翻译资格考试(catti)一级笔译材料七.pdf
Mobile Telecoms:Wireless:The Next Generation移动通信:无 线:下一世代(节选)A new wave of mobile technology is on its way,andwill bring drastic change酝酿中的新一代移动技术将带来巨变The future is already arriving,it is just a questionof knowing where to look.On Changshou Road inShanghai,eagle eyes may spot an odd rectangularobject on top of an office block:it is a collection of 128miniature antennae.Pedestrians in Manhattan cancatch a glimpse of apparatus that looks like a videocamera on a stand,but jerks around and has a strange,hornlike protrusion where the lens should be.It blastsa narrow beam of radio waves at buildings so they canbounce their way to the receiver.The campus of theUniversity of Surrey in Guildford,England,is dottedwith 44 antennae,which form virtual wireless cells thatfollow a device around.未来已然在目,只在于我们放眼何方。上海的长寿路上,目光敏锐的人会发现一座办公楼的楼顶架着奇怪的矩形物体:由128条微型天线组成的设备。在曼哈顿,行人会瞥见摄像头般的装置立在支架上,不但会猛然转动,而且在本应是镜头的位置有奇怪的角状突出。该装置向建筑物发射窄束无线电波,经过反射的电波可以传给接收器。萨里大学(University of Surrey)在英格兰吉尔福德(Guildford)的校园内分布着44台天线,形成一套虚拟的无线基站,供手机使用。These antennae are vanguards of a newgeneration of wireless technologies.Although theprevious batch,collectively called“fourthgeneration”,or 4G,is still being rolled out in manycountries,the telecoms industry has already startedworking on the next,5G.On February 12th AT&T,America7 s second-largest mobile operator,said itwould begin testing whether prototype 5G circuitryworks indoors,following similar news in Septemberfrom Verizon,the number one.South Korea wants tohave a 5G network up and running when it hosts theWinter Olympics in 2018;Japan wants the same for thesummer games in 2020.When the industry held itsannual jamboree,Mobile World Congress,inBarcelona in February,5G topped the agenda.这些天线是新一代无线技术的前沿成果。虽然许多国家仍在推广被统称为 第四代(即4G)的前一代无线技术,但电信业已经迈向下一代技术即5G的研发。2月12日,美国第二大移动运营商AT&T表示将试验5G原型电路能否在室内接通。而早在去年9月,美国第一大移动运营商Verizon也做过类似的实验。韩国希望在2018年主办冬季奥运会时能建成并启用5G网络;日本希望在2020年主办夏季奥运会时实现同样的愿景。2月在无线业界于巴塞罗那召开的年度峰会世界移动通信大会(Mobile World Congress)上,5G技术成为首要议题。Mobile telecoms have come a long way sinceMartin Cooper of Motorola,inventor of the DynaTAC,the first commercially available handset,demonstrated it in 1973.In the early 2000s,when 3Gtechnology made web-browsing feasible on mobiles,operators splashed out more than$100 billion onradio-spectrum licences,only to find that thetechnology most had agreed to use was harder toimplement than expected.自摩托罗拉的马丁库帕(Martin Cooper)在1973年展示其发明的首款商用手机DynaTAC以来,移动通讯已有长足的发展。21世纪初,3G技术使手机上网成为可能,运营商于是砸出超过千亿美元购入无线电频谱牌照,却发现这项大多数人已同意使用的技术推广起来难于预期。Theadvent of 5G is likely to bring another splurge ofinvestment,just as orders for 4G equipment arepeaking.The goal is to be able to offer users no lessthan the perception of infinite capacity,saysRahim Tafazolli,director of the 5G Innovation Centreat the University of Surrey.Rare will be the device thatis not wirelessly connected,from self-driving cars anddrones to the sensors,industrial machines andhousehold appliances that together constitute theinternet of things,z(loT).正当4G设备迎来订单高峰之际,5G的出现很可能激发另一轮投资热潮。目标是至少给用户以功能无限的印象,萨里大学5G创新中心主任拉希姆 塔法佐利(RahimTafazolli)说。将来,从无人驾驶汽车、无人机到构成 物联网的一切传感器、工业机械及家用电器,几乎所有设备都能无线联网。It is easy to dismiss all this as a lot of hype”,inthe words of Kester Mann of CCS Insight,a researchfirm.When it comes to 5G,much is still up in the air:not only which band of radio spectrum and whichwireless technologies will be used,but what standardsmakers of network gear and handsets will have tocomply with.Telecoms firms have reached consensusonly on a set of rough“requirements”.The mostimportant are connection speeds of up to 10 gigabitsper second and response times(latency)of below1 millisecond.视这一切为 炒作 并嗤之以鼻很容易,研究公司CCSInsight的凯斯特 曼(Kester Mann)说道。提至I5G,大都未有定论:不只是利用哪一频段的无线电频谱及哪些无线技术未定,还有网络设备及手机制造商须遵照哪些标准也未确定。电信公司已就一套宽泛的 要求达成共识。最重要的是连接速度最高要达到lOGbps,而且响应时间(网络延迟)须低于一毫秒。Yet the momentum is real.South Korea and Japanare front-runners in wired broadband,and Olympicgames are an opportunity to show the world that theyintend also to stay ahead in wireless,even if that maymean having to upgrade their 5G networks to complywith a global standard once it is agreed.AT&T andVerizon both invested early in 4G,and would like tolead again with 5G.The market for network equipmenthas peaked,as recent results from Ericsson and Nokiashow,so the makers also need a new generation ofproducts and new groups of customers.