(More Cowbell is coming!) AT&T Defends Network, Lays out HSPA (and LTE) Plans

13. October 2009 by admin.

* AT&T says More Cowbell is coming… (well they used different words than that.)

Cowbell Sound

Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service

Thursday, October 08, 2009 5:15 AM PDT

PC World:

http://www.pcworld.com:80/businesscenter/article/173368/atandt_defends_network_lays_out_hspa_plans.html?tk=nl_snx_h_crawl

 

AT&T Chief Technology Officer John Donovan defended his company’s wireless coverage against attacks by industry analysts and media while laying out some details about its plans for further network upgrades.

 ”I don’t plan our network based on blogs. We plan and build our networks based on the needs of our customers,” Donovan said at CTIA. “We’re working incredibly hard to make [the user’s] experience a great one.”

At a Thursday morning event before the keynote, IDC analyst Scott Ellison said AT&T was not prepared for the data use generated by the iPhone and predicted that Verizon Wireless would raise its data rates next year partly to put the focus on its better-performing network.

“AT&T has immolated itself with network capacity issues,” Ellison said.

AT&T is on track to begin testing LTE (Long-Term Evolution), its 4G (fourth-generation) network, next year and deploy it commercially starting in 2011, Donovan said. But he emphasized that the carrier is also aggressively speeding up its 3G network.

The company will upgrade its cell sites to HSPA 7.2 starting this quarter, rolling out the faster technology to 90 percent of its 3G customers by the end of 2011, Donovan said. By the end of this year, the faster system will be available in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Charlotte, North Carolina, he said. By the middle of next year, 25 of the top 30 markets will have HSPA 7.2.

HSPA 7.2, which is supported on the iPhone 3GS, has a theoretical maximum capacity of 7.2Mb per second. To back up that speed, AT&T plans to aggressively deploy fiber to its cell sites for backhaul to the wired network. It will double the number of cell sites with fiber this year and triple that number in 2010, Donovan said. The upgrade in backhaul will help prepare the carrier for LTE, he added. That technology has been demonstrated at 100Mb per second from one base station.

Donovan also stood up for AT&T against Verizon, which has garnered headlines for its plans to roll out LTE commercially next year.

“If you’re questioning whether AT&T will be left behind by our competitors who are in a rush, the answer is no,” Donovan said. There will be few devices available to use an LTE network next year, apart from data cards for laptops, he said.

“AT&T’s market timing is going to be right. We’re going to hit the sweet spots of worldwide subscriber growth and device availability,” Donovan said.In addition to the iPhone 3GS, all the netbooks AT&T sells support HSPA 7.2, and AT&T will introduce several more devices this year that can use the new network, Donovan said.

AT&T is also 90 percent finished deploying 850MHz spectrum, which offers better indoor coverage than its 1900MHz band, Donovan said. The frequencies were recently rolled out in New York, Houston, Atlanta and Denver.

The carrier also will introduce by year’s end its femtocell product, which it calls a “microcell,” designed to cover a subscriber’s home and use their home broadband connection to link to the wired network, Donovan said in a brief interview following the speech. He called it one piece of the carrier’s overall network infrastructure. AT&T will make the microcells available to all its subscribers but emphasize the technology more in certain markets where it will make a bigger difference in the user experience, such as areas where the carrier is still using 1900MHz, he said.

(Matt Hamblen of Computerworld contributed to this report.)

* Alan Spicer’s Note: The Ericsson W35 http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35/

… is already an HSPA 7.2 device. By the way “7.2″ is not a revision number of the HSPA Technology. It refers to the “up to” download speed.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_Packet_Access

http://hspa.gsmworld.com/

http://www.3gpp.org/

* Here’s a Red Letter Page:

http://www.3gpp.org/GSA-confirms-7-2-Mbps-as-new

GSA Confirms 7.2 Mbps as new baseline for HSPA

July 27, 2009:Half of the HSPA networks in commercial service globally are capable of peak downlink data speeds of 7.2 Mbps or higher, according to research just published by the Global mobile Suppliers Association – GSA.

