Siemens Wins 3G HSDPA Contract from T-Mobile

Europe : The Siemens Communications Group will be upgrading T-Mobile's wireless net-works in Germany and Austria with the 3G/W-CDMA data turbo HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access). In addition, Siemens will also be expanding T-Mobile's 3G/W-CDMA networks in both countries. Inset is T-Mobile Germany's Chief Technology Officer Joachim Horn quoted below.

Beginning in spring 2006, the HSDPA solution will enable T-Mobile customers in Germany to initially download data to their mobile devices at speeds of up to 1.8 megabits per second. This is another major commercial high-speed 3G/W-CDMA contract for Siemens, to-gether with NEC the market leader in the 3G sector and one of the first providers to offer an end-to-end commercial HSDPA solution.

T-Mobile's 3G/W-CDMA data turbo is scheduled to go live commercially to coincide with CeBIT 2006. Until then, Siemens will be implementing its HSDPA solution and expand-ing the capacity of the existing 3G/W-CDMA networks in Austria and Germany to in-clude additional NodeB 880/881 base stations and radio network controllers for seam-less handovers between 3G/W-CDMA wireless cells.

In an initial phase, the HSDPA solution from Siemens will achieve download rates as high as two megabits per second and uplink speeds of 384 kilobits per second. As re-cently demonstrated by a field test on the autobahn in the vicinity of Ulm, Germany, these high data rates are also possible when traveling at high rates of speed; the tests were conducted at 130 kilometers per hour. The download rates will gradually increase, reaching 7.2 megabits per second in the future. This means that HSDPA considerably exceeds the speed of wireline broadband links as with today's DSL, for example.

"A wireline-speed age is now dawning for our residential and business customers. Thanks to HSDPA technology, they'll be benefiting from greater convenience and speed in all mobile applications, such as surfing and chatting, sending e-mails or making large downloads from the Internet or an intranet," said T-Mobile Germany's Chief Technology Officer Joachim Horn. For mobile Internet users, upgrading 3G/W-CDMA to HSDPA technology means even shorter waits while Internet pages download and significantly shorter delays in connection with applications like Outlook. Moreover, HSDPA enables considerably more users per cell than in the past to simultaneously benefit from higher speeds. "Our objective is to make the best possible mobile transfer technology available to customers in their respective locations. And HSDPA is a key element in this connec-tion," explained Horn.

"We are pleased that Siemens will be involved when T-Mobile takes the next step in the development of Third Generation mobile communication," said Christoph Caselitz, the President of Mobile Networks at Siemens Communications. Ever since 2002, Siemens and its partner NEC have been supplying only HSDPA-ready 3G/W-CDMA base sta-tions, which can be upgraded with the HSDPA data turbo by means of a software up-date. The HSDPA solution from Siemens is available in a variety of frequencies, ena-bling it to be employed both in Europe as well as the United States.

As one of the first to offer an end-to-end commercial HSDPA solution consisting of net-work components and data card, Siemens is a market leader in the 3G sector. Over 30 percent of the 3G base stations (NodeBs) in commercial service with wireless operators worldwide come from Siemens and NEC (Source: MultiMedia Research Institute, Worldwide W-CDMA Cellular Base Station Market Report, Tokyo 2005). This represents coverage of 90 percent of all 3G subscribers worldwide. The NodeB 880, the third gen-eration of W-CDMA base stations from Siemens, is considered to be the technological market leader as a result of its high channel capacity, scalable carrier density, flexible applicability, unrivaled reception sensitivity and other factors (Source: Current Analysis Report, July 2005).

Together with NEC, Siemens is already driving the expansion of its 3G/W-CDMA/
HSDPA solution toward HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access). This will acceler-ate high-speed uplinks from today's rate of 384 kbit/s to 1.4 Mbit/s initially and subse-quently to 5.8 Mbit/s. Siemens and NEC expect to be able to accept the first orders for HSUPA beginning in the second half of 2006.

HSDPA
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) involves a modulation mode that affords downlink data rates of up to 14 Mbit/s, a theoretical value under laboratory conditions. In actual practice, though, downlink rates per subscriber will initially still range up to 2 megabits per second and ultimately reach speeds of up to 7.2 megabits per second. HSDPA is an element of Release 5 of the W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiplex) specifications. This new W-CDMA feature contains a transfer format called "high-speed downlink shared channel." Its fundamental principle: More data users than in the past can be supplied at a higher data rate on the downlink channel; i.e. large volumes of data can be transported significantly faster from the wireless network to the subscriber's de-vice. This optimized transport channel and the employment of new modulation methods boost maximum transfer rates and minimize delays. Consumers will notice HSDPA in the form of a significantly better quality of service. Performance will be considerably im-proved, for example, in connection with downloads, Internet access or access to enter-prise networks.

HSUPA
Analogously to HSDPA, High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is a wireless communication standard that accelerates data transfers from W-CDMA end-user de-vices to the base station through the employment of higher-level modulation methods. Theoretically, HSUPA can achieve upstreams of 5.8 Mbit/s, thus enabling 3G wireless communication applications that necessitate high data rates from mobile device to base station, such as videoconferencing, for example. The technology is scheduled to be de-fined in Release 6 of the 3GPP standard; standardization is currently nearing completion.