然而,势头已然成真。韩国和日本是有线宽带建设的领跑国家,举办奥运会是一个机会,向世界展现它们也想要领跑无线领域,即便这意味着在全球标准议定出台后它们可能必须升级其5G网络以符合标准要求。AT&T及Verizon均在早期率先投资4G,如今同样希望在5G上再度领先。正如爰立信和诺基亚最近业绩所显示的那样,网络设备市场已经饱和,因此制造商也需要新一代产品及新的客户群。On the demand side,too,pressure is mounting forbetter wireless infrastructure.The rapid growth in datatraffic will continue for the foreseeable future,saysSundeep Rangan of NYU Wireless,a department ofNew York University.According to one estimate,networks need to be ready for a 1,000-fold increase indata volumes in the first half of the 2020s.And theradio spectrum used by 4G,which mostly sits below 3gigahertz,is running out,and thus getting moreexpensive.An auction in America last year raked in$45billion.需求方面也一样,改善无线基础设施的呼声日益迫切。纽约大学无线研究中心(NYU Wireless)的森迪普 兰根(Sundeep Rangan)表示,在可预见的未来,数据流量将继续快速增长。据估计,在本世纪20年代的前五年,网络需要准备好迎接上千倍的数据量增长。而4G所用的无线电频段(大多低于3GHz)已逐渐稀缺,且愈加昂贵,去年美国一次竞拍便卖得450亿美元。But the path to a 5G wireless paradise will not besmooth.It is not only the usual telecoms suspects whowill want a say in this mother of all networks.Mediacompanies will want priority to be given to generousbandwidth,so they can stream films with ever higherresolution.Most loT firms will not need muchbandwidth,but will want their sensors to run on oneset of batteries for years-so they will want the 5Gstandard to put a premium on low powerconsumption.Online-gaming firms will worry aboutlatency:players will complain if it is too high.但通往5G无线天堂的道路不会一帆风顺。对 这 一“万网之源,争取话事权的不单是惯常那些电信企业。媒体公司希望优先获得更高的带宽,以便其以更高分辨率在线播放影片。大部分物联网企业不需要太大的带宽,而是想自己的传感器能靠一组电池续航数年,所以它们会希望5G标准重视低功耗。网游公司会担心网络延迟的问题:假如延迟过久,玩家会抱怨。The most important set of new actors,however,are information-technology firms.The likes of Apple,IBM and Samsung have a big interest not only inselling more smartphones and other mobile devices,but also in IoT,which is tipped to generate the nextbig wave of revenues for them and other companies.Google,which already operates high-speed fibre-opticnetworks in several American cities and may betempted to build a wireless one,has shown an interestin 5G.In 2014 it bought Alpental Technologies,astartup which was developing a cheap,high-speedcommunications service using extremely high radiofrequencies,known as“millimetre wave”(mmWave),the spectrum bands above 3 gigahertz where most of5G is expected to live.然而,最重要的新登场者是信息技术公司。苹果、IBM、三星这类企业不但关心卖出更多的智能手机及其他移动设备,对于物联网这据称将为其带来下一波收入巨浪的领域,他们也饶有兴致。谷歌已在美国多个城市运营高速光纤网络业务,而且可能有意打造无线网络,目前该公司已对5G表示兴趣。2014年,谷歌收购了创业公司AlpentalTechnologies,该公司当时正在研发通过极高频无线电提供廉价而高速的通讯服务,即所谓的 毫米波(mmWave,频段高于3GHz,也是5G预期主要使用的频段)。To satisfy all these actors will not be easy,predictsUlf Ewaldsson,Ericsson7 s chief technology officer.Questions over spectrum may be the easiest to solve,in part because the World RadiocommunicationConference,established by international treaty,willsettle them.Its last gathering,in November,failed toagree on the frequencies for 5G,but it is expected todo so when it next meets in 2019.It is likely to carveout space in the mmWave bands.Tests such as theone in Manhattan mentioned above,which areconducted by researchers from NYU Wireless,haveshown that such bands can be used for 5G:althoughthey are blocked even by thin obstacles,they can bemade to bounce around them.要满足所有各方所求并非易事,爰立信首席技术官乌尔夫艾华信(Ulf Ewaldsson)预言道。频段问题也许是最容易解 决 的,一方面是因为按国际条约成立的世界无线电通信大会将解决这些问题。大会上一次召开是在去年11月,虽然当时无法就5G所用频率达成一致,但预计大会下一次在2019年召开时便可达成共识,并很可能会在毫米波频段中开辟空间。诸如上文提及由NYU无线研究中心研究人员在曼哈顿所做的测试已显示,这些频段可以用于5G:虽然薄障碍物也会造成阻隔,但可以让它们通过反射绕过障碍物。For the first time there will not be competing setsof technical rules,as was the case with 4G,when LTE,now the standard,was initially threatened by WiMax,which was bankrolled by Intel,a chipmaker.Nobodyseems willing to play Intel s role this time around.That said,5G will be facing a strong competitor,especially indoors:smartphone users are increasinglyusing Wi-Fi connections for calls and texts as well asdata.That means they have ever less need for a mobileconnection,no matter how blazingly fast it may be.没有多套技术准则相互竞争,这实属首次,不像4G推出时的情形,如今普遍采用的LTE标准最初还受到芯片制造商英特尔投资开发的WiMax标准威胁。这次,似乎没有谁愿意扮演英特尔的角色。尽管如此,5G将面对一个强大对手,尤其是在室内:智能手机用户除了用Wi-Fi传输数据之外,也越来越多地用其打电话及发短信。那意味着他们对接入移动网络的需求越来越少,不管数据的传输有多么极速。