EETimes.com – SK preps broadband cellular network — Here is the latest dead end from the cellular folks.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — South Korea’s SK Telecom is laying down the infrastructure for an early 2006 rollout of high-speed downlink packet access technology, which would theoretically allow for file transfers over its cellular network at up to 14.4-Mbits per second.
It is set to be one of the first commercial rollouts of the technology, known as HSDPA, and is being supported by equipment providers Nortel and LG Electronics, which struck up a joint venture relationship in August. Nortel will provide the HSDPA technology while LG will provide the UMTS core network equipment.
Korea is one of the most advanced markets for broadband and cellular communications, which, in turn, has driven operators to offer better technology and services to keep customers engaged.
As usual, its us who invent, others who reap the benefits.
So, whileTaiwan is implementing ultra high speed wireless, according to this article, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_4117598,00.html
Denver is about to get a whopping 400-700KBits per second wireless service. In wired technology, BellSouth is looking at providing DSL at 24MBits, so at least that is looking up somewhere. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050811.html
At home, I’m getting, at best, half the 1.5M speed of my DSL connection and when I travel, there are places I’ve stayed where I feel lucky if I can get 10-15K on a dialup. Sure will be nice when these super speeds reach the rest of the country.
In simple language please explain exactly how this is a deadend for the cellular folks. I know that transmission rate feels a bit low, but I don’t know enough about all this to understand your stance.
The photo above best discribes FEMA.
HSDPA is the upgrade to the W-CDMA flavor of 3G – the one that’s deployed in Europe and Asia. It’s the one that’s really going to work, this time, honest!
There are several competing paths to what’s called 4G – this is just one of them. Samsung and Intel are backing WiBRO/WiMAX; Qualcomm has bought Flarion and will push that mighty hard; then there’s whatever the Chinese come up with.
All will be some version of OFDM, and all will carry voice.
South Korea’s WiBRO trial starts pretty soon. But being first to market, as DoCoMo discovered in 2001 with W-CDMA, doesn’t mean much. Spending hundreds of millions on marketing, as Intel is finding out with WiMAX, doesn’t instantly give you carrier grade credibility.
The carriers don’t really care what the technology is, so long as it gets them from here to there with as little disruption as possible to their voice customers. So much for “disruptive technology”. Blea!