3G will be the biggest enabler of mobile broadband for the next
five years, according to Qualcomm,
with the challenge being to improve the data carrying capacity of
CDMA by adopting the enhancement technologies HSPA and EV-DO.
"3G will enable 80 per cent of mobile broadband subscriptions in
2013", Dr Rasmus Hellberg, director of technical marketing at
Qualcomm, told the
Avren Next Generation
Networks meeting in Bath
yesterday.
The 3G data capacity enhancement mechanisms will be: first, the
spectral efficiencies to be derived from the introduction of HSPA+
and EV-DO Rev B; second, the introduction of HSPA+ R8 and EV-DO Rev
B multicarrier technologies to increase bursty applications
capacity; third, the introduction of voice over HSPA, VoIP over
EV-DO and 1X Advanced to free up spectrum for data; and fourth, the
adoption of advanced topologies to improve performance such as the
addition of remote radioheads, picocells and femtocells, plus the
application of smart network techniques and optimisations.
HSPA+ R7 "almost doubles" HSPA capacity, according to Hellberg,
increasing the 3.5Mbps of HSPA to 6.2 Mbps on the downlink, and the
2.2Mbps of the HSPA uplink to 3.7Mbps.
EV-DO, already deployed in India and to be deployed in China,
delivers 14.7Mbps forward link speed, increases uplink speed by 65
per cent and improves VoIP capacity by 45 per cent, said
Hellberg.
Multicarrier techniques more than double capacity for bursty
applications, said Hellberg, and voice over HSPA more than doubles
capacity freeing up significant capacity for data.
"The next significant performance leap is bringing transmitters
closer to the user", said Hellberg by the introduction of
operator-deployed picocells and user-deployed femtocells to give
increased capacity and coverage. "Femtocells increase capacity 10X
beyond what technology alone could provide", said Hellberg.
Hellberg claimed that HSPA+ had similar spectral efficiency and
similar peak data rates to LTE which, he reckoned, would find its
usefulness in heavy data usage urban areas.
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