Qualcomm keeps upping the ante
in wireless data speed trials it seems - and this one is a zinger. Qualcomm and Nortel announced the completion of a
7.2 megabit-per-second data call over HSDPA - which is about seven to eight times faster than deployed
HSDPA networks now. That, my friends, is mobile broadband.Now, we've heard this all before - hype before the reality settles in. But, if Qualcomm can get even half of the HSDPA bandwidth they are talking about in this recent test, they'll have a winner easily. HSDPA is decently fast now, but topping out over 1 Mbps would be a huge boost to the technology and really would help adoption move along.
1. All this is great, but conveniently overlooks the fact that most 3G cell sites - in Europe, at least - have about 4Mbit/s total backhaul bandwidth. And also overlooks the fact that the bandwidth is shared between how ever many users access that site simultaneously.
The chances of end users actually getting real-world speeds of more than 1-2Mbit/s, on a reasonably loaded network, are almost nil for the forseeable future.
Posted at 5:22PM on Apr 3rd 2006 by Dean Bubley