From HSPA to LTE and beyond: true mobile broadband
by Keith Westcott,
VP Marketing, Ericsson UK
The online world of multimedia made possible by broadband services has changed
how people think about data speeds and network service quality. Regardless of
where they are, consumers no longer accept slow speeds on their laptops and
mobile devices as they download content. From the network operator and service
provider perspective, speed isn’t the only issue – most of them need more
network capacity to handle all the mobile traffic from both corporate users and
consumers.
High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) – sometimes called W-CDMA
Evolved – is a natural and fully standardized evolution of W-CDMA, the world’s
leading third generation mobile standard. Already happening today, HSPA means
ordinary laptop computers are capable of achieving wired broadband speeds – in a
truly mobile environment.
Today, with download speeds up to 3.6Mbps, users are already
enjoying richer communication experiences combining images, text, sounds, video
and voice. As well as bringing people closer together, we are beginning to
realise the potential for mobile vertical applications in segments such as
healthcare, public safety, travel and transport, utilities and manufacturing.
Very soon, the available data rate will approach 14.4Mbps,
and operators will more than double their system capacity and reduce latency
delays for interactive services. On average, users will be able to download
content such as music and video four times faster than with current 3G
connections, and 20 times faster than with a GSM/GPRS connection. Further HSPA
evolution will bring end-user data rates up to 40Mbps in the next two to three
years.
It started with HSPA…
HSPA provides mobile broadband capacity and coverage without
requiring additional carrier frequencies. Instead it uses the otherwise
unutilised power in the base stations, thereby increasing efficiency. This makes
it possible for operators to provide simultaneous voice, video and data services
and shared channel high-speed data services (multi-services) over the same
carrier, as they gain between two and three times more system data capacity. For
end users, that means a simpler, yet enhanced, experience.
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is the first
evolutionary step toward increasing data downlink speeds to 14.4Mbps and more
than doubling a system’s data capacity – all within the current radio spectrum.
Amongst other things, it addresses “high-speed downlink shared channel”, a new
transmission format that provides enhanced support for interactive, background
and streaming services. What is more, introducing HSDPA requires only a software
upgrade of existing Ericsson W-CDMA base stations.
The Long-term Evolution of 3G and Beyond
Next there is Long Term Evolution (LTE) for 3G networks: a
new standards initiative which will deliver even higher broadband speeds. The
important advance in LTE comes from the use of Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) transmission technology with frequency domain adaptation, in
combination with MIMO technologies.
The standard, sometimes referred to as “Super 3G”, is
specified for data rates up to 100Mbps downlink and latency below 10 ms. The
final specification of the standard is expected in 2007. Ericsson expects LTE to
be available from 2009.
Looking beyond LTE, the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) defines "4G" as network technology with throughput of 100Mbps for wide
area/mobile use and 1Gbps for hot spot coverage to be applied in new spectrum
bands with 100 MHz channels. Such systems will be commercially available for
deployment well beyond 2010.
