3.5G winning mobile broadband war

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 03 December 2007 15:58

Opinion and Analysis

However it appears Dell is currently only offering a 3.6Mbps HSDPA modem, and not the newer 7.2Mbps device, or at least, not yet. Telstra’s service works at speeds of 550kbps to 1.5Mbps across the network at the same prices that BigPond Wireless charge.

No doubt other vendors will follow soon, and as Optus contemplates building a nationwide 3.5G network as well to compete with Telstra, Australia will be well served by 3.5G technology and its successors.

Although a true WiMAX network is planned for Australia and many other countries worldwide, with at least one test network in place and so-called ‘pre-WiMAX’ networks having been in used for a few years in Australia already, 3.5G networks have also been aggressively rolled out worldwide.

So far, 3.5G is winning the race, both for handsets and through add-on cards, USB devices and built-in modules for desktops and notebooks.

Intel is working with its partners worldwide to make WiMAX a global standard, and it will be great to see a solid competitor to 3.5G technologies arrive to keep prices down, drive the development of ever faster speeds and other innovations, but for now, 3.5G is where it’s all at.