3G Americas announced that it has published its resource report on 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards and their evolution to IMT-Advanced, or 4G services. The white paper provides in-depth examination of 3GPP technology standards from a technical, business and applications standpoint.
"The 3GPP technology standards deliver mobile connectivity to more than 4 billion users worldwide today and have been developed to continue evolving to higher levels of performance with mobile broadband innovation," said Chris Pearson, president of 3G Americas.
GSM operators can choose to evolve their networks in ways that best suit their assets and business environments with benefits that offer flexibility, scalability and economic advantages, whether they choose HSPA+ or LTE.
The global demand for wireless data services continues to drive the rapid growth of HSPA technology with 303 commercial HSPA networks and over 454 million UMTS-HSPA subscriptions reported at the end of 2009 by Informa Telecoms & Media.
Informa has further forecast that by year-end 2012, worldwide subscriptions to UMTS-HSPA will reach nearly 1.4 billion; by year-end 2013, global UMTS-HSPA subscriptions are expected to exceed 2 billion, rising to 2.8 billion by the end of 2014.
GSM-UMTS-HSPA subscriptions provide the foundation for future evolutions to 3GPP Release 9, Release 10 and beyond with HSPA+, LTE and LTE-Advanced.
"Wireless data consumption is increasing faster now than ever before," said Adrian Scrase, 3GPP Head of Mobile Competence Center. "Smartphone usage is experiencing higher volumes and the superior user experience offered by such devices is resulting in quickly rising demand and escalating use of wireless data applications."
This is consequently driving the need for continued innovations that are supported by the efficient and successful 3GPP technology path.
LTE will serve to unify the fixed and mobile broadband worlds. As an all IP-based mobile communication technology, LTE will allow expansion of the Internet experience on mobile devices and deliver multimedia content to the screen of choice.
The vast majority of leading operators, device and infrastructure manufacturers support LTE as the mobile broadband technology of the future and, according to Informa Telecoms & Media, 130 global operators have announced trials or intentions to evolve their networks to LTE.
