HSxPA and the enterprise

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It has become commonplace in many circles to regard Wi-Fi as the standard by which the transport of corporate mobile data must be judged, and to consider WiMax, in its eventual mobile form, as its probable successor.

The mobile phone network operator community, however, has other ideas, and has recently been putting some heat under 3G-based alternatives. High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in particular has been in the news over the last few months as a procession of smartphone vendors follow laptop makers such as Dell in embedding the high-speed download technology into their products.

So what sort of credence should enterprise buyers attach to HSDPA, and High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), its data upload cousin set to hit the market later this year (referred to jointly as HSxPA)? Can mobile operators ever really enjoy any kind of profile in a data networking environment, outside of their voice comfort zone? Or will 3G and its derivatives only be of use when users are beyond the reach of a Wi-Fi hotspot?

If corporate environments are the battleground, then mobile operators are already forming a beachhead, says Tom Quirke, Motorola's director of GSM and HSxPA marketing.

"According to our information, 30 per cent of business GSM calls are made indoors, as well as some 70 per cent of 3G data traffic transmissions," he told us. "This is creating quite a challenge for mobile operators, who are primarily geared up for outdoor traffic. While clearly taking a lot of traffic away from fixed operators, mobile players are facing a lot of capacity issues indoors, especially on the data side. Going forward, HSxPA technology will solve those issues."

Broadband credentials

With HSDPA already delivering between seven to 10 times the performance of standard UMTS data transfer, its mobile data credentials are already plain to see, says Quirke.

"You can already download data at 14.4Mbps per cell," he said. "This has got huge implications for usage and the amount of traffic that can be handled in that cell, in other words within an office building. The next big jump is HSUPA, which is going to happen late next year or in early 2008."

HSUPA will allow users to upload files at the same speed they can download them: "At the moment uploads are restricted to 2Mbps. So you can see it will provide a lot of rivalry to WiMax in terms of speed and capacity. I should add that the increase in upload speed is not going to need any change in infrastructure."

"Of course it's not all about phones," Quirke points out. "Suppliers like Dell are putting HSDPA on laptops. This is all a bit of a culture shock for the operators. They've not all realised that they're dealing with a market where you've got to get things right first time. They are suddenly talking to customers who expect everything to work right from the outset."

The battle lines between mobile operators and service providers with a data centric background are drawn, says Quirke.

"The mobile guys are facing rivalry from the fixed operators for a start, he says. "Mobile providers are coming from outside the building looking in. The fixed guys are inside the building already looking out. They are looking to reclaim some of the traffic lost to mobile operators, and high-speed mobile data is going to be a key battleground."

Backing a winner

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