Free article: HSPA+ will be preferred to LTE for the next five years 

It was envisaged that this series of enhancements would provide the necessary performance and capacity to support the development of usage-intensive services, such as mobile video and audio services, and would enable new services and strategies, such as fixed-line broadband substitution. However, a number of important developments could now reduce (or at least delay) the need for widespread commercial deployment of some of these enhancements:

• The widespread availability of low-cost fixed broadband services in developed countries reduces the commercial opportunity for cellular technologies to deliver fixed broadband services.
• The deployment of indoor base stations (commonly referred to as femtocells and picocells) will relieve outdoor macrocells of a substantial traffic load, because a large proportion of mobile service traffic will be generated indoors. Delivering indoor services using outdoor macrocells dramatically drains network capacity, because of the additional interference it causes.
• Dedicated broadcasting networks, such as DVB-H, will deliver the majority of mobile TV and radio traffic, which is a burden on 3G networks.

In order to assess the realistic requirements for network deployment over the next five years, it is necessary to compare the capabilities of a typical mobile network (considering each of the technology options) with the anticipated evolution of the mobile service mix, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Model comparing mobile service demand with mobile network capability

Our modelling reveals that the combination of femtocells, broadcasting networks and HSPA+ will be sufficient to support the likely development in mobile service traffic for at least the next five years. Femtocells will relieve outdoor macrocell networks of up to 70% of their traffic, while a broadcasting network could remove another 7% of traffic (or substantially more if the network does not have a 3G broadcasting solution). Meanwhile, HSPA+ will provide a major improvement to the performance of 3G networks within the existing 5MHz carrier structure of UMTS. The application of advanced modulation and multiple in, multiple out (MIMO) smart antennas will enable HSPA+ to improve the top data speed of 3G networks (up to 42Mbit/s downlink). More significantly, it will improve coverage, enabling consistently high data speeds (for example 5Mbit/s) in areas of poor coverage. Customers will experience a real improvement in the quality of service.

Some operators may want to achieve a competitive advantage from the even greater performance offered by LTE. However, LTE upgrades will be expensive and will be difficult to justify alongside many other mobile network operator commitments. Network sharing may be the only option for these operators.

The new report, 3G Network Evolution from 2007 to 2012: HSPA+, LTE, WiMAX and femtocells, considers the major evolution steps for UMTS, including HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+ and LTE, quantifying their capabilities, and the services and customer usage profiles that they can support in real network implementations. The report examines how 3G network evolution will be affected by the emergence of femtocells, broadcasting networks, WiMAX and network sharing. It includes modelling of a typical 3G network to evaluate the match between service requirements and network capabilities. The report considers the best choice of 3G evolution path and assesses the broader implications of this for mobile network operators and equipment vendors.