Awesome posted by

3G starts to flex muscles – other wireless techs whimper and huddle dejectedly in a corner

3g
(photo)

Martin Sauter’s recent post on the upgrade of the HSDPA spec (3G + to you and me) made me stop and blink. So mobile phones are now on their way to achieving data download speeds of up to 84 Mbit/s with existing hardware? Really?

In fact, a quick trawl of the Wikipedia site reveals that there are now 250 HSDPA networks in 109 countries, with a few supporting speeds of up to 21 Mbit/s and 28 Mbit/s peak data rates. And the first 42 Mbit/s network is scheduled to come online later this year.

I don’t know about you, but that just staggered my brain.

Of course it’s all based on ‘perfect conditions’, so with increased contention and distance from the mast these speeds will plummet significantly, but even if we see a 50% or 60% drop under full load this will still be incredible. The idea that we can connect at high speed data rates anywhere there’s a cell phone signal is going to fundamentally change the way we do so many things. Big time!

And don’t forget that the faster speeds also translate to greater capacity (the faster I download my chunk of stuff, the faster I get off and leave the ‘line’ free for someone else). Amazing stuff.

Comments are closed.

comments powered by Disqus

Side Advert

Write For Us

Personnel

Managing Editor:
Nigel Powell

Associate Editor:
Caitlyn Muncy
Associate Editor:
Dan Ferris
Ecological Editor:
Debra Atlas
Technology Editor:
Fritz Effenberger
Asian Editor:
Hu Ping
Reviews Editor:
Kevin Evans

FB Like Box