HSDPA: the need for speed

High-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) promises to boost mobile data access rates by three or four times the speeds offered by the universal mobile telecommunications service (UMTS) standard.

The so-called 3.5G mobile telephony protocol, which has only just begun reaching deployment status in the US, is already being hyped as the next big thing, even though 3G itself has barely taken hold.

Vodafone is preparing to roll out HSDPA in the second half of this year.

At 3GSM, the company was keen to point towards the HSDPA forward-compatibility of its 3G mobile data cards now being shipped within Dell laptops.

But Jenny Lau, European mobile telecoms analyst at Forrester Research, believes it may take more than just faster speeds to make HSDPA worthwhile for corporate customers.

‘Operators always seem to think that speed is the issue,’ she says. ‘But they tend to forget that pricing is also an issue, especially for business.’

There could also be a problem with coverage, she says, as HSDPA is effectively a software upgrade of 3G and in the UK 3G only covers some 55 to 60 per cent of the population.

Ian Gates, director of group IT for outsourcer Capita, which has a mobile workforce of 5,000, all equipped with BlackBerry

handhelds or laptops and data cards, agrees that HSDPA pricing will be a huge factor in uptake.

‘We’ve experienced some disappointment with 3G data speed. Improvements are something we may take up, but it is pricing that is important to us,’ he says.

‘At chief executive level it might not be an issue, but ultimately it restricts the number of people this is rolled out to.’