Jan/Feb 2006

Could mobile phone-based broadband internet connectivity be poised to fight back against the spread of seamless Wi-Fi coverage (see story above), offering much greater ubiquity combined with falling costs?

That's the prospect held out by analyst Berg Insight, which says that 3G mobile networks upgraded with HSDPA technology are going to achieve peak data transfer speeds of up to 3.6 megabits per second by the end of this year - "offering the same price as a DSL service with comparable performance."

It adds: "Whereas DSL and cable connections are only available at fixed locations, mobile broadband solutions enable users to access the Internet anywhere."

According to a new report by Berg, there are currently more than 1 million 3G data card users worldwide. Few of these cards would offer the high speeds it mentions, but it adds that some network operators including T-Mobile are already shipping 3G data cards that are "HSDPA-ready".

 

HSDPA stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, which is one of the technologies dubbed "3.5G" in some quarters. It is expected to go into trials in Europe this year by T-Mobile plus O2, Orange, Vodafone and others.

Berg estimates that there will be around 120 million laptop computers in Europe by 2009 - and that's not including phone-enabled handhelds and PDAs, plus converged phone/PDA devices. "One of the key issues for the telecom industry is how these should be connected to the Internet", says Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight.

Whether the chosen technology will end up being HSDPA, Wi-Fi, WiMAX or something else is not yet clear, but the increasing competition can only be good for users, and it looks as though viable solutions are only a breath away.