to use the equipment that is already in place; you are really building an entire new network on top of the one you have in place, (and) you would build it with 48V," she said.

An overlay solution brings advantages to carriers with older networks that are at or near capacity. That way, carriers can upgrade dated power plants and deliver 3G at the same time, according to Delta's Norman. He added that the overlay is likely the approach most carriers will take, given the current challenges of site acquisition. Delta's Law said that power requirements at the existing sites would definitely go up with an overlay solution.

In comparing the two solutions, carriers will have to weigh them against the needs of the specific networks. Neither method is particularly difficult, according to Sugarek. Prices of the solutions also are individually focused.

"In some circumstances, it will be cheaper and easier to put in a converter plant next to your power plant and just convert and add the new 48V technologies," Sugarek said. "In large sites that would be expensive; in small sites that would be fine."

Comfy With 24V If carriers' early reactions to the power-upgrade idea are any indication of what will happen, Lucent and other vendors may very well have to deliver 24V 3G networks. A Sprint PCS spokesperson said the carrier has no plans to upgrade its voltage levels for 3G systems. The carrier's Nortel networks, however, already run on 48V.

"With 3G, all we are going to have to do is card-level swap outs," said Solomon Hu, Alltel staff manager of network planning. "So that's not going to require any additional power, unless the raw number of subscribers jumps up."

Hu said it would take a huge amount of customer growth to require 48V power, and added that such a change may occur with 4G. Should Alltel push for an upgrade in the near future, Hu said he would question why.

"Unless they had a really good reason why, and it would save us money, I would not want them to do it because that would force my hand to change the power system, and that doesn't make financial sense," Hu said.

If the wireless industry settles on 48V as the 3G standard, debate with vendors is not an option, Quinlan said.

"I don't think I'd have much impact on any of my vendors if I said, `You know what? Everyone else wants 48. I want to go to 24,'" he said. "I just can't drive it, so I'll have to figure out what to do when it comes that way."

Quinlan isn't worried about having enough lead time to work on power for 3G. The 24/48V debate won't be resolved until the first 3G base station arrives, he said.

"Unfortunately power is always thought of last because you do what you have to do," Quinlan said. "The bottom line is that power guys don't complain; we just do."

Delta's Norman believes it will be the manufacturers that will dictate whether or not American carriers plug into 48V.

"If Lucent comes out and says `this is the only way you are going to get it,' that's probably going to do it," he said.

Lucent's Sugarek, however, thinks the momentum will come from whoever has the cash.

"The guy with the money is the carrier; he's the customer," Sugarek said. "It's a financial decision and, to me, the carrier is in the driver seat here."

That should come as good news to people such as U.S. Cellular's Quinlan, who wants vendors to approach the power issue from the carrier's angle.

"I think they need to understand that we've got 24V plants in there, and they should try to work with us at all costs to make (3G power systems) 24V."

As wireless carriers imagine the magic that will come with the next generation of wireless, the network foundation that will deliver 3G also cannot be ignored.

"The carriers need to be talking to their OEM vendors about power, which is usually not a subject that comes up," Sugarek said. "Not everyone thinks about it until the day that they don't have any; then people get real interested in it."

Although an upgrade to 48V may seem a daunting task, wireless carriers needn't blow their fuses. The power is theirs.

Batteries work off the positive and the negative. The positive to adding batteries is more power. The negative is that there isn't always a whole lot of room in cell sites for additional batteries. Jay Quinlan, U.S. Cellular director of technology development, called physical space for batteries a huge issue to be addressed.

"If you're lucky, and you've done things well, you should be able to stack on top of the batteries you have," he said. "If you can stack, you're just going high. Otherwise, it's a big issue."

Getting to 48V won't require you to replace old batteries; you just have to bring in twice as many as you have.

"A battery is just a battery; it doesn't care about 24 or 48V particularly," said Sharon Sugarek, Lucent senior manager of product marketing. "Typically in wireless sites, you would run into a 12V battery. So to get a 24V reserve, you put two batteries together. If you need 48V, you put four batteries together; it is the same batteries."

Quinlan concurred, adding, "I would more likely add to the string of batteries that are there if I needed to go to 48 and then change out the rectifiers to a negative 48."