T-Mobile may be calling its souped-up 3G network by the 4G moniker today, but it could have plans to run actual 4G-like capacities over its high-speed packet access plus network in the future. The TmoNews blog today had an interesting photo, reportedly taken at a T-Mobile manager’s meeting, that showed T-Mobile increasing HSPA+ network speeds in 2011 to 42 Mb/s in order to keep up with its 4G competitors.
42 Mb/s, of course, is only a theoretical maximum, but then again all of the speed numbers tossed around for technology standards are theoretical. T-Mobile’s current HSPA+, now live in the Northeast and several other markets, has a ceiling of 21 Mb/s, though average speeds come in at 5 to 8 Mb/s. But independent tests of HSPA+ networks show that they can get close to that ceiling if the network conditions are ideal and the device isn’t moving. So layering on another upgrade could allow T-Mobile to maintain its “4G speeds” gambit. Supplying an average throughput of 10 Mb/s to 16 Mb/s while delivering the occasional performances of 30+ Mb/s would make T-Mobile’s 3G network sound an awful lot like the long-term evolution networks VZW and AT&T plan on launching this year or next.
Connected Planet’s take,
Kevin Fitchard:
Though it’s still highly speculative that T-Mobile would move further down the 3G migration path (TmoNews acknowledges that it has no idea of the context of the image), 42 Mb/s isn’t just some random number. It’s a doubling of the current theoretical capacity of HSPA+, meaning that of all of the possible upgrades T-Mobile might be investigating, that slide points squarely at dual-carrier HSPA+. Remember CDMA 1X EV-DO Rev. B? It’s the same thing, except you’re stacking HSPA+ carriers rather than EV-DO carriers. What that means is that in order to offer double the capacity, T-Mobile would have to use double the spectrum.
So yes, it’s entirely possible that T-Mobile could deliver monster 4G-like connections to its customers next year, but to do so it would have to devote 10 MHz of AWS spectrum to each carrier rather than just 5 MHz. In comparison, the upgrade from HSPA to HSPA+ was one that used higher-order modulation techniques to squeeze more capacity — three times more — onto that same 5 MHz carrier. Given that T-Mobile is already supporting multiple HSPA+ carriers on its AWS spectrum (or will do so soon as 3G demand increases), it probably won’t see any net capacity gain by going to dual-carrier HSPA+. Basically it’s taking the same resources but splitting them into larger chunks. There are some advantages to that approach, though. By creating a faster downlink, T-Mobile is able to terminate individual sessions faster, thus clearing network resources for the next user. Ultimately the network experience improves for all customers, but the cost of delivering data over the radio network stays the same.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below: