Mobile Broadband Info Blog

21Mbps mobile broadband a reality

Ericsson and Telstra have achieved an industry first in Australia: the successful activation of HSPA Evolution functionality capable of peak network speeds up to 21 Mbps into the Telstra Next G(TM)commercial network and the world's first data call on the newly-enabled network. For the first time, a commercial network makes use of the enhanced, standardized improvements called HSPA Evolution.

This enhancement adds a new dimension to broadband experience withthe capability for significantly faster internet browsing and file download, even faster than many fixed broadband connections. With HSPA Evolution, operators will increase the capacity in the networks and reduce the costs to deliver Mobile Broadband services.

This improvement is the first step of HSPA Evolution, also known as HSPA+. The improvement is provided by enhancements standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), bringing the maximum possible downlink speed for HSPA to 21Mbps, much higher than the current maximum of 14Mbps. The step to 21Mbps is obtained by using a higher-order modulation, called 64QAM that makes it possible for HSPA systems to send data bits with a higher rate. Future steps in the HSPA Evolution path include technologies like Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technologies and multi-carrier transmission. By combining these improvements, downlink speeds over 80Mbps and uplink speeds over 20Mbps will be possible. 21Mbps is the peak network downlink speed. Actual customer download speeds can be less and will vary due to congestion, distance from the cell, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors.

Labels: industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband

posted by MobileBroadbandInfo @ 9:38 AM