UMTS: Alive and Well - 4G Americas

Figure 2.1. UMTS-HSPA Timeline.Currently, the 3GPP standard supports the 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 1700/2100 and2600 MHz frequency bands. Additionally, the standard will be expanded for use in the 700 MHzbands which were auctioned in the U.S. in April 2008 with AT&T and Verizon as two of theprimary auction winners already announcing their future deployments of LTE in this band. Therewill be further opportunities for introducing 3GPP technologies in frequency bandwidths smallerthan 5 MHz (e.g. the 450 MHz) spectrum bands (due to LTE support for carrier bandwidths downto 1.4 MHz). Such a wide selection of bands benefits operators because it provides moreflexibility.Infrastructure and devices are currently supported by a variety of vendors in the 850, 900, 1700,1800, 1900, 2000, 2100 and 1700/2100 MHz bands and will also be supported for all futurefrequency bands, including 700, 2500 and 2600 MHz as well as the 1500 MHz band in Japan and2300 MHz in the U.S. One vendor cites the mobile data throughput capability of the most costeffectivebase station as more than 400 GB per day, resulting in a broadband radio network at acost close to $1 per GB. With reportedly up to 70 percent lower base station site expenditures,the GSM-UMTS infrastructure costs have encouraged operators to deploy 3G UMTS technology.Initial network deployments of HSDPA were launched with PC data cards in 2005. HSDPAhandsets were made commercially available in 2Q 2006 with HSDPA handhelds first launched inSouth Korea in May 2006 and later in North America by Cingular (now AT&T) in July 2006. Inaddition to offering data downloads at up to 1.8 Mbps, the initial handsets offered suchapplications as satellite-transmitted Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) TV programs, withtwo to three megapixel cameras, Bluetooth, radios and stereo speakers for a variety ofmultimedia and messaging capabilities.www.3GAmericas.org February 2010 Page 13