Better solutions than 3G 'around the corner'

Johannesburg, 04 Apr 2005

Third-generation (3G) technology is only the first step towards an always-on, broadband mobile Internet, with even better technologies around the corner, says an industry expert.

Greg Cress, senior account manager for end-to-end solutions and 3G at Siemens Communications, says new data transport technologies delivering even greater speeds will be with us sooner than we think.

"These technologies include High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and WiMax, the introduction of which will deliver Internet access at speeds that will rival ADSL to mobile devices," he says.

"HSDPA is to 3G what Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) is to General Packet Radio Services (GPRS)."

He says that whereas 3G is a packet-based network that delivers considerably more bandwidth than previous mobile connections - offering data transfer rates of up to 384Kbps - HSDPA will offer far higher speeds.

"HSDPA, which was recently demonstrated by Siemens at the 3GSM World Conference, can offer a transfer rate of up to 14Mbps, which is obviously a dramatic improvement on 3G," says Cress.

"Moreover, the beauty of HSDPA is that it is a software upgrade, so existing 3G base stations supplied by Siemens since 2002 can be upgraded at a very low cost to deliver the improved bandwidth."

He adds that consumers will need an upgraded HSDPA-compliant data card to make use of the service, but existing 3G users can nonetheless look forward to a massively improved service at low additional cost.

"For its part, WiMAX development - a high-speed mobile data transfer network that is expected to complement existing technologies such as 3G and HSDPA for specific niche applications - is expected to begin delivering products to market in 2006," he says.

"WiMAX is most likely to be used to deliver broadband data to the enterprise and to underserved areas as it is not as mobile as HSDPA."