AT&T plans to begin deployment of HSPA 7.2 in six major U.S. cities this year, including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami, with initial service availability expected in these markets by the end of the year. All told, the company plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in 25 of the nation’s 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011.
AT&T is spending about $18 billion to accomplish this, says Unstrung, doubling the spectrum allocated for its 3G network. The upgrades will begin this year and are expected to be completed by 2011.
AT&T serves 28.6 million HSPA customers, about 21% of all HSPA subscriptions worldwide. HSDPA users are set to rise to 1.4 billion in 2012, up from about 270 million projected for 2009.
The next upgrade for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is Evolved HSPA (also called HSPA+). It’s the standard defined in 3GPP release 7 and can support rates up to 42 Mbit/s (using MIMO), but AT&T says they’ll probably stick with the 21Mbit/s (non-MIMO) path.
AT&T’s HSPA upgrade will provide a theoretical top download speed of 7.2 megabits per second, up from 3.6 megabits per second, which in practice is double the current speed (around 700Kbps) to about 1.4 megabits per second. Of course speed depends on the tower’s backhaul capacity, your distance from the tower and current usage.
Backwards compatibility is something CDMA-based Verizon does not have to consider — LTE will require a completely new (GSM) infrastructure, with new phones and new basestations.
Verizon’s LTE upgrade should be at least twice as fast as AT&T’s HSPA upgrade, but Verizon is only rolling it out on their new 700 MHz band. At first, LTE modems will only be available using dongles and data cards designed for laptops. Clear’s WiMAX service provides typical speeds of 4 megabits per second here in Portland and is available embedded in handheld devices such as Samsung’s Mondi.
The iPhone 3GS is the only phone on the market now that will be able to take advantage of the speed increase. But AT&T expects five other “smart” phones and some USB dongles, will be available before the end of the year.
Some of the advantages of HSPA+ include:
- An HSPA+ network is backward compatible with HSPA–thus the existing HSPA handsets will continue to work.
- New HSPA+ handsets that include MIMO capabilities can be offered with greater bandwidth and higher levels of service.
- The base stations from all leading vendors are software upgradeable, although they do typically require new head-end RF units with MIMO-AAS capability.
AT&T plans to boost the speed of its 3G wireless network in 2009. AT&T Mobility expects that HSPA release 7 will provide a bridge before their shift to LTE — and eventually true “4G”.
Ralph de la Vega said the upgrade will require few if any hardware modifications to the company’s infrastructure and achieved largely through a software upgrade to its electronics. He also said that his firm has “a clear and logical path” to 700MHz 4G access via the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard in the 2010 timeframe which should again increase speeds fivefold “to nearly 100 megabits per second”.
Related DailyWireless articles include: AT&T Makes Jump to HSDPA Speed, AT&T: HSPA+ Not LTE for Now, HSPA+ Launched in Japan, AT&T: We Like HSPA, 4G: War to End Wars , AT&T: It’s LTE, Verizon: It’s LTE, Sprint: It’s WiMAX, Xohm “Partners”?, T-Mobile: $10B in 3 Years, Nokia Siemens: LTE Works, and XOHM Live?
