REPORT ON THE
DECT '03 Event
part of Short Range Wireless Solutions Conference
by David Tuttlebee

Key Issues
Markets - DECT continues to consolidate its position in the Residential Market with steady growth of 5% in 2002 with further growth expected to continue and increase over the next few years at a similar rate.  Increased sales of DECT phones to replace old analogue phones as a result of the increased advantages of DECT, most recently being the introduction of SMS capability to DECT Phones.

New Markets and Applications
    - New US market potential for DECT, with strengths including RSSI, proven multicell implementations and simple effective antenna diversity. 
    - The ever increasing number of countries that now have DECT bands, or where DECT is now becoming a more established technology (over 110 countries where DECT is employed)
    - IMT 2000, this is viewed as a medium term growth potential to DECT, with the first effects being felt in 2006
    - Machine to Machine (M2M), Industrial Applications
    - Telematics
    - Operator Services
    - SMS, F-MMS, F-SMS
    - PC Phone Connectivity
    - Home Control

DECT BOM
RTX Telecom and others have seen a big reduction in DECT BOM costs over recent years from $125 in 1994, to now about $25 for 2002, this is expected to continue to go significantly lower, perhaps to $12, $10 or even $8.   Advanced features for phones are now very cheap to add, such as SMS, however the drawback being that they require a lot of testing, thus testing costs are increasing.

DECT Standards
The big developments on the standards front has been FCC rules changes in the USA that mean that the normal European DECT protocols can be operated essentially unchanged in the ISM  frequency bands in the USA, releasing existing economies of scale in North America.   ETSI already has DECT carrier positions defined for the 900MHz and 2.4GHz ISM bands. This could spell the end of the proprietary DECT-based solutions, such as WDCT and MARS, developed for the US market in recent years, as manufacturers leverage existing higher volume products offering improved functionality and lower cost. Also notable developments from ETSI were new features of the DECT Physical Layer, notably yet higher order modulation schemes with Forward Error Correction to improve bit rate and interworking with UMTS.

ETSI is also further enhancing the DECT Standard to prolong the world wide success of IMT-2000 FT with DECT. DECT has been accepted as one of the IMT-2000 RTTs (radio technologies). The new modulation schemes being standardised by ETSI will allow it to deliver above 2Mb/s data in very low cost product implementations, given the maturity of DECT technology.

DECT to create Voice/Data Home Networks
This was put forward by both Siemens, Ericsson and Inventel as an area in which DECT will integrate and develop over the next few years, to provide a range of niche applications such as home intrusion, domestic appliance monitoring etc.  A very good early example cited was the DECT Door Phone on the Innovative Products page) developed by Inventel.

Machine to Machine
This was presented by Hoeft & Wessel.
Why DECT in M2M ?
    - Clean, exclusive frequency band
    - High degree of network security
    - Power effecient due to GFSK and power management
    - Open Standard, accepted in more than 100 countries

CLDPS (Connectionless DECT Packet Service) developed by Hoeft and Wessel to supersede DPRS.
CLDPS – connectionless data transmission over DECT - CLDPS (Connectionless DECT Packet Service) is a novel technology for packet data transmission in the DECT system. CLDPS accounts for higher data throughput than conventional DECT data networks. It is suited for multi-cell networks with high numbers of network nodes.

Interesting Products and Developments from DECT Companies
Inventel - "Open SMS" Box to enable SMS to be sent to be used with the home network.  SMS use for all DECT Phones. Mini DECT emergency 1 Button Phone. See Innovative Products page.

Kirk Telecom - Partnership with companies including Blick Communications, Wavelink, Jenka Electronics to develop technology solutions for a wide range of vertical applications including the "Blue Train" in South Africa, Hospitals & Nurse Care, Security, Manufacturing, etc.

Siemens - Announced some of the new features becoming increasingly available on DECT Phones including: SMS in a fixed network, Walkie Talkie Mode, Handsfree talking and Voice dialing. Also focused upon the convergence of voice and data networks in the home along with the emergence of xDSL combining in the home with DECT and WLAN. 

Hoeft and Wessel - CLDPS Specification, looking for partner companies to develop this further. (See above)

SMS, EMS, MMS, F-SMS, F-MMS Messaging and effects on DECT
Siemens focused particularly on the potential of DECT to captialise on the emergence of messaging, highlighting how they are expecting a knock on effect to help further DECT phone sales over the next few years particularly where there is interactivity in the home such as TV voting. SMS fixed line acceptance was also highlighted as being quickly accepted across Western Europe.

One issue raised was also the need for residential manufacturers to publicize the SMS feature on DECT phones more, one way being through advertising on the box, and secondly by manufacturers making the SMS capability easy to use as in mobile phones.