HSPA+ might be one of the technologies that pushes wireless broadband adoption throughout the rest of 2010, but there seems to be a fair amount of concern about whether providers realize that yet. With 4G looming and HSPA+ only available in a handful of markets, it might seem as if carriers are simply uninterested in HSPA+ at this time. In the current financial climate, who could blame carriers for not wanting to spend countless millions of dollars to expand their wireless broadband networks, especially with wired broadband looking to take major leaps forward in this decade thanks to the FCC 100 by 2020 plan and Google’s gigabit broadband service stirring up incredible amounts of public interest in broadband technologies. Even with all of these potential obstacles to deal with, HSPA+ details are just starting to emerge.
HSPA+, The Other, Other White Meat Wireless Broadband
While T-Mobile began rolling out its HSPA+ offerings in late 2009, AT&T has remained oddly silent on their vision of a future HSPA+ network. Both carriers look to be using the evolved HSPA standard as a temporary preventative measure to stem off of WiMax onslaught that Sprint is due to launch early this year, but plans have only recently started to surface. While the T-Mobile strategy seems easy to understand even if it is lacking in details, AT&T’s HSPA+ plan is a little murkier. In fact, there were even rumors suggesting that AT&T would be completely abandoning its HSPA+ plans in favor of LTE.
HSPA+ the T-Mobile Future
T-Mobile has already deployed an updated HSPA+ network in Philadelphia and is poised to start sweeping changes in almost every single market it serves. The timetable for a completely HSPA+ network would appear to be by the close of this year, which ironically puts T-Mobile in a great position to serve customers that will hopefully buy some of the amazing new mobile devices that were recently demonstrated at CES 2010. These devices will be on countless shopping lists, assuming that the economy recovers.
AT&T: To Do Both HSPA+ and LTE?
AT&T’s wireless broadband network is one of the most widely used in the nation, perhaps thanks to the exclusive iPhone arrangement, but that does create a problem. That problem is that customers often stress the network to (and sometimes beyond) its capacity during peak hours. To AT&T’s credit, the company has spent a lot of money upgrading their network in recent months, but jaded customers have long memories. On the upside, if anyone should have learned the lesson of having a quality network in place before their wireless gadgets and phones start selling like wildfire, it should be AT&T.
This is why it is a little confusing to hear AT&T talking about limited HSPA+ deployment during 2010. The reason for the vagueness is that AT&T is already preparing to fight Verizon head-on when it comes to LTE networks, but that probably won’t be until sometime in 2011 at the earliest. With HSPA+ soon to be a second-tier network, there is at least a reason to be hopeful that AT&T will learn from its HSPA/HSPA+ network traffic jams and build a much more robust LTE network. After all, the mobile phones and portable wireless broadband devices being readied for 2011 and beyond are likely to be powerful and data-hungry.
How Fast is HSPA+?
HSPA+ networks that are being deployed now are almost uniformly capable of handling speeds of up to 21 Mbps, though some actually have components capable of even greater speeds. Carriers such as T-Mobile and AT&T artificially limit performance for network performance and reliability reasons. Consider the following: if speed exacerbates the peak usage situation, and the problem is bad at under 7 Mbps, imagine what a 21+ Mbps network traffic jam would be like. This is why carriers around the world limit bandwidth on HSPA+ and other forms of wireless broadband, even though it would be nice to see blazing fast broadband operating at peak speeds.
Unfortunately, that may not come to pass with 3G or even 4G technologies because of the business side of the equation. The problem is that carriers have to spend an incredible amount of money deploying wireless broadband networks, and customers are often late to adopt. By the time that enough customers see the need to pay the money for wireless broadband, the next technology is around the corner. Technology may be related to network speeds, but more often than not, it has also been a factor of the actual portable devices. In short, if the devices can make good use of broadband, then carriers have a chance to sign some contracts. Every time that wireless broadband networks get faster, it takes devices and software developers a little while to catch up and convince customers that they have a need for the faster networking speeds.
Initially the needs were simple: send/receive e-mails while chatting. Then they got more complex, such as the ability to browse. Social networking, video sharing, and other technologies that are finally being implemented in user-friendly and intuitive ways are likely to push 3G networks to their very limits, but carriers are moving on to 4G. 3G will still be around, but who knows what great technologies will need the broadband performance only 4G will offer? Chances are that by the time that question is answered, 5G will be right around the corner.
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