Siemens aims to be first with HSDPA
By Julian Bright, for TOTAL TELECOM, in Cannes
25 February 2004
German vendor plans to launch services in Q1 2005.
Siemens Mobile wants to be first to market with a solution for high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) services, according to Christoph Caselitz, president of mobile networks at Siemens ICM.
The company will start to roll out its HSDPA offering, which will provide a WCDMA-based high-speed packet data service, in Q1 of 2005, Caselitz told TOTAL TELECOM. Speaking at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, he said Siemens' existing 3G equipment is already HSDPA-enabled and requires only a software upgrade.
"In order to bring mobility to broadband applications you need things like HSDPA," said Caselitz. The services will be comparable to current wireless LAN, with data rates starting at around 4 Mbps and rising later to 10 Mbps, but the technology will be stable from 800 kbps.
Operators will be expected to target business users, but another key application will be for in-car data and traffic information, said Caselitz. However, the motor industry has traditionally been slow to adopt telecoms solutions and may take time to sign up to the technology, he believed.
Asked about the timeframe for development of asynchronous wireless access services based on time division duplex (TDD), the WCDMA technology that uses unpaired spectrum, Caselitz said this would not be considered before 2006 or 2007. At that time TDD will be used for the enhancement or expansion of existing 3G networks, Caselitz said.
Also by that time Caselitz expects at least one network in China to be using the TD-SCDMA variant of the technology. Siemens has just announced a collaboration with Shenzen-based telecoms equipment manufacturer Huawei for the development of TD-SCDMA for the Chinese market, using technology supplied by Siemens.
At least one TD-SCDMA-based licence is expected to be awarded as part of China's 3G licensing round, by or soon after the year-end, said Caselitz.
totaltele.com
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Motorola is also targeting 2005 for HSDPA. Nokia and DoCoMo too. Flarion competes, with its Flash OFDM for Europe and elsewhere in 2005.
mobilepipeline.com
This writeup says only 10 million HSDPA subs in 2008: infosyncworld.com
I'd guess that means the users are expected to be using terminals larger than conventional handsets.
Apparently the use of W-CDMA high speed packet services for heavy users will free up capacity for voice and consumer applications. (?) |
