MTN to launch HSDPA in first quarter 2006
Brian Seligmann, MTN senior manager of messaging, data and value added services, said at a demonstration to the media yesterday that HSDPA will initially provide average download speeds of 1.4 Megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of around 300 kilobits per second (Kpbs). Latency will be around 75 milliseconds. This is up from MTN’s current 3G offering, which offers a maximum downlink speed of 384 Kbps and an uplink speed of 64 Kbps. The 3G offering as a latency of around 150 milliseconds.
“HSDPA will be a replacement for [Telkom’s] ADSL, stopping the long lead times that many customers experience in waiting for ADSL [to be installed] as well as providing users with a mobile solution,” he says.
Telkom’s ADSL products have a downlink ranging between 192 kpbs and 1 Mbps. Nicolene Visser, Vodacom communications manager, says the company is not prepared to comment on how things are progressing with HSDPA testing or when it is expected to release the service to its customers.
This will likely see MTN pip Vodacom to the post on the release of HSDPA after Vodacom released 3G in December 2004, some seven months before MTN went live with 3G at the end of June 2005.
HSDPA therefore for the first time puts mobile connectivity on a par with fixed connectivity solutions, Seligmann says.
Part of the final preparations for MTN before the release of HSDPA will include formulating its strategy on the issue of bandwidth capping considering the amount of data users will be able to download with the higher speeds provided by HSDPA and working on a real time data monitor which users will be able to check to know how much data they have used during the month, Seligmann says.
The future
Looking into the future, Seligmann says HSDPA will be rolled out in phases. Once the first phase is up and running, the maximum downlink speed will be 3.6 Mbps and an uplink speed of 384 Kbps.
“Moving into phase two, HSDPA will have a downlink of anything between 2 Mbps and 14 Mbps with an uplink speed of 1.8 Mbps and a latency of 50 milliseconds. This would be expected either in late 2006 or sometime during the course of 2007,” he says.
The application of HSDPA will mean that users will be able to have true broadband access, running applications on their phone like IPTV. On the laptop side, Seligmann says HSDPA will give laptops the ability to have a true wireless connection at LAN speeds.
While HSDPA will be available by April according to Seligmann, no cellphone manufacturer has released an HSDPA compatible handset as yet, with the first models expected out in the market by July or August.
“There will also be a dramatic reduction in the cost of quad cards (supporting GPRS, EDGE, 3G and HSDPA) when HSDPA goes live,” Seligmann says adding that a quad card currently retails for over R3000.
Data prices are expected to stay at R2 per Megabyte down to a rate of R0.47 on the cheapest bundle.
Coverage and applications
Commenting on coverage, Seligmann says HSDPA coverage is about 20% less than 3G in each tower cell and its ability to penetrate into buildings is poorer than 3G. As a result, he says MTN will roll out HSDPA in key centres like the Johannesburg International Airport as has been done with 3G. And because HSDPA is an evolution of 3G, it will not require any serious upgrades, says Seligmann.
As to the kind of applications that MTN will be making available with the faster access that HSDPA provides, Seligmann says MTN has a team which is currently trialling IP based applications, although he says MTN is not in a position to comment on what those are or when they would be released.
Seligmann did say that MTN is currently trialling Push To Talk (PTT) with some of its corporate customers.
PTT is a voice messaging system which functions in a similar way to walkie talkies. Seligmann says the technology is not HSDPA dependent and can even be run using GPRS.
“In GPRS testing, there was less than a second delay from when the [voice] message was sent from one phone to when it arrived on the other. With HSDPA, that would reduce to around a third of a second,” he says.
MTN has approved the purchase of a PTT platform and a consumer PTT product is in development.
Seligmann declined to comment as to whether MTN would charge for PTT on a subscription basis, which would allow unlimited conversation for a set fee (as is done in the United States) or whether the company would charge per message or for the data used.
Source: http://www.andnetwork.com/
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