GSA’s newly released HSPA Operator Commitments Survey confirms 316 HSPA network commitments in 129 countries. A total of 274 operators have commercially launched HSPA mobile broadband services in 115 countries, with around half of them supporting a peak downlink data speed of 7.2 Mbps or higher.

WCDMA has over 73% market share of commercial 3G networks worldwide. Almost 95% of WCDMA operators have now launched HSPA.

A related survey by GSA confirms that 1,605 HSPA devices have been launched by 183 manufacturers. The number of products announced increased by over 121% year-on-year. The number of HSPA-enabled notebooks tripled year-on-year, with the number of phones and smartphones rising by more than 88% in the same period.

Excluding notebooks, a total of 595 HSPA products (over 46%) support peak downlink data speeds of 7.2 Mbps or more.

Alan Hadden, President, GSA said: “With 135 commercial HSPA networks supporting peak downlink data throughputs of at least 7.2 Mbps, and almost 600 user devices launched in the market which are capable of operating at 7.2 Mbps or higher, clearly a new baseline for mobile broadband service and capabilities has been established using HSPA.”

Evolved HSPA (HSPA+) is the next step on the roadmap for many operators, which increases data rates by using higher order modulation schemes and multiple antenna technology (MIMO). 3GPP Release 7 introduced 64 QAM modulation, increasing the downlink peak data bit rate by 50% to 21 Mbps. In the uplink, 16 QAM doubles the peak data bit rate from 5.76 Mbps to 11.5 Mbps. Release 8 allows for combining 64 QAM with 2×2 MIMO for peak rates up to 42 Mbps downlink and 11.5 Mbps uplink (per 5 MHz carrier). Further evolution of HSPA will utilize combinations of multi-carrier and MIMO to reach peak rates of 84 Mbps downlink and 23 Mbps uplink. Almost 40 operators have committed to HSPA+ network deployments.

The world’s first HSPA+ network was launched in February 2009. According to GSA, the number of HSPA+ networks in commercial service has now reached double figures. 10 HSPA+ systems are commercially launched which are using 64QAM modulation to deliver 21 Mbps peak data throughput on the downlink, for a typical user experience up to 8 Mbps, depending on device availability. The world’s first HSPA+ system utilizing MIMO technology has also been launched, in Italy, boosting peak downlink data throughput up to 28 Mbps. The recent GSA HSPA devices survey confirmed that 8 HSPA+ user devices are already launched in the market.

Uplink data speeds are also increasing. 98 operators have committed to HSUPA, with 87 networks now commercially launched, and an increasing number of these networks support 5.8 Mbps peak data throughput. The number of HSUPA user devices announced by manufacturers has more than quadrupled over the past 12 months, and now stands at 305 products. More than a third (102 devices) support, or are upgradeable for 5.8 Mbps peak operation, compared to only 14 products in July 2008.

GSA earlier announced that 31 operators are committed to LTE network deployments, which will significantly further boost network throughputs, improve spectrum and operational efficiencies and performance, and reduce latency for the next step in the user experience. GSA anticipates that up to 12 LTE networks will be in commercial service by end 2010.

More information is available in the WCDMA-HSPA and LTE Fact Sheet (July 27, 2009), which is a free download at http://www.gsacom.com

ABOUT GSA

GSA represents leading GSM/3G/WCDMA-HSPA and LTE suppliers worldwide, covering close to 100% of mobile market share. Industry professionals and organizations globally use www.gsacom.com as a single information resource, targeted to the industry, for authoritative facts, market intelligence, objective analysis and information.

* Additional Note by Alan Spicer:

What’s wrong with this picture? See the following chart…

From: http://www.gsacom.com/downloads/wcdma/3G_WCDMA_Fact_Sheet.php4

* I’m going to mostly let the picture speak for itself. But, ahemmmm, 7.2 Mbps was a 2007 thing. This is, ummm, almost 2010. Of course the answer will be that there were no devices (Cellular 3G Cards, etc.) available until recently.

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