China Unicom (SHSE: 600050) is putting the finishing touch on the tests on its HSPA+ networks in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, which were kicked off in October 2009 by partnering with its three major suppliers Huawei Technologies, ZTE, and Ericsson.
HSPA+ is the next generation technology for China Unicom's WCDMA 3G service. HSPA+, also known as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access, is a wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7. The HSPA+ network claims with a transmission speed of 21Mbps, 1.5 times faster than its current 3G network.
The equivalent of HSPA+ at China Mobile Ltd. (SEHK: 0941, NYSE: CHL) and China Telecom (SEHK: 0728, NYSE: CHA), the two archrivals of China Unicom, is TD-LTE and EV-DO Rev.B.
The three telecom networking gear makers have helped China Unicom upgrade the data rate of the HSPA+ networks in the three cities to 14Mbps on the downlink and 7.2Mbps on the uplink.
China Unicom has mandated a third-party evaluation institution to assess the test results in a bid to lay the ground work for the subsequent commercialization.
The institution had been carrying out tests on the transmission speed, capacity, and network coverage of these networks for two months. The tests results show that the networks in Guangzhou and Zhuhai, which were built up by Huawei and Ericsson respectively, fare well, while details about the network established by ZTE is not available yet.
The outdoor average speed of the networks built up by Ericsson and Huawei reach up to 16.5Mbps and 18.5Mbps on the downlink, 50% higher than that of the existing HSPA network. That means you can download a song within two or three seconds.
Technicians from Ericsson disclose that Ericsson and Hutchison Whampoa are considering introducing the 42Mbps HSPA+ from Sweden. As for Huawei, it showcased the MIMC and DC technologies-based 56Mbps HSPA+ services during the 2009 Beijing Telecommunications Exhibition.
LTE is a next generation mobile wireless broadband technology that will enable operators to offer wireless broadband services at affordable costs while providing enhanced performance and capacity over current 3G wireless networks.
EV-DO is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access.
It uses multiplexing techniques including code division multiple access (CDMA) as well as time division multiple access (TDMA) to maximize both individual user's throughput and the overall system throughput.
It is standardized by 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) as part of the CDMA2000 family of standards and has been adopted by many mobile phone service providers around the world, particularly those previously employing CDMA networks.
