MOBILE BROADBAND WIRELESS ACCESS

Emerging telecommunications applications such as multimedia streaming, music download, on-line gaming and content browsing are popular examples of the digital revolution we have been facing as the world gets connected.Fixed broadband access has already become an urban commodity in the developed countries, but so far there have been few means of delivering these bandwidth-consuming services effectively and affordably to the significant number of rural and mobile users.

However, recent advances in e.g. signal processing, radio protocols, and mobile network infrastructure are now enabling the concept of mobile broadband for consumers around the world.

Mobile broadband is defined here as the potential to transfer low-latency user data with speeds exceeding 256 kbit/s while roaming the network with seamless handover between adjacent cells. This paper presents the different mobile broadband technologies with commercial availability already or within a few years.

Related regulation aspects are important factors affecting the regional markets. Analysis of the current market situation, significant vendors’ strategies and foreseen future developments are also used to draw the conclusions about the respective potential of these technologies.

Currently there are a number of different technologies for broadband wireless access for both fixed and mobile applications. Some of them are completely proprietary, based on vendor-specific solutions that are noninteroperable, while others are based on open standards developed by industry working groups. In the following subsections, we briefly describe the fundamental characteristics of the currently most significant wireless broadband technologies, focusing on key metrics such as operating frequencies, channel bandwidth, cell sizes, user data rates and latency, handover capabilities, and timeframe of availability.