HSDPA: You may not know it, but you want it

HSDPA: You may not know it, but you want it

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, zatni@cbn.net.id

Earlier this month, three Indonesian journalists including myself
took a ride in a specially equipped Mercedes Benz van. We all sat
facing two pairs of large LCD monitors fixed on a frame in the
back of the vehicle.

We were driving around Ericsson's South East Asian
headquarters in Cyberjaya, Malaysia, where a High Speed Downlink
Packet Access (HSDPA) tower had been erected.

In the van, there was a computer and a transceiver. An
official from Ericsson Malaysia was showing us the speeds at
which data could be sent back and forth from the van to the
central system inside the building. It was impressive.

Downloading a 10 megabyte file took only around 35 seconds.
Try that over your Kabelvision cable TV broadband network, and on
an extraordinarily good day it would take around 20 minutes --
plenty of time for a quick nap. Downloading a one-minute MP3 file
takes only a little over four seconds via the current revision of
HSDPA.

The official from Ericsson also showed how we could watch
three separate streaming videos without experiencing any annoying
pauses. Once the video files were buffered, we could watch them
as if we were watching a DVD movie. The video is of high-
definition quality, of course. We were also able to see Stockholm
through a webcam that had been placed there. Needless to say, it
was already dark in Stockholm.

Contending technologies

There is more than one way to skin a cat, as the proverb says,
and there is also more than one way to get broadband access. You
can use fixed-wireline infrastructure such as the cable TV
network, xDSL or fiber-to-home networks, but this will keep you
tethered to a broadband modem

This is a proposition that is no longer attractive to most
people -- the last-mile problem still poses a barrier to rapid
network expansion.

Today if you want the freedom to move around as you work, not
only inside your house but also at a client's office, you should
choose mobile broadband access. It allows you to work anywhere
there is coverage. One available option is to subscribe to the
GPRS and EDGE services offered by GSM providers. The speed,
unfortunately, is still painfully low.

WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access) is a
more feasible option. It offers a high data rate of up to 70
megabytes a second (Mbps).

The latest release, the IEEE 802.16e, meanwhile, allows for
mobility, which means subscribers can move around in a wide area
without getting disconnected from the network.

The 3G UMTS/WCDMA is another possibility. It offers cellular
mobility and is available in a growing number of countries in
Europe and Asia and in the U.S. It offers data speed of up to 384
kilobytes per second -- much higher than what I could get on my
cable TV network. However, it is still very low for today's user
demand.

HSDPA, which is a software upgrade to 3G equipment, has a lot
of promise. First, 3G operators will not require a separate
network to get this service. Second, it has a short latency,
which means that the signals take a short time to travel to and
from the network. This will improve response time. Third, the
next release of HSDPA standard will have a data speed of up to 14
Mbps. Fourth, it already has a clear technology roadmap.

Next year, for example, Ericsson expects that Phase 2 of HSDPA
and Phase 1 of Enhanced Uplink will be completed. The standard
will deliver 14 Mbps downlink and 1.8 Mbps uplink speed. In 2007,
according to the company, Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service
(MBMS) will be completed, allowing content providers to pump TV
programs to multiple users.

If the current 2 Mbps speed showcased during Ericsson's live
demo in Cyberjaya already allowed us to do so many things
simultaneously, it would be hard to tell what applications will
demand the 14 Mbps speed.

But these are not the only contenders. There is also the
CDMA2000-1x EV-DO, which will compete as mobile broadband
infrastructure. The promised data rate is 3.1 Mbps, and a plan
for future development has not been made public yet. And there is
Immarsat's Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), although the
half megabit speed may limit its attractiveness. It will be,
however, a great alternative for a quick setup.

WiMAX's network is spreading quickly to many places around the
world. With Intel Corp. as one of the main proponents of the
standard, we will very soon see notebooks and other personal
devices with built-in WiMAX chips.

However, HSDPA is also fast emerging as a serious contender.
As announced by Carl-Henrik Svanberg, Ericsson's president and
chief executive, at a recent shareholders meeting in Stockholm,
15 live HSDPA networks using his company's equipment were already
being evaluated in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and
America. In South Africa, Ericsson has been working with MTN to
build the first 3G HSDPA network. Serving also as a fixed
wireless broadband network as an alternative to the wireline
ADSL, the HSDPA network will link fixed terminals in rural areas
and help narrow the digital divide.

In the U.S., the Swedish company has also upgraded Cingular's
3G network in Dallas and Fort Worth by adding HSDPA. The network
is now commercially operational. There are around a thousand
people using HSDPA PC Cards to connect their notebooks to the
Internet using the network today.

In Malaysia, Maxis, one of the country's 3G cellular
operators, is expected to start offering commercial HSDPA service
in the first quarter of next year.

Needless to say, at the moment operators and even Internet
service providers must be having a tough time choosing which
technology to bank on. Both contenders offer compelling arguments
that technology is the best. However, for 3G operators it should
be clear that HSDPA is the path to take. This route requires no
new infrastructure -- a main reason for subscribers to sign up
for 3G services.

And, if the Global Mobile Supplier Association report is
correct, there are currently 100 3G WCDMA commercial networks in
42 countries in the world. It means that the HSDPA could already
be enjoying a lead over the other technologies. If an operator
already has a 3G WCDMA network, it can immediately implement
HSDPA.