Stuart Corner
Monday, 02 October 2006 09:51
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Here is another quote. "HSDPA increases the downlink data rate within a cell to a theoretical maximum of 14Mbps, with 2Mbps on the uplink. However, it is not about delivering ethernet bandwidth to one fortunate user. What is important is the ability to deliver, reliably, many sessions of high-speed, bursty data to a large number of users within that cell.
"The changes that HSDPA enables include better quality and more reliable, more robust data services. In other words, while realistic data rates may only be a few megabits per second, the actual quality and number of users achieved will improve significantly."
This is in stark contrast to ADSL, which is about delivering dedicated, if not ethernet, bandwidth to one fortunate user (the one on the end of the DSL line).
So we are talking at best of an average throughput of 3.6Mbps, maximum and there are many factors that will reduce that. Here's another interesting quote. "There are many options available to base station designers and to operators when dealing with HSDPA. This complicates the provision of HSDPA as the network is upgraded but intelligent choices over base station implementation can result in higher throughput for high-revenue services, improving operators' margins."
In other words, whatever the maximum throughput available form HSDPA is, you will probably be paying maximum price for it, possible bundled into the cost of the service making use of that capacity
