hspa

LAS VEGAS--T-Mobile USA on Tuesday announced its first Netbook for its 3G wireless network here at the CTIA trade show.

Starting Wednesday in select markets, T-Mobile will begin selling the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Netbook with access to the company's newly upgraded HSPA 7.2 network. The device, which comes with Windows 7 installed as well as an Intel Atom processor for fast Web surfing, will be $199.99 with a two-year contract. Customers can buy the device without a contract for $499.

T-Mobile charges $60 per month for its data card service, which gives users 5GB of usage … Read more

Qualcomm is adding 4G technology to its Gobi laptop modems and expanding its chip offerings that support 3G technologies.

The San Diego-based company announced at CTIA in Las Vegas Tuesday that it will add, for the first time, LTE, or Long Term Evolution 4G technology to the roster of 3G technologies that the Gobi modem supports. 4G technology is expected to offer much greater data throughput than current 3G technologies (see chart below).

Gobi modem technology is significant because it supports more than one type of 3G service. In effect, Gobi allows switching to a different 3G provider in software. The integrated Gobi modem on HP EliteBook business laptops, for example, supports Verizon's EV-DO and AT&T's HSPA 3G services. Before, a user would have to replace the internal modem to switch providers.

And Gobi modems will now be future-proofed by supporting LTE, too. Michael Concannon, senior vice president of connectivity and wireless modules at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, explained how this could play out for PC makers. "A PC supplier, for example, may go with a 3.6 megabit-per-second module on a very low-end laptop, while in the mid-range they may want to go with a 14.4 (Mbps), and at the very high end… Read more

Editors' note: Though T-Mobile is billing it as 4G technology, HSPA+ is a 3G technology based on existing 3G standards.

BARCELONA, Spain--On a chilly morning at Mobile World Congress, T-Mobile USA promised that it would phase in a nationwide HSPA+ network in 2010. Speaking at a press conference at the carrier's glass-fronted pavilion, T-Mobile USA CTO Cole Brodman said the service, which is currently live in Philadelphia, will start to roll out to other cities in the next few months. Though Brodman didn't reveal a specific cities or set a timetable, T-Mobile spokesman Peter Dobrow said the high-speed … Read more

Hot on the heels of T-Mobile's announcement earlier that it is improving its entire 3G network to HSPA 7.2 comes the announcement from AT&T in an investor call that it, too, has done an HSPA 7.2 improvement of its own. AT&T says it has completed a software upgrade to all 3G cell sites nationwide that promises faster 3G speeds, plus it hopes to add capacity to the backbone network itself.

This doesn't mean AT&T customers will all get HSPA 7.2 right away, though; only six U.S. cities will … Read more

T-Mobile officially announced today that it has boosted its entire 3G network to HSPA 7.2, which is nice timing for one of the first carriers to offer Google's Nexus One (and especially since the Nexus One currently only supports T-Mobile's 3G bands). HSPA 7.2 promises to deliver three to five times the speeds of current 3G networks, and, best of all, this will apply to all existing 3G smartphones as well. Nice one, T-Mo.

Mobile chip maker Qualcomm said Thursday that it has started providing new wireless chipsets that combine 3G and 4G wireless technology to help carriers transition to the next generation of wireless technology.

The company said Huawei Technologies, LG Electronics Novatel Wireless, Sierra Wireless, and ZTE are among the first mobile-device manufacturers to test the new chips.

Qualcomm said that devices that use the new chips could be available in commercial products starting in the second half of 2010.

The new chips will allow wireless phones and other portable devices to switch between a 4G wireless network using LTE, or long-term … Read more

Bing has taken over MSN video and it has videos from every network. Why isn't Microsoft trumpeting this? We also get really confused by Verizon's unlimited plan that has a limit of 5GB. Does it? Doesn't it? What the hell? And we debate the way Twitter retweets.

Microsoft disconnects Xbox gamers http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8354166.stm

New Microsoft Project Natal details leak, coming next year for cheap http://dvice.com/archives/2009/11/new-microsoft-p.php… Read more

Since I got my iPhone 3GS a couple of months ago, I've been wondering when I would really benefit from its highly anticipated faster 3G capability. I finally got the answer, and as it turns out, the wait is far from over.

AT&T announced Wednesday details of its rollout plans for High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 3G technology. This is the next generation of 3G, and it offers up to 7.2Mbps data connection speeds (as opposed to the 2Mbps and 3.6Mbps of the current 3G).

(This is, of course, just the theoretical number. Typical real-world downlink and uplink speeds will likely be less than that depending on location, device, and overall traffic on the local wireless network at a given time. Nonetheless, this promises a significant boost. HSPA 7.2 is part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) family of technologies, which include GSM, UMTS, and the Emerging LTE technology. HSPA 7.2 offers backward-compatibility, meaning it also works with existing 3G and 2G devices at the lower device-specific speed.)

According to the announcement, the new speed will be available by the end of the year. Unfortunately, it's available only in six cities in the U.S., including Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Los Angeles; and Miami. This means the rest of the country, including the San Francisco Bay Area where I am, must continue to wait.

It's unclear how long the wait will be for the rest of the cities, but the company says it plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in 25 of the nation's 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011.

While this is rather sad news for me, for most people it won't mean much, as chances are your phone is not compatible with the higher 3G speed. Currently, the iPhone 3GS is the only HSPA 7.2-ready smartphone I know that AT&T offers.

However, AT&T assures that it will offer more compatible devices with the rollout of HSPA 7.2. The company expects to have six HSPA 7.2-compatible smartphones in its device portfolio by the end of the year, as well as two new LaptopConnect cards.

The rollout of HSPA 7.2 is part of AT&T's plan to invest some $18 billion this year, of which more than two-thirds is going toward broadband and wireless. Key projects of this investment include, in AT&T's words:… Read more

AT&T announced Wednesday plans to double the speed of its wireless broadband network by 2011. The move to HSPA technology, and eventually LTE networks, will begin later this year.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson outlined the carrier's plans at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif. "We are going to go ahead and deploy some rather aggressive wireless broadband," Stephenson said.

HSPA, which stand for High Speed Packet Access, is the next evolution in the carrier's 3G wireless broadband network. Though it promises peak data speeds of 7.2Mbps, slower speeds … Read more