With out Seizo Onoe, cellphone networks wouldn’t be the supply of worldwide connectivity we all know at present. The IEEE life member was instrumental in driving the standardization for 3G and 4G cell networks.
The first-generation networks that launched within the late Nineteen Seventies and early Eighties have been largely country-specific, designed for making solely home or regional calls. There was no technique to ship textual content messages or different information over 1G networks. And interference from different radio alerts made 1G protection unreliable; there have been loads of dropped calls. Plus, with out encryption, eavesdropping was a persistent drawback.
In 1991 2G networks signaled the fledgling {industry}’s swap to digital—which improved safety and broadened the vary of options. Primary textual content messages grew to become doable.
Particular person international locations and carriers had constructed their very own telecommunications infrastructures, nonetheless, utilizing totally different applied sciences and protocols (though Europe had established a standard regional commonplace). An industry-wide, standardized mobile telecommunications infrastructure was wanted.
Onoe answered that decision, serving to to align firms’ and international locations’ infrastructures as 3G networks took form.
For his efforts, Onoe has been awarded the IEEE Jagadish Chandra Bose Medal in Wi-fi Communications. The medal, bestowed for the primary time this 12 months, is called for an Indian scientist who pioneered radio and millimeter-wave analysis.
Onoe is at present director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau on the Worldwide Telecommunication Union.
The medal is designed to commemorate contributions to wi-fi communications applied sciences with a world influence.
“It’s the highest honor for me,” Onoe says, “particularly as I’m the primary recipient.”
Studying early digital cell radio transmission
Onoe grew up in Akashi, in southwestern Japan. He says he was drawn to the “directness” of STEM topics. He majored in engineering when he enrolled at Kyoto College in 1976.
“After all, my dad and mom additionally instructed engineering as a result of it was extra advantageous for employment,” he says.
He earned a bachelor’s diploma in 1980 and an engineering grasp’s diploma two years later. As a graduate scholar, he labored on early digital cell radio transmission.
The primitive tools on which he minimize his enamel—repurposed (1.544 megabits per second) fixed-line {hardware} donated by {industry}—despatched out cell radio alerts at information charges that may be similar to these of 3G sometime, foreshadowing the digital cell future.
The talk behind the 3G commonplace
Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Phone in 1979 launched the world’s first 1G community. In 1982 Onoe joined NTT’s Yokosuka Electrical Communication Laboratory, in Yokosuka Metropolis. Beginning his NTT profession as a researcher, he helped develop the management alerts mandatory for name setup and different controls over an analog community.
“On the time, NTT’s cell companies was a really small division,” he recollects. Issues actually began altering within the early Nineteen Nineties, he says.
In 1992 the corporate spun off its cell division, Docomo (do communications over the cell community). The identify was popularly interpreted as a play on the Japanese phrase dokomo, which implies in all places.
Onoe was transferred to Docomo in 1992, when the corporate was based, and was later promoted to govt engineer and director. NTT reacquired Docomo in 2020.
He contributed to 3G improvement, together with work on a fast cell search algorithm, which proved vital for community efficiency. The algorithm lets cell gadgets rapidly determine the closest base station in a mobile community. And it didn’t depend on different programs, like GPS, to find the proper cell in a community—making the method simpler, sooner, and cheaper.
His most difficult effort all through the Nineteen Nineties, he says, was together with rising digital mobile stakeholders worldwide—together with governments, telecom firms, and regulators—to start envisioning the infrastructure on which a really international mobile community could possibly be constructed.
That meant creating a single commonplace.
“There have been many, many heated debates all around the globe,” Onoe says.
Based on historical past articles revealed on-line by Ericsson, the debates have been advanced and contentious. They concerned entities from inside and outdoors the {industry}, together with cellphone producers, cell service suppliers, requirements boards, and authorities officers.
Europe alone was contemplating 5 totally different telecom infrastructures throughout the continent’s quite a few mobile networks, Onoe says, highlighting the divide around the globe. Some firms and international locations supported time-division a number of entry (TDMA), which might cut up the obtainable community bandwidth into time slots and assign customers particular slots for transmission. Others have been pushing a special entry expertise that’s partly aggressive with TDMA and partly complementary to it: code-division a number of entry (CDMA), which makes use of distinctive codes to permit a number of customers to share each bandwidth and time.
As if that rising requirements panorama weren’t sophisticated sufficient, Sony championed one more expertise based mostly on orthogonal frequency division a number of entry (OFDMA).
In December 1997 the European Telecommunications Requirements Institute met in Madrid. At problem could be who managed the requirements for, on the time, the 3G future.
And that’s when the fur actually flew. The Nordic cell producers Ericsson and Nokia squared off in what have been, in keeping with Ericsson’s account no less than, “more and more warlike circumstances.” Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, who the above account stated “regarded Ericsson as a British firm,” took Ericsson’s aspect within the squabbles. Different ETSI disputes aired at that assembly discovered their manner into lawsuits years later.
Not one of the requirements into consideration garnered sufficient votes to move. A second vote could be held the next month in Paris—and so the lobbying started anew.
On the Paris assembly in January 1998, the ETSI voted on W-CDMA because the dominant commonplace for the world’s 3G networks. However within the spirit of compromise, the requirements physique additionally allotted a restricted quantity of 3G spectrum to TD-CDMA, a mix of the time-division and code-division strategies.
Following that, within the ultimate stage of the 3G standardization battle—a debate between wideband CDMA and an analogous entry expertise, CDMA2000—Onoe emerged as a significant participant to assist dealer an settlement, as Japan no less than hedgingly supported the push for W-CDMA.
“I made a decision to step in and be part of the battle, so to talk,” Onoe says. “Throughout all these international locations and distributors and people preventing, it was clear we have been going to should provide you with some compromises to lastly agree.”
Onoe helped lead an operators’ harmonization group to do exactly that. It proposed altering the chip fee—the frequency at which the smallest items of 3G code are transmitted.
With 3G politics addressed, the arduous 3G engineering work then started in earnest.
“We needed to begin the event of the business system,” Onoe says. “I don’t assume I totally appreciated simply how difficult that was going to be.”
From 1999 till 2001, he says, he labored day by day together with weekends.
“I might begin conferences at midnight, summarize the day’s actions, and plan for the following day,” he says. “It’s arduous to think about all these years later, however as a younger and excited engineer, it was simple for me to do.”
NTT grew to become the primary firm to launch 3G commercially, in October 2001. The brand new wi-fi commonplace vastly outstripped 2G’s information charges. In the end, common 2G obtain speeds have been about 40 kilobits per second, whereas 3G finally would boast as much as 8 megabits per second. The 2G to 3G swap represented a night-and-day distinction in pace, making 3G the primary international commonplace to allow the primary wave of cell video calls, Web shopping, on-line video games, and streaming video content material.
4G and telecom’s fast bandwidth development
Along with his contributions to 3G secured, Onoe continued to look ahead. In 2009 Ericsson and Sweden’s TeliaSonera launched the world’s first 4G/LTE community. 5 instances sooner than 3G, it unlocked high-definition video streaming, lag-free on-line gaming, and a brand new vary of cell apps together with FaceTime, Snapchat, and Uber.
Onoe additionally performed a key function within the international 4G standardization course of. On the time, he was Docomo’s managing director of R&D technique. He went on to turn into the corporate’s chief expertise officer, in addition to an govt vp who served on the board of administrators. When he left the corporate in 2022, he was NTT’s chief standardization technique officer.
That 12 months he was elected to his present function: director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. He started his four-year time period at first of 2023.
“The ITU’s elementary mission is to attach the unconnected,” he says. “One-third of the world’s inhabitants continues to be not linked. And customary specs assist, as a result of after they’re adopted broadly, they create economies of scale. Competitors will increase, and the value drops. It’s a constructive cycle.”
Collaborating with IEEE
Onoe joined IEEE early in his profession—following firm coverage at NTT encouraging membership. He says he continues to resume his membership as a result of he values the networking alternatives it offers, in addition to probabilities to speak concerning the {industry} with fellow engineers.
He works intently with IEEE leaders in his present place at ITU. In December the organizations convened the IEEE-ITU Symposium on Reaching Local weather Resilience, which goals to form a technology-driven street map to confront the local weather disaster.
“We additionally maintain joint workshops and conferences and share ideas informally,” Onoe says. “As I’ve seen all through my profession, it’s critically vital that requirements our bodies actively collaborate if we hope to advance international expertise.”
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