High-Speed Downlink Packet Access
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Template:Table Mobile phone standards
High-Speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA is a mobile telephony protocol. Also called 3.5G (or "3½G"). High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is a packet-based data service in W-CDMA downlink with data transmission up to 8-10 Mbit/s (and 20 Mbit/s for MIMO systems) over a 5MHz bandwidth in WCDMA downlink. HSDPA implementations includes Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Hybrid Automatic Request (HARQ), fast cell search, and advanced receiver design.
HSDPA is beginning to reach deployment status in North America. Cingular has announced that they will begin to deploy UMTS with expansion to HSDPA in 2005. Cingular faces competitive pressure from operators such as Verizon who use a competing 3G technology, CDMA-2000 EvDO, and who have already deployed a similar high speed data service.
In 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) standards, Release 4 specifications provide efficient IP support enabling provision of services through an all-IP core network and Release 5 specifications focus on HSDPA to provide data rates up to approximately 10 Mbit/s to support packet-based multimedia services. MIMO systems are the work item in Release 6 specifications, which will support even higher data transmission rates up to 20 Mbit/s. HSDPA is evolved from and backward compatible with Release 99 WCDMA systems.
External link
- Partner, Nortel Complete Industry’s First HSDPA Wireless Broadband Trial in Israel (http://www.nortel.com/corporate/news/newsreleases/2005b/05_23_05_partner_hsdpa_trial.html?NT_promo_T_ID=rln_05_23_05_hsdpa_partner_nr)
Docomo has recently announced (May 12) that they will postpone their HSDPA deployment and for good reason. The cost benefit ratio hasn't been as attractive as originally thought. Depending upon what happens with the deployment and acceptance of WiMax (802.16) it may prove to be the true wireless data standard for speed, cost and deployment capability. The fact that Intel is supporting this standard like they did WiFi spells out serious competition for traditional wireless companies.
I predict that WiMax will be the new standard for wireless data and that WCDMA may be doomed unless it becomes more cost effective. Currently a WCDMA deployment is approximately three times the cost of a GSM deployment.