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High-Speed Packet Access Opens the Door to Turbo 3G
9th October , 2005

US : High-speed upgrades to 3G cellular networks could be a key factor in driving the expansion and profitability of wireless broadband communications, finds a new report from the subscription research service Unstrung Insider.

"Mobile broadband has the potential to be a major new growth area for mobile operators as they start to compete with public wireless LAN and residential broadband access services," says Gabriel Brown, Chief Analyst of Unstrung Insider and author of the report, entitled Turbo 3G: High-Speed Packet Access Arrives.


Brown estimates that a subscription price of $30 (€25) per month will be the point at which mobile broadband over cellular networks will become attractive to the mass market. But to deliver that competitive price per bit and scoop a mobility premium, operators will require radio access systems vastly more efficient than today's 3G UMTS cellular networks.

HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) and HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) are the first steps down this road for UMTS-based 3G systems. Brown analyzes the implementation of these high-speed upgrades to mobile networks worldwide and assesses the impact of this disruptive technology on the mobile infrastructure market.

Among the report's key findings:

Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens will maintain their 3G dominance, but HSDPA creates an opportunity for Nortel and Alcatel to increase their footprints, and for Lucent to break into UMTS.

Qualcomm leads the HSDPA chipset market, but competitors will make inroads in the move to 3.6-Mbit/s devices.

A realistic performance expectation for the initial HSDPA release is 25-30 users per cell at bitrates of 400 kbit/s to 700 kbit/s each.

Future HSDPA releases could push bitrates to 1-2 Mbit/s, with bursts to 4.5 Mbit/s, but operators will likely sacrifice peak data rates for greater overall system performance.

Mobile operators featured in this report: Cingular Wireless LLC; NTT DoCoMo Inc.; Orange SA; O2 Ltd.; SFR; Telfort B.V.; 3 Italy; Telecom Italia Mobile SpA; T-Mobile International AG; and Vodafone Group plc.

Infrastructure vendors analyzed in this report: Alcatel; Ericsson AB; Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.; Lucent Technologies Inc.; Motorola Inc.; Nokia Corp.; Nortel Networks Ltd.; Siemens AG; and ZTE Corp.

Turbo 3G: High-Speed Packet Access Arrives, a 20-page report in PDF format, is available as part of an annual subscription (12 monthly issues) to Unstrung Insider, priced at $1,350. Individual reports are available for $900.
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