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About 62 percent of mobile industry executives involved with GSM believe the next baseline for mobile broadband-based, peak-downlink data speed will be 21 Mbps, a recent survey by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association has found.

 

GSA (News - Alert) essentially defines a "baseline" as a scenario where more than 100 networks are in service offering the capability, with a supporting ecosystem of several hundred user devices in the market.

 

About 62 percent believe the 21 Mbps downlink speed would be in place in 2010.

 

About 20 percent thought 14.4 Mbps would be the next baseline while 22 percent thought 28 Mbps would be the next level.

 

The GSA previously in 2009 had said its surveys found 7.2 Mbps had become the new global baseline, as half of all operators were able to provide service at such speeds or higher, while  almost 600 user devices capable of 7.2 Mbps or higher which had been launched in the market.

 

But the GSA also noted at the time that some HSPA systems already operating would support a peak downlink data speed up to 14.4 Mbps.

 

HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) is the next step for many operators, which increases data rates by using higher order modulation schemes and multiple antenna technology (MIMO).

 

Also, 3GPP Release 7 introduced 64 QAM modulation, increasing the downlink peak data bit rate by 50 percent to 21 Mbps.

 

In the uplink, 16 QAM doubles the peak data bit rate from 5.76 Mbps to 11.5 Mbps. Release 8 allows for combining 64 QAM with 2×2 MIMO for peak rates up to 42 Mbps downlink and 11.5 Mbps uplink (per 5 MHz carrier).

 

Further evolution of HSPA will utilize combinations of multi-carrier and MIMO to reach peak rates of 84 Mbps downlink and 23 Mbps uplink. Sixty-two operators worldwide have committed to HSPA+ network deployments.

 

Actual end user experiences are affected by traffic loading at particular cell sites and other constraints, so 21 Mbps is not likely to be experienced by actual end users in the commercial market, though it works in the laboratory.

 

Still, real-world experience will, if the predictions prove reliable, have essentially tripled in about a year's time, at least for providers using the GSM air interface.

 

There are many reasons why even a 21-Mbps mobile broadband connection is not a functional replacement for a landline broadband connection. But it should be obvious that there are some users who can justify substituting a mobile connection for a fixed connection, even with the 5-Gigabyte monthly caps such mobile plans entail.

 

Austria is the poster child for such substitution on a wide scale, though. According to an analysis by Arthur D. Little, this has been driven by a combination of services targeted at high-volume users (10 to 15 GB per month for about 25 Euros), as well as by three out of the four mobile operators offering a prepaid service.

 

The result is that almost all broadband net adds in Austria have over the last year or two been mobile connections, rather than fixed connections. As early as 2008, in fact, Mobilkom reported that mobile broadband accounted for 28 percent of all broadband connections.

 

The overall data and the Austrian example suggest that the substitution effect will be dependent on three key factors, Cisco (News - Alert) says Dave Parsons, Cisco manager. An aggressive, mobile-only player must be competing. Fixed-line video must be a relatively less-important or unimportant service, and also not bundled with broadband access.

 

Also, fixed broadband prices must be relatively high, compared to the mobile alternative.

 

Of course, speed alone is not a sufficiently complete indicator for the user experience, some respondents noted. Application experience also is a key variable. One would hope the ability to optimize application experience will not be outlawed as policymakers attempt to address legitimate concerns about anti-competitive application blocking.