Businesses are only now about to get
to grips with commercial 3G services, but the phone manufacturers
and operators are already working on even faster 3.5G services that
will be trialled at the end of this year.
Vodafone is about to launch its 3G wireless
data card for laptops this summer, but Analyst ARC Group says this
type of service will be usurped by a 3.5G technology called HSDPA
(High Speed Downlink Packet Access). HSDPA can deliver data speeds
of between 8 and 20mbps (megabits per second) – much faster than
the 384kbps (kilobits per second) offered by current 3G
services.
Even allowing for the fact that 3G was
initially touted as a 2mbps service five years before its eventual
commercial launch, there is enough headroom in the published HSDPA
speeds to make it significantly faster than 3G.
ARC Group says a key driver for the
development of both 3G and 3.5G will be the integration of wireless
Lans and mobile phone networks to offer high data speeds no matter
where the user is – in a building or in a field.
ARC Group telecoms consultant Chris White
comments: “Too much attention has been paid to how wireless Lans
will compete with 3G, rather than looking at the benefits of
combining both network technologies.”
And signalling yet another standard, White
said: “Further integration of wireless Lans into the mobile network
mix is one vital stepping stone to 4G.”
Japan, incidentally, is already seeing
development of 4G services, which will likely deliver data at
speeds over 20mbps.
This article was part of Computer
Weekly's enterprise mobile business channel, sponsored by
Nokia