Radioactive: What's next for 3G?

Take-up of 3G services around Europe has been disappointing, prompting operators to bring forward plans to upgrade their networks to 3.5G, and - wait for it - 3.99G. But just what this entails remains debatable. Futurity Media's Anthony Plewes investigates.

This summer has seen a rash of announcements by European mobile operators regarding HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access). This technology promises to deliver the 3G experience that subscribers have been waiting for and highlights the limitations of the existing implementations of the WCDMA technology.

HSDPA has been so widely anticipated in the operator community that some, such as Telfort in the Netherlands, chose to delay their 3G launches until the upgrade was ready to deploy.

And some far-sighted operators are even seeing the limitations to HSDPA and looking to other technologies - namely HSUPA and Mobile WiMax - to boost 3G performance and appeal to a wider range of users.

German operator T-Mobile was one of the first to announce its commercial HSDPA service launch. In August it signed an agreement with Nokia to deliver a HSDPA solution including the necessary capacity increases to the radio network capacity in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

The technology will first be tested on public trial with a number of unspecified business customers in a number of German cities. The full upgrade will then be rolled out to the entire UMTS network in Germany in early 2006 to coincide with the CeBIT tradeshow in March. It will then be rolled out to the Netherlands and UK.

T-Mobile's HSPDA service is expected to have a launch transmission rate of up to 1.8Mbps, which will be boosted to 7.2Mbps in the future. Speeds like these promise to give a fillip to fixed broadband replacement services, such as the Genion service that is already popular for O2 in Germany.

According T-Mobile's technical director, Joachim Horn, HSDPA will allow the company to offer 'true' mobile broadband access and new services to customers. T-Mobile has already been showcasing its range of products at German Internationale Funkaustelling (IFA) in Berlin.

T-Mobile is not alone in announcing imminent HSPDA services. In Italy, both Vodafone and 3 have announced trials and expected service launch dates. The former successfully made a data connection using Nokia commercial WCDMA data equipment over the summer and demonstrated user data speeds of 1.5Mbps. Vodafone has now announced that full-scale trails are to begin in Rome in October and in Milan in November ahead of commercial launch in Spring 2006.

3 Italy has adopted a similar timetable to Vodafone Italy, with trials in autumn and commercial launch in September. It plans to launch the service with data cards but will sell a range of HSDPA-capable video handsets in Summer 2006, developed by its partners such as Motorola and NEC.

While the arrival of these launches should be welcomed by the end-user, they highlight the failure of WCDMA to deliver the complete 3G experience. WCDMA's limitations are also highlighted by recent figures from ABI Research, which indicate WCDMA services are penetrating markets more slowly than expected. Analysts believe this will extend the life of GSM longer than it projected as few users are prepared to upgrade to 3G. ABI Research blames the slow take-up on the greater expense but lack of compelling services.

Analysts at Informa say WCDMA's failure to support compelling services has forced operators to bring forward their HSDPA plans. The knock-on effect of this move is that it will create a void between 3.5G (HSDPA/HSUPA) and what will become 4G. Informa says there is concern amongst operators that significant uptake of mobile triple-play services will overload the HSDPA infrastructure creating the need for 3.99G, also known as Evolved UMTS or Super 3G.

In fact some operators, including Dutch operator Telfort, are completely bypassing the first UMTS implementation of 3G and moving straight to HSDPA. Low-cost operator Telfort has been able to save at least 50 per cent on 3G equipment as it has become substantially cheaper over the last couple of years. It plans a commercial launch of HSDPA in the four key Dutch cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht in the second half of 2006.

While it is being widely trialled by businesses, HSDPA is best suited to download applications, such as video streaming and the like. Businesses will be much more interested in the generation beyond HSDPA called HSUPA. This technology will enhance the uplink speed of data allowing business users to send and receive large files. Operators are already planning this next step which is expected to arrive in late 2006 to 2007.

Interestingly, this timeframe for HSUPA puts it in the same window of opportunity as the mobile version of WiMax based on IEEE 802.16e. Although this standard is yet to be finalised, US mobile device manufacturer Motorola is already developing WiMax Mobile products.

Motorola's product portfolio is called Moto Wi4 and is effectively jumping a couple of generations in WiMax. The existing WiMax Forum certification programme only covers the WiMax generation that is suited to fixed broadband services use. Products are expected to be available from Motorola next year well in advance of the WiMax Forums testing and certification programme for WiMax Mobile that should be completed in 2007.

Although European carriers are moving along apace with HSDPA/HSUPA networks, Motorola's technology is already attracting attention in its home market. US carrier Sprint-Nextel is searching for mobile broadband technologies and owns 80 per cent of the US 2.5GHz licences necessary for WiMax mobile. It is reportedly planning to trial the Moto Wi4 equipment. The next generation carrier-class version of these products will be available in 2007, by which time Motorola hopes the WiMax Forum will be certifying products.

And it is not just Motorola eyeing up WiMax Mobile. Nokia, which is already involved in a number of HSDPA/HSUPA contracts, has publicly put its weight behind the technology. It is working with Intel to push for completion of the 802.16e standard by the end of the year.

Only time will tell whether HSUPA and WiMax Mobile will compete head-to-head to deliver next generation mobile data services. Much will depend on the progress of the current generation of WiMax and the popularity of HSDPA driven data services in Europe. WiMax Mobile could even play a role in overcoming the projected congestion in 3.5G networks.

Anthony Plewes is a freelance journalist and director at Futurity Media .