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In this issue:
- Global HSPA statistics update: HSPA network deployments and devices launched
- On the record: 'Mobile Broadband for the Enterprise - The Forest is Awakening', Jeff Belk, senior vice president of strategy and market development, Qualcomm, examines the evolution of mobile broadband technologies and how HSPA is providing true workforce mobility today
- Analyst insight: What the world's top analyst houses are saying about mobile broadband
- Visit our website: details on latest content added to our HSPA mobile broadband website, including case studies and white papers
- HSPA Macau Schedule: Preview the HSPA events and exhibitions at the Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, November 2007
Press Releases:
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HSPA continues to enjoy rapid global adoption as enterprises and consumers take advantage of mobile broadband through an ever-increasing variety of HSPA-enabled devices across a wider area:
Networks
- 210 HSPA operator commitments in 85 countries or territories
- 128 commercially available HSPA networks in 61 countries (24 of the 27 EU)
- 47 operators currently support 3.6 Mbps HSDPA
Devices
330 HSPA-enabled devices from 79 suppliers:
- 132 handsets
- 61 notebooks
- 38 data cards
- 27 wireless routers
- 25 USB modems
- 26 embedded modules
For the latest network and device statistics, visit our HSPA Mobile Broadband website
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 |  | Mobile Broadband for the Enterprise - The Forest is Awakening
By Jeffery Belk, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Market Development at Qualcomm |
“Against the vague future promises of technologies like WiMAX, today's HSPA systems are delivering multi-megabit per second access to mobile workforces around the globe.”
“For operators who have launched HSPA, it's no longer a matter of having their enterprise customers wait for next year, but having their customers' trial and deploy the services on commercial devices, and get the feedback from an increasingly satisfied and productive mobile workforce.”
There is an old adage, “if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is listening, does it make a sound?” Or as Wikipedia comments,” can something exist without being perceived”? This is an excellent metaphor for a place where there is a tremendous amount of activity, the forest, but it is activity that exists, at least for the casual viewer, somewhat out of sight. In the case of HSPA Mobile Broadband in the enterprise, it is a busy forest indeed.
Wireless data in the enterprise has been a long time in the making. In the analog cellular days, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, limited circuit switched solutions made even more limited headway into certain vertical enterprise applications. As digital wireless voice systems like GSM deployed and were rapidly adopted in the mid-1990s, the promise of 'wireless data' began to form. The remainder of the '90s was the 'wireless data' hype cycle. Enterprises and pundits, eagerly awaiting functional wireless data solutions for ever more mobile workforces, started woefully repeating another adage of 'next year is the year of wireless data', when each following year was 'next year'.
Skip forward to first few years of this century. Ubiquitous voice services became prevalent around the globe, as the first billion digital wireless users came into their own. Data usage, in the form of SMS, then in the form of nascent packet data services, came into being, and for the first time, the enterprise IT folks began to hear a sound.
But that sound was suddenly drowned out by a hype-led chorus of “Wi-Fi hot-spots will rule the wireless world”, and it will all be “free”. Wi-Fi, then as now, continues to be an amazingly useful technology for the enterprise and individual. However, the catchy name cannot mask the reality that Wi-Fi is a “Wireless LAN” technology, where the “L” stands for “Local”. Digital wireless, in its 2G, 2.5G, and early 3G variants, only began gaining true traction when the services had high levels of wireless coverage areas, and is at its best when that coverage is near ubiquity in the cities, towns, and on highways. The “I need to go somewhere, the coffee shop, the business center, or the park bench in the rain” for the connectivity model of Wi-Fi hotspots was not popular with the mobile workforce, nor with their IT departments. And it still is not.
Move forward a few more years, to 2004-2006. WCDMA data cards for laptops became more prevalent on ever more mature 3G networks. Speeds were up, data handling capacity increased, and predictable “monthly, not per megabyte” tariffs appeared. Suddenly, IT departments could do real life testing and deployments, delivering sophisticated, business critical applications in a consistent manner, with the ability to analyze Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI), and measure the changes in productivity of their mobile workforce.
But with the arrival of WiMAX, their minds were filled with unsupported visions of “75Mbps at 50km”, and “ten times the speed at one-tenth the cost”. And those visions were being put forth by vendors they knew, and somehow it was going to be there for them in '05 or '06, without the time, testing, and pain induced by thoroughness that the development of every other wireless standard has had to endure. The announcements of the countries and the companies trialing WiMAX blossomed. Meanwhile, our cities, which have a difficult enough time keeping the buses moving, the streets patched, and our kids educated were going to all deploy “Municipal Wi-Fi” networks. Between WiMAX and Muni Wi-Fi, the noise was, and remains, deafening, even as requests for real world, real network performance or cost metrics are met with silence.
As we near the end of 2007, the noise out of the vast forest of HSPA mobile broadband systems is increasingly being heard. Against the vague future promises of technologies like WiMax, today's HSPA systems are delivering multi-megabit per second access to mobile workforces around the globe. Not on PowerPoint presentations, not in a conference speeches, and not in theoretical white papers. On 121 commercially operational networks in 61 countries. On hundreds of different types of HSPA devices commercially available from dozens of vendors. On more than 60 commercially available laptops and PDAs with HSPA embedded. On networks where increasingly, everywhere the mobile professional can make a voice call, they can ever more economically leverage their corporate data assets. All leveraging the almost billion units a year global marketplace for mobile devices, representing the largest ecosystem and greatest economies of scale in tech history. For operators who have launched HSPA, it's no longer a matter of having their enterprise customers wait for next year, but having their customers' trial and deploy the services on commercial devices, and get the feedback from an increasingly satisfied and productive mobile workforce. A satisfied workforce that gets to login once with their HSPA device, and work almost anywhere, as opposed to other approaches which require multiple accounts, logins, user interfaces, and uncertain cost structures.
What does the future hold for mobile broadband? WiMAX systems will evolve and mature, and slowly reach the reality of mass commercialization. Limited Muni Wi-Fi networks will be deployed, and for some, a viable business model may emerge. However, as those changes slowly and incrementally transpire, mobile broadband networks such as HSPA, and the tremendous global ecosystem of operators, hardware vendors, laptop and PDA manufacturers, and application developers, and others will continue to aggressively drive and expand the capabilities of the Mobile Broadband enabled enterprise. The tree is falling in the forest, and it is making noise.
Jeffrey Belk is Senior Vice President of Strategy and Market Development at Qualcomm. For more on Belk's past Wimax and Public Wi-Fi observations, please see his authored papers: Why MAX? and Adventures in the Public Hotspot Wi-Fi World
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On Mobile Broadband...
"Mobile data will take up rapidly in the next few years, fuelled by an increasing adoption of open approach to the mobile Internet, flat-rate data pricing and ongoing deployment of HSPA."
Dr Yanii Suo-Saunders
Analysys: “Western European mobile market: Trends and forecasts 2007 - 2012”, September 2007
More details
“HSPA's in-service status in 2007 makes it already the most advanced mobile broadband technology, with many further deployments due in the near and medium term.” Howard Wilcox
Juniper Research: “Mobile broadband markets”, August 2007
More details
"The Mobile Broadband offerings have taken a substantial lead in the Australia mobility broadband market with superior coverage, higher speed, and competitive access cost, to which WiMAX broadband offerings must rapidly respond by the turn of the decade; otherwise, WiMAX will face relegation."
Jerson Yau, research analyst
IDC Research: "Australia mobile and wireless broadband 2007-2011 forecast and analysis: Future proof", August 2007
More details
A whole new class of “always-on” Internet-connected products, collectively termed “Ultra-Mobile Devices” (UMDs), will become popular over the next five years. By appealing to a wide range of buyers they will reach shipments of nearly 95 million units by 2012, and should prove extremely profitable for their makers.
ABI Research: “Mobile Internet devices and UMPCs”, September 2007
More details
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New content added to the HSPA Web site
The HSPA Mobile Broadband website contains a number of resources and information about the HSPA marketplace, live deployments and industry comment.
Latest content includes:
CASE STUDY: Maxis (Malaysia) - “HSDPA: Shaking up the broadband market”
Malaysia's broadband landscape is undergoing a revolution. Leading mobile operator Maxis Communications Berhad has rolled out HSDPA, bringing true competition to the country's underdeveloped broadband market. Everyday, hundreds of households are signing up to the only residential broadband service that offers true portability, convergence and reduced phone bills.
View case study
Also available
Case studies:
AT&T: “Raising the bar of mobile broadband today”
Telstra (Australia): “Mobile broadband anywhere you need it - now”
MTN (South Africa): “Mobile broadband connects the unconnected”
Mobilkom Austria: “Mobile broadband has become a reality in Austria”
Whitepapers:
Wireless Intelligence: “WCDMA HSPA cellular connections to reach 40 million by end of 2008”
Arthur D. Little: “HSPA and mobile WiMAX for mobile broadband wireless access”
GSM Association: “How to realise the benefits of mobile broadband today”
Nokia: “Nokia's HSDPA solution”
Deutsche Bank: “At the starting line - The race to mobile broadband”
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Tuesday |
11.30-12.50
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Congress topic: Asia’s Next Technology Roadmap
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| | 2.15-3.45 | Congress topic: Building a Mobile Broadband Business |
| | 4.00-5.00 | User-experience Forum |
| | 5.30-6.00 | HSPA Networking drinks (on the HSPA Pavilion)
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Wednesday |
9.00-11.00
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Eco-system Discussion Panel (breakfast served)
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| | 1.00 – 5.00
| HSPA Seminar: Highlighting the success of HSPA Mobile Broadband (lunch served 1.00-1.30pm) |
| | 5.00-6.00 | HSPA Drinks & Canapés to celebrate success |
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Thursday |
11.30-1.00
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Congress topic: Technology to Bridge the Digital Divide